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TODAY'S
ISSUE
Shopping now for Christmas
gifts makes good sense
By
Gay Watson
Consumer Credit Counseling Service
Special to GwinnettForum.com
JULY 30, 2004 -- Buying holiday gifts during the heat of the summer
may seem as strange as drinking hot apple cider instead of cold
lemonade. However, shoppers can save money and time by beginning
their holiday shopping in the summer while beating the rush and
shopping the sales.
"When shopping during the holiday season, consumers may use
too much credit at one time," said Suzanne Boas, president
of Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of Atlanta. "If
holiday shopping is spread throughout the year, consumers will no
longer be concentrating their spending into just a few weeks."
In order to curb last-minute holiday stress and save money when
shopping for holiday expenses, CCCS offers these suggestions:
- Buy off-season gifts - Since winter clothes are on sale through
the spring and summer, this is the time to purchase these gifts
for your recipients. You may also find more clearance sales to
visit throughout the year. If you are buying for children, be
sure to buy one size larger than they are now, and try to stay
away from trendy clothes that may not be popular six months later.
- Listen to your loved ones - During the holiday season, wish
list interrogations are commonplace. When putting off shopping
until the holidays, you must quickly learn what your loved ones
want, and hope that item is still attainable. By giving yourself
time to listen to others' spontaneous interests instead of pressing
them for suggestions, you may find that they will be surprised
and flattered by your gift.
- Don't forget to wrap - In addition to wrapping paper being less
expensive in the off seasons, wrapping throughout the year ensures
that you do not have a pile of gifts to wrap at the last minute.
Wrap the presents right away, and do not forget to label the packages.
- Save and shop with cash - One of the major benefits of spreading
your holiday shopping is the ability to avoid large credit purchases.
Saving early and paying cash for holiday gifts will ensure that
you will not be paying interest payments on this year's gifts
throughout the next year.
By spreading your holiday spending throughout the year, you may
guarantee yourself smaller interest payments and better deals. While
you may need to find a good hiding spot to stash your gifts, you
will surely be satisfied with your savings of time and money.
About CCCS
Celebrating 40 years of service, Consumer Credit Counseling Service
(CCCS) is a non-profit, community service agency dedicated to empowering
consumers to achieve a lifetime of economic freedom. A United Way
partner, CCCS provides free, confidential budget counseling, community
and personal money management education, debt management programs,
and comprehensive housing counseling.
Service is available in English, and Spanish. CCCS has offices
in throughout north Georgia and offers around the-clock help by
phone at 866-330-CCCS or at www.cccsinc.org.
ELLIOTT
BRACK
Colleges
becoming less diverse, more elitist, than before
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com
JULY 30, 2004 -- Diversity in race may be the sore spot for many
colleges and universities these days. Now new study suggests another
dimension of diversity needs to be of concern for colleges.
 It's
economic diversity.
More and more of the top colleges are finding that it is the wealthy,
more than ever, who are finding slots in their freshmen classes
and, of course, as graduates. While some may say that this makes
sense, in effect, it is a new phenomenon, stemming from a multitude
of reasons. They include:
- More pressure on the best students to get in prestigious colleges.
- Perhaps an outgrowth of higher fees charged by colleges.
- More recent efforts by higher income parents to ensure that
their offsprings make it into the better colleges.
The upshot, of course, is that colleges and universities in the
last few years have seen this tremendously large group of students
from homes with higher incomes. One example: today more members
of the entering class of the University of Michigan have parents
making at least $200,000 a year than have parents making less than
the national median of about $53,000!
Altogether, in 42 of the most selective state universities, some
40 percent of this year's freshmen come from families making more
than $100,000 a year, the Higher Education Research Institute says.
(That's up 32 per cent since 1999.) As a comparison, less than 20
per cent of families nationally make that figure.
One way you can tell the differences is in college students: just
take a look at the type of automobiles they drive now, and how many
automobiles are on a college campus. There are more prestige autos….and
parking lots seem to grow faster than the student body.
In Georgia colleges, in particular, the make-up of the students
is heavily influenced by the Hope Scholarship, as more and more
parents urge their offsprings to stay in Georgia, since Hope doesn't
apply to out of state schools. And a higher percentage of top-flight
students seem to gravitate to college within the Georgia borders.
While colleges today almost automatically ensure that their student
bodies are diverse racially, this new lack of economic diversity
is troubling to many. Another factor here: the colleges want to
ensure diversity in race so that they will not be sued on admission
policies.
But economic diversity is a new twist, one that threatens to change
the atmosphere, and the output, of the colleges. It hits most dramatically
at the poor, the downtrodden, the immigrant and the even the middle
class. It threatens to make the nation's college campuses more elitist.
The economic diversity problem can also show up in another way:
discouraging students from the poorest families, and again even
higher income but less achieving students, to apply for top-ranked
college, regardless of their test scores. It's an atmosphere that
the college should consider as they consider guidelines within their
admission policies for the next freshman class.
ABOUT
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located within carefully controlled architectural and landscaped
communities, featuring superb amenities. Many homes are available
for immediate occupancy. Most of the Jim Cowart Residential communities
offer prestigious locations, near excellent shopping, fun community
recreation and entertainment and great schools. For more information,
go to www.jimcowart.com.
For a list of other sponsors of this forum, go to: http://www.gwinnettforum.com/about/sponsors.htm.
McLEMORE'S
WORLD
7/30: A different kind
of convention
The latest from cartoonist Bill McLemore:
NEWS
7/30: Gwinnett Chamber
to offer Spanish classes soon
The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce is partnering with the Latin American
Association to offer Spanish language classes to the Gwinnett community
beginning in September 2004. There will be an introductory demonstration
of the classes at 6:30 p.m.. on August 25 and on September 8. The
introductory demonstrations will take place at the Gwinnett Chamber
of Commerce building located at 6500 Sugarloaf Parkway in Duluth.
The Latin American Association (LAA) has offered Spanish classes
since 1994 and has gained the reputation as Atlanta's Spanish language
specialist. One reason the Latin American Association has been so
successful is that they are able to provide an authentic cultural
and language learning experience that other language schools simply
cannot offer.
Delaine Snell, Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, says "We are
looking forward to offering these classes to the public. Smart business
people know that communication is the key to successful business
relationships. Since Spanish is becoming the second language of
business in the Atlanta area and around the world, learning to talk
business means learning to speak Spanish!"
Contact Delaine Snell at 770-232-8812 or delaine@gwinnettchamber.org
for more information.
BOOK
RECOMMENDATION
7/30: From Shelly Waxweiller
of Duluth
"A Quiet Year for Plums, by Bailey White. I just finished
Steinbeck's novels about life in California (East of Eden, Grapes
of Wrath, etc.) and decided to read some Southern authors because
I am living in the South and no longer California.
"I will next read Sleeping at the Starlite Motel: And Other
Adventures on the Way Back Home or Mamma Makes Up Her Mind
and Other Dangers of Southern Living, also by Bailey White.
I like to read a sequence of a few books by the same author."
- An invitation: What books have you enjoyed? Send us
your best recent book along with a short paragraph as to why you
liked it, plus what you plan to read next. --eeb
ENCYCLOPEDIA
TIDBIT
7/30: Federal roads
began in early 19th century in Georgia
The term Federal Road refers to either of two early-19th-century
thoroughfares. Both connected the borders of Georgia with western
settlements. These roads facilitated a surge of westward migration,
expanded regional trade and communication, and contributed to the
removal of the Creeks and Cherokees to Indian Territory in present-day
Oklahoma.
 The
roads were one instance of the federal government's agenda of "internal
improvements," government-subsidized projects that would tie
together the trade and people of the young nation. With the goal
of joining settlements in Tennessee and Alabama more closely with
those in Georgia, the government negotiated a series of fraudulent
treaties with the Creek and Cherokee Indians. In 1805, through the
Treaty of Tellico with the Cherokees and the Treaty of Washington
with the Creeks, the government gained the right to open and operate
roads through Indian lands.
The surveying and constructing of the road through Cherokee lands
began around 1810. The name notwithstanding, the federal government
took little role in building this road, leaving it instead to the
governments of Georgia and Tennessee, and to Cherokee entrepreneurs.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Why some are liberal
and others are conservative
"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only
be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."
-- Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - )
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