Heartache and heartbreak are hard enough to endure but imagine having to go through the loss of a relationship while the world looks on. Such is the high price of celebrity divorce and the latest victim is the beautiful and talented television chef, Nigella Lawson. Shocking photos of Nigella apparently being choked by her husband, Charles Saatchi, surfaced in the media following the June 9th dinner at Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair, London, where the incident occurred. Saatchi’s advisors urged him to humble himself and admit a public apology for the assault. Saatchi denied any wrongdoing, saying he never assaulted her and in fact, was actually removing mucous from his wife’s nose. Nigella was stunned by the admonition of “nose-picking” and his refusal to apologize. She left Saatchi and their family home in Chelsea.
Saturday Roundup and Updates
I’ve decided to do away with the Twitter posts on Saturdays. If you want to see the glorious wisdom that is my Twitter feed, follow me on Twitter. I’m @LiveRealNow.
Please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now by email. You get a choice between having all of the posts delivered to your inbox, or just occasional updates and deals. Both options get my Budget Lessons, free of charge.
Now, for the part you’ve all been waiting for…
The Best Posts of the Week!
Tim Ferris is giving away a trip to anywhere in the world. All you have to do is donate to his preferred charity for his birthday!
A Mirrored Memory reminds us that nobody feels old in their heart.
A law for everything and everything is a law? Why can’t people just accept occasional discomfort or unpleasantness in exchange for freedom?
My wife hates sweet potatoes. Well, she did until I introduced her to sweet-potato fries. I wonder if I can get her to try this recipe? It’s missing marshmallows, though. That’s a definite culinary failure when it comes to sweet-potatoes.
The University of Georgia is offering a free home-study food-preservation course.
Carnivals I’ve particpated in:
The Carnival of Personal Finance at NerdWallet has included Beat the Check.
The Festival of Frugality at Modern Tightwad has included The 10-Step Saving Action Plan.
Cheap Conference Calls
Sometimes, a conference call can make you thousands of dollars. Whether you’re pitching a product, or planning a new service to offer, sometimes you need to be able to talk with a team.
Business owners rely on many technological tools to conduct business day to day. Online business conferencing is one of the more popular services that owners have come to rely on. There are lots of online websites that provide free conference calling services that will save the small business owner some cash. Some of these sites offer permanent free calling for life and others offer free calling for a limited time only.
Free Conference Calls
There are a number of free conference call services out there. For most, you can use the site and get unlimited free conference calling 24 hours a day and seven days a week. This is a permanent full time offer and no credit card is needed with the best of the service. You can often conference with up to 96 different users at the same time and spend at least six hours on each call. That is more than enough time for the average business owner to conduct all of their all business with fellow participants.
Skype
Skype is another company that has a free business conferencing service for all Skype users. There is no fee for conference calls as long as all of the users have downloaded Skype. Anyone that wishes to use their mobile phone to join in can be added by purchasing Skype Credit. Payments can be made online or through payment processing services like PayPal. This is a cheap way for a small business owner to connect with team members via conference call.
Go To Meeting
GoTomeeting.com is the most well known of the companies providing conference calling services. The company offers its GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and GoToTraining that provide unlimited usage for business owners. Basic plans start at $15 a month which is a bargain for owners that have frequent conference calls with employees and customers. At the high end of their offering is GoToTraining at $150 per month. GoToMeeting has a lot of features including the recording and playback of all meetings. This is a useful option for any attendee that misses a meeting and needs to catch up.
These are just a few of the options available to the business owner who is on a budget and looking for a way to stay connected with his employees.
FINCON Friday
When this goes live, I’ll be on the road to the Financial Bloggers Conference outside of Chicago. That translates to a day off here.
Monday, I’ll be back with a whole bucket full of bloggy goodness.
Future Me Returns
This is a conversation between me and my future self, if my financial path wouldn’t have positively forked 2 years ago. The transcript is available here.
What would your future self have to say to you?
What to Take Away From John Cleese’s Divorce
If you haven’t been kept under a rock your whole life, you’re likely familiar with actor and comedian John Cleese. Part of the infamous Monty Python crew, he starred in films such as Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, and television shows such as Faulty Towers. However, are you familiar with what has happened to Mr. Cleese financially over the past few years?
When Cleese divorced his third wife she ended up with a divorce settlement that quite literally made her richer than him, despite the fact that they were married for only 16 years and had produced no children.
Divorce is, unfortunately, a fixture of modern society, and people of both sexes need to know how they can protect their personal finances in case of a divorce. After all, these days more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, so not preparing yourself financially for it is engaging is some rather wishful thinking. So how best to protect yourself and your personal finances, should you be unfortunate enough to have to go through one?
If you are the higher-earning party, get a pre-nup prior to marriage; this simply cannot be overemphasized. Cleese himself, already married to wife number four, incidentally, was told that he should have her sign a prenuptial agreement, he initially didn’t want to, despite having just been taken to the proverbial cleaners. He only reluctantly had one written up when his legal team essentially insisted. Even though prenups can be challenged or modified in court, if you are the party bringing more assets to the relationship, it is irresponsible of you not to solicit a prenuptial agreement from a potential spouse.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you should protect assets you have in joint accounts with your spouse, and also begin to actively monitor your credit, if things become acrimonious between you two. This way, you will prevent them from absconding with the totality of your shared funds, or ruining your credit if they are feeling malicious. If you need further information on how to do this properly, speak with a qualified financial planner.
So if you find yourself considering marriage and either have significant assets to protect or suspect you might have them in the future, you owe it to yourself to look into the legalities surrounding prenuptial agreements, and other thorny issues related to personal finance. Failure to do so can end up seriously impacting your life in a negative way, should you ever be faced with a vindictive or greedy spouse; protect yourself!