1. Tell us about your business:

   Project Night Night (PNN) is an award-winning nonprofit organization that equips children across the country living in homeless or low income situations with the basic nighttime essentials they need to feel safe, warm, ready to learn, and valued. While meeting the immediate needs of disadvantaged children, PNN also sets a foundation for lasting change by providing meaningful, hands-on volunteer opportunities to thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations each year.

   Families living in poverty are often stretching their budget just to pay for rent, utilities, and groceries; in these situations, buying items to reduce fear and anxiety in their children is simply not an option. Children in these families face a constellation of problems related to poverty and often lack healthy interaction and stimulation as well as a safe environment in which to learn and grow. These problems are exacerbated by a lack of the nighttime essential items that their wealthier peers take for granted. We help children in need: children who don’t have a book to read, or a security blanket to stop them from shaking with fear, a stuffed friend to whom to talk, or a tote to take their books to and from school. When young children don’t get access to these basics, they have difficulty learning. They have a hard time feeling loved, protected, and valued.

2. Why did you start this business?

   Before I founded Project Night Night in 2005, I was a corporate attorney. I had created many nonprofits for others, but had never seriously considered starting one myself until a confluence of events made it impossible for me to prolong what was very clearly becoming my destiny. My husband elected to get his M.B.A. a little later in life. We were both in our 30’s when he was accepted into the M.B.A. program at the University of Michigan. Unfortunately, we lived with our young son, in San Francisco at the time, and I was not licensed to practice law in Michigan. But we did move to Ann Arbor, and I found myself unemployed and home with my 18th month old in the middle of a Michigan winter. My husband was off drinking beer and “networking.” I was lost. I found respite in those few hours after my son went to bed but before I did. Getting Cole to sleep became a crucial part of my evening. I relied on a consistent routine that included a network of comfort items. Cole loved his blanket, his books, and his stuffed animal. With those items in his crib, with a familiar book read to him at night, he would fall asleep peacefully and easily. And I would exhale and regroup.

   One evening, I began to think about the victims of domestic violence. These are women who are often forced to flee in the middle of the night – lucky to escape with their child let alone their child’s favorite stuffed toy. When they arrive at the shelter, the shelter is at best noisy and unfamiliar, and at worst frightening and dark. The child has no blanket to which to cling, no stuffed animal to squeeze, and no books to pull at their imagination. Everything is amplified. Everything is worse.

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Whereas a home used to be a place to raise a family in a nice neighborhood, Real Estate today is this PLUS a:

• significant investment;

• long-term financial commitment;

• income tax shelter;

• asset with risk (value decline) and reward (value growth);

• high cost to maintain;

• environmental (CO2) footprint impact.

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Fighting cancer is difficult enough, but living with it is even tougher – and that’s where the Cleaning for A Reason Foundation steps in. This nonprofit offers free professional housecleaning, and maid services to improve the lives of women undergoing treatment for cancer – any type of cancer.

The applications can be filled in online by women with any type of cancer as long as they are currently under cancer treatment. In 2011, the American Cancer Society estimates there will be 750,000 first time diagnosis of cancer in women over the age of 18. They have over 800 maid services participating in our program nationwide, however, resources are limited and they are experiencing huge demand. The professional residential cleaning companies that participate in their program do not receive payment for their services. These small business owners agree to take a minimum two patients at a time, pay their employees to perform the work, and absorb the cost of materials and supplies. They have a heart for assisting women in cancer treatment and provide this service as a way to give back to their local communities.

To begin the application process for you or a loved one:

1. Check to see if they have a participating maid service in your geographical area by clicking the locations tab on their main website. Click the state in which you reside on the pink U.S. map or if you reside in Canada, click the Canadian map. This will take you to a list of the cities where they currently have partner maid services affiliated with their foundation. Not all cities are served even though they do add approximately 25 – 35 new partners each month.

2. If you are a qualified cancer patient fill out the online application under the cancer patient tab on their main website. Fill in the required information. When you submit, the online process will inform you if a maid service covers your area. In large metropolitan areas, some maid services limit the distance they will travel to the area they normally serve.

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1. Tell us about your business:

   Kidzola is an online marketplace where people can buy and sell everything for kids. People can buy and sell new, handmade and resale children’s items. We have everything from clothing to toys, video games, furniture, books and just about everything else parents need for their kids.

2. Why did you start this business?

   My partner, Lisa, and I decided to start Kidzola because we just weren’t happy with any of the other kids resale options. We wanted to create a site just for kids’ things that was simple to use and let parents buy and sell locally or nationally.

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If you live in one of the large, expensive metropolitan areas, you’ve probably fantasized about how much farther your dollar would go if you chose a different place to live. I remember distinctly when my husband and I purchased our second home in Santa Barbara, and my mother (Alice) sent me a clipping from the Indianapolis Star that showed the Governor’s Mansion had recently sold for the same price. But how would you go about choosing another place to live?

To answer that question, I did a little research and found two articles on the subject that give good advice on some great cities to live in using different criteria. The first source, Forbes online, used violent crime rate, unemployment rate, average salary for college graduates and cultural opportunity as criteria. Redbook magazine also had some suggestions, using “reasonably priced home(s) in good locales” as their criteria. Here’s the list they came up with:

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We understand. As frugal as you may be trying to be, it IS possible that you absolutely need a new car. Some people (you know who you are and you might even be contributors to our website), drive their old “beaters” as a badge of honor. My girlfriend Karen has a Ford Expedition that is so old that the auto mirrors and seat don’t work and she routinely gets “gas hog” written in the dirt on her back window because she lives in green-loving Palo Alto. I would say that she is a candidate for a new car.

If you are in the same boat with Karen, it is a great time to bite the bullet because there are so many good financing deals and some of the most generally reliable car companies (Toyota and Ford) are in trouble financially. We are definitely not car experts at rubbingnickels.com but we’ve searched the web for some advice from reliable sources like Forbes.com on what you can do to make sure that you make a smart car purchase. And we’ve filed this article under “Investing and Saving” because buying a care is certainly an investment.

Here’s some advice that we found on buying a new car:

1. To save money on gas, buy the SMALLEST car that will meet your daily needs. If you only drive a large soccer carpool once a month, don’t get an 8 passenger SUV!

2. ALWAYS use Kelley Blue Book to know what the invoice price is on the car you want. This will help you immensely in your negotiations with dealers.

3. Don’t EVER buy a car at the beginning of the year when the newest model is in the lot (unless you are the heir to Saudi Oil money). You will pay a premium for the car.

4. Put down as much of a down payment as you can possibly afford and if you can avoid it, and finance for the shortest period possible to save money on finance charges.

We this helps you and we’re truly sorry about your old car!

Darcy Ratner
Rubbingnickels.com

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