
WalletPop.com is a personal finance blog and Web site run by AOL. I try to write one or two posts for it each day, so for daily updates on what I’m writing there, you can search for Aaron Crowe and all my posts will pop up. I’ll put links to the best of them here as they run daily.
- Less money going into 529 college savings plans. This was an interesting story to report after seeing that company compared quarter to quarter, showing only a 3% drop, and I found that the year-to-year drop in contributions was 21%.
- Tennessee Legislature is looking into capping lottery winnings for welfare recipients at $600. This story is getting a lot of traffic and comments, so I’ll follow it to the end.
- I noticed the words “stimulus plan” everywhere as ways to get shoppers inside, and think they’re the new buzzwords of the recession, so naturally, I wrote about it.
- How does Dairy Queen get away with charging 40 cents for nuts and some whip cream? My consumer complaint.
- How veterans benefit from federal stimulus plan. A detailed story.
- Daylight Savings Time won’t save you money on electricity, as widely believed.
- The Web site GreenSherpa.com is interesting because as a personal finance tracking site, it not only helps track where money has been spent, but how the future looks for your budget. This was an fun story to write because it’s a new product I hadn’t heard of before that could be useful to a lot of people.
- The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics always has interesting news if you dig enough, and even if you don’t dig. I turned some recent news into a post about tiny Rhode Island having the second highest unemployment rate in the nation in 2008.
- How to say goodbye to co-workers in an e-mail after layoff: The various ways people write farewell e-mails, including mine.
- Free CankerMelts: A WalletPop freebie for canker sore sufferers, which I tried to have fun with. Almost as good as the fun with free hearing aid batteries.
- Reporter’s career change lands him in strip club: An interesting story about a former Dallas Morning News reporter who transferred his job skills in journalism to a strip club in Dallas.
- Toy comebacks of the year: This story for WalletPop.com included Hungry Hungry Hippos, which is popular at my house this year, thanks to Santa Claus.
- Related story on worst toy of the 2008: Barbie the cheerleader
- What do unemployed do all day? Not much: I found a research paper while looking around on the Internet about what the unemployed do with all their free time since they’re not working anymore. Researchers found that they spend it on leisure and personal maintenance, and during a recession they spend a lot of it doing household chores. As someone who is still looking for a full-time job, I found it outrageous that they didn’t discuss all of the hours spent each day looking for work. It’s a rant worth reading.
- How BofA overcharged customers: This was fun to write because just the night before on HBO’s “Flight of the Conchords” the two main characters dealt with bank overdraft charges after Bret bought a coffee mug for $2.79 and their checking account didn’t have enough to cover it.
- How the Amish heater is a ripoff: Another fun one to write by pointing out how a $30 heater costs $300 from the Amish.
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Spot.us is a community funded Web site where donations pay for journalists to do stories. I constantly have at least one story in the works for Spot.us, a site run by David Cohn.
- Spot.us story on Bay spill: A follo to the Cosco Busan oil spill in the San Francisco Bay in November 2007. I was an assistant city editor at the Contra Costa Times when the spill happened, and a year later I wrote this story as a freelancer for Spot.us.
- Solar power in the Bay Area: The story is finished and is published online by On Earth magazine.
- The future of Bay Area newspapers in a digital age is another Spot.us story. The story was posted online April 6, 2009 at Spot.us. Throughout the reporting I wrote occasional blog updates on how the reporting was progressing. It was a new and interesting way to report on a story.
SEO writing for shopping.aol.com, which is obviously a shopping site for AOL. SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which helps search engines find key words, and thus shoppers, find these items I’m writing about. The site is being retooled by AOL and the articles I write will become easier to find on the site. Here are some of the SEO articles I’ve written for AOL’s shopping Web site, with the SEO words linked as the titles:
- The Godfather II: A video game.
- EA Sports Active: For Nintendo Wii
- Tween Dora the Explorer: Cartoon character grows up.
- Indiana Jones: New video game for Wii coming out.
- Sprig toys: Eco-friendly toys for toddlers.
- Cheap MacBook: 5 Daily Deals
- Spring clothes for baby: Keep your kid in style.
- Aftermarket auto parts: Amp up your car.
- Cheap Canon: Cameras
- Twilight books: Young vampire love.
- Color contact lenses: Change your look.
- Cordless drills: Make screwing easier.
- Infant gear: Keep your youngest sports fan looking stylish.
- Books on audio: Where to start looking for audio books.
- Bird feeders: Small works of art.
- Dog clothes: Keep your pet in style.
- Cheap TV stands: For the new, big TV in your life.
- Cheap hard drives: Portable and flash hard drives.
- Cheap PS3 games: Games that rival Wii.
- Bakugan Battle Brawlers: Toys that are similar to Pokemon.
- Bakugan toys: More on the hot toys.
- Tax help: 10 tax tips I came up with.
- Tax filing tips: 10 more tips.
- Income tax software: After TurboTax, it’s all downhill.
- Cheap dryers: 5 daily deals.
- Cheap washer: 5 daily deals. The first SEO post I wrote, so be gentle.
City Newsletters. I write and edit the quarterly city newsletter for San Ramon, CA.
- San Ramon City Report, Winter 2009. Topics include an online program to respond to residents’ questions, satisfaction with the police department and winterization preparation in the city.
RedwoodAge.com is a Web site aimed at Baby Boomers where I worked as a volunteer writer. It’s run by Tom Murphy.
- Henderson: This is a story about Rickey Henderson, my favorite baseball player growing up. I thought it would be neat to write about how everyone needs a hero, and Henderson, always hustling around the bases, is a good example and worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Press releases for Moving Arts Dance, a non-profit dance company in Concord, CA.
- Jan. 21, 2009: Tony La Russa signing autographs.
- March 9, 2009: MAD BAD Performance and Film Festival.
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