It’s Your Money – Try These Last-Minute Gift Ideas

Are you looking for last-minute, inexpensive gifts that have lasting value – at least for a year? A daily electronic newsletter, "About Career Planning," describes 10 selected calendars that will inspire, educate, make you laugh or tell you how to succeed at work.

Most of us look at calendars several times a day. Why not add a little spark to life by reading and reflecting about a wise idea, expanding our vocabulary or trying new exercises to feel and look better?

The following calendars, available online or at local stores, range in price from $8 to $17.   

Help friends with daily tips on how to succeed at work with the calendar called "Life’s Little Instruction Calendar for Business Success." A calendar for anyone who wants to increase their vocabulary is "365 New Words-a-Year Page-A-Day Calendar."

The popular motivational writer, Steven Covey, has a calendar to help people improve their management and organizational skills that’s called "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Daily Boxed Calendar." Need a little exercise and relief from tension? Try the "Office Yoga Calendar." "Who Moved My Cheese? Day-to-Day Calendar," which is based on a popular book, is a daily reminder of how to be effective in personal relationships, in the workplace and in the community.

Two more calendars to give us a little nudge each day are the "I Can Do It! 365 Daily Affirmations" and "Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff Day-To-Day Calendar."

Calendars, like books, can increase our capacity for handling tough situations and help us focus on what’s really important. If you want to shop online for calendars, visit the Web at

http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/getorganized/tp/aatpboxed_calen.htm.

Here are a few more ideas that can fill the minds and hearts of lifelong learners of all ages. You will probably have to put an IOU under the tree for delivery after the holidays, but the wait will be worthwhile. Check out the Public Broadcasting Service’s Web page www.pbs.org for videos, books, CDs and DVDs about historical people, art, science, travel and lots of other topics. A few topics include astronomy, music for babies, barbershop quartets, managing money and quilts. Other topics include Ken Burns’ multiple series about the civil war, baseball, jazz, Lewis and Clark and famous people such as Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson and Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton Cady, who worked for many years to help women gain the right to vote.

by Judy McKenna, Ph.D., CFP, Family Economics Specialist, Colorado State University, Cooperative Extension, mckenna@cahs.colostate.edu, 491-5772