I immersed myself in Christmas Club savings accounts for SoFi*, one of my new clients. It’s a strong resource--a modern, flourishing fintech (personal financial technology) platform. An online bank. Read about its interesting history here.
Over decades of lifestyle and financial writing, in terms of rugged, rigorous fact sourcing, SoFi stands tall--on strapping shoulders--above my consumer pieces for Good Housekeeping Magazine (holiday deals, cutting car costs), ReadersDigest.com (clickable guides to best teen Christmas gifts) and CoastalLiving.com (savings tips for sea-bound travelers). Those latter three brands are thorough and true to their claims, but this money reporting requires me, as the writer, to very carefully document where I found every fact (if it’s not common knowledge).
I’m always careful, but this is super careful. This is a bank, with banking rules and regulations. I like my two editors a lot. Yet even for a seasoned writer (and for a while I did some Citibank writing), this has been a learning curve.
I’m grateful that the work is portable and remote. I can fit it in from my comfy, stuffed living room chair, a hotel business center at the Shore or the Port Authority Bus Terminal--and at any hour, so long as my Rose Gold MacBook is charged. The internet practically never, ever takes a coffee break or goes to sleep. With the stress level at home of late, this flexibility is key. I can do many SoFi assignments per month if I accept many assignments per month.
You may know the name: SoFi Stadium is home to the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. I have also seen many TV commercials for SoFi.
My article link below. I enjoyed charting the history of Christmas Clubs. Dan had one as a boy in Teaneck, NJ and I had at least one as a young magazine staffer in NYC (maybe Seventeen Magazine?). But it got to where I had to take out the money before Christmastime to cover other expenses, such as a carburetor. Now I am more learned and becoming more careful. I’m on a road in that direction, anyway.
https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/what-is-a-christmas-club-account/
Speaking of white Christmases and evergreen trees, greetings from Vermont in June. I took the Amtrak "Vermonter" up here to my friends’ home in Stowe for peace and perspective, with Dan’s encouragement.
*Based in San Francisco, SoFI was sparked in 2011 by four graduate students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. (I want to say by four male grad students, since their names appear to be traditionally assigned to men.)
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