Queercents

Kimber Chin writes romance novels based in the business world. She also loves supporting Pride every year. Specifically, Pride Week in Toronto. Here are her money-saving tips if you’re planning on going this year. These are her words…

I love to travel and I stretch the travel budget with road trips. To get more for the money, I time these road trips with special events, Chicago with the Taste, New York for New Year’s, New Orleans with Mardi Gras.

When to come to Toronto? Pride Week.

Pride Week in Toronto, from June 20th to June 29th, is one of the largest Prides in the world and, during this multicultural celebration, you truly believe you are visiting the world. The freebie highlights are the two parades, the Dyke March on the 28th and the Pride Parade on the 29th. Entire streets are closed down. Read the rest of this entry »

Serena Freewomyn is a contributing writer at the The Bilerico Project and she had something to say about how queers spend disposable dollars and the responsibility of the companies that want our money. These are her words…

A new report from Prime Access, Inc., an advertising agency that targets African American, Hispanic, gay and urban youth consumers has a lot to say about how the LGBTQ community spends its money. According to the study, we have high brand loyalty for the companies we view as gay friendly. And we also tend to provide a lot of negative word of mouth if we have had a bad experience with a company. The Nation’s Restaurant News reports that:

With buying power estimated to exceed $600 billion a year, the gay and lesbian community represents a potentially lucrative market for restaurateurs to tap. But some operators are doing a better job than others at attracting that audience as customers and employees . . .

I like that people are cutting straight to the point here about why the survey is important. The gays have money. Let’s tap that. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post from Jeff Hammerberg, the founder of GayRealEstate.com, the largest company in the nation representing the rights of queer home buyers and sellers. These are his words…

The entire system of USA taxation favors real estate ownership in ways that make property owners green with cash, and investors in other kinds of tangible or intangible assets green with envy. For example, ownership of artwork, commodities, or stocks and bonds conveys few deductions - whereas real estate offers everything from mortgage interest deductions to breaks for those who reinvest capital gains from the sale of a residence.

But before we get too excited about our tax write-offs, it is important to remind ourselves that while the system favors real estate, the more overriding and dominant paradigm in the USA is that it favors all things heterosexual. If you happen to be gay, an entire menu of sweet treats at tax time may be removed from the table - or made more difficult to get. Read the rest of this entry »

Aspiring writers are told to write what you know. Kimber Chin took this advice to heart and writes novels based on two things she knows best: business and romance. “I love business,” she says. And there happens to be a lot of lovin’ going on when her characters get down to business. These are her words…

The character in Breach Of Trust, I get the most feedback on is Stanley. Readers tell me that Stanley is such an over the top stereotype, he can’t be real. The irony is… he is. Very real. The real Stanley may be a logistics genius rather than the more exciting make up artist and he may be, ummm, a tad bit (i.e. decades) older, but their core quirks and mannerisms (and obsession with eyeliner) are the same.

The reason Stanley is in my first published novel is because he is one of the reasons FOR my first published novel. Stanley and his alternative lifestyle thinking. No, not because he’s gay. He is, happily living with the publicity shy R in a multi-decade long relationship, but by alternative, I mean financially. Read the rest of this entry »

Serena Freewomyn has a way with words. She also has a way with food. In January, she began attending Le Cordon Bleu’s Culinary Management Program at Scottsdale Culinary Institute. In between all the braising and sautéing, she’s a contributing writer at the The Bilerico Project and recently interviewed Top Chef contestants and partners in life: Zoi Antonitsas and Jennifer Bietsy. She has big restaurant-owning dreams that are backed up with a solid plan to get her there. These are her words…

When Nina approached me about writing a piece for Queercents, I was pretty flattered. After giving it some more thought, I think she must be nuts! What could I possibly have to say about money that would be of interest to anyone?

Like most of my friends, I am worried about how I’m going to pay back my student loans. I’m currently going to culinary school and racking up at big stack of loans that will take forever to pay back. Working in the restaurant industry comes with long hours and very low pay. So why would I decide to go into the restaurant industry and aspire to open my own restaurant, when something like 60% of new restaurants go out of business in the first two years? What the hell was I thinking? Read the rest of this entry »

Martinique Haller lives in Chicago with her partner and works at a University. Like most grad school graduates, she has student loan debt that she’s trying to chip away at and pay off within the next two years. At the same time she still tries to live a full life and is building a life with her partner by making smart money choices. Recently, she started a personal finance blog with her older sister, called Sister Thrifty as a way to stay on track and spur each other on with paying down their debt. These are her words…

I have friends that have cashed in their 401(k) when they transferred jobs – to buy a mattress! I was in disbelief when a friend told me he did this. Not dismay, mind you, but actual, stone-cold disbelief. I thought the likelihood of someone cashing in a 401(k) for a mattress was on par with the likelihood that there is actually a boogie monster or that our next president would be a gay atheist that rides her bike to work. I might come off as sheltered, you might be thinking, “Um…some people need money, we’re not all rich”. But I’m not rich either, and the people that really need money are not the same group that cashes in 401(k)s for mattresses; they don’t have 401(k)s, which is another topic altogether. My disbelief stems mostly from one place, my childhood. Read the rest of this entry »

“S” is the writer at of Doorknobs That Lock, a blog about 2 lesbians + 1 preteen son that equals a lot of interesting moments. I asked her to write a guest post about blending their family and finances. These are her words…

My partner and I joke sometimes that we must be anti-lesbians. Not only was there no U-Haul on our second date, we’re actually not getting the U-Haul until this summer, shortly after the second anniversary of our first date. Part of the reason for taking things slowly is because we’ve each learned the hard way what happens when you rush into relationships and living together. And part of the reason is because I have a preteen son, so we’ve got all the emotions and logistics of a blended family to work through.

Blending a family also adds some wrinkles to the usual challenges couples face blending their finances. Most of the financial advice I’ve been able to find for new couples assumes the two people are coming from roughly similar financial stages in life, and generally that they’re both fairly unencumbered. They may have a few student loans or credit card debt, but nothing too complicated. But what happens when the two people come with very different sets of assets and obligations? Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post from Jeff Hammerberg, the founder of GayRealEstate.com, the largest company in the nation representing the rights of queer home buyers and sellers. These are his words…

As the warm vacation season approaches, the outlook for summer home buying is the brightest it has been in several years. In fact, 2008 may be the best time to buy a vacation home since 2002.

Prices have been repeatedly pummeled until they are now unrealistically depressed, even for this historical market downturn. Thanks to the current undervalued market you can buy vacation home properties in highly desirable locations for a cost that represents deep discounts from the norm - and - in some cases - bargain basement wholesale valuations. Read the rest of this entry »

A.J. is a college grad who moved to a suburb of Washington, D.C. for his first real job. He publishes a blog called The Guppie Life for other gay, young urban professionals. “Guppie = gay yuppie. Get it? Clever,” he writes. These are his words…

For a few months during my senior year of college, I was a model. Lately I’ve been receiving calls and emails from my agent. She wants me back in the fold.

And I’m saying no.

But before you start thinking that I’m a deluded egoist, allow me to explain. I was a model in the same way that chihuahuas are dogs— which is to say, barely. Welcome to the world of promotional modeling. Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Dopp is the editor of Genderfork, a blog that explores androgyny and gender variance through artistic photography. I asked her to write a guest post about gender and money. These are her words…

I’ve given up on television and I avoid magazines. I haven’t figured out a way to escape billboards and pay-per-click banner ads yet, but I know how to cope with them now: I laugh at them.

The way I figure it, marketing is about power. Good marketing is about empowering consumers, while evil marketing is about overpowering them. Then there’s bad marketing, which is in a category of its own. Bad marketing lobs its power in the wrong direction and misses its mark entirely, wasting everyone’s precious time, energy, and money.

Those of us who reject traditional gender roles get to face an excessive amount of bad marketing in our daily lives. We threw a wrench into marketing strategy when we took on nontraditional motivations, unpredictable desires, and unusual ways of expressing our identities. As a result, they lost track of how to reach us. Fortunately for the marketers, we’re a relatively small chunk of the population that can be easily ignored. Read the rest of this entry »