Freaked out about your career? Amanda Pouchot and Kathryn Minshew from prettyyoungprofessional.com have been there, and they have some sage words of advice for you:

Check out Amanda and Kathryn’s other TILE appearances here.

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Guess what? Retailers are getting smarter and smarter when it comes to separating you and your cash (or credit card info, to be more precise).

First there was members-only designer discount site Gilt Groupe, with time limits for checking out with your items. Then we saw the daily deals companies like Groupon and LivingSocial. There’s Rent the Runway, where you can rent a hot little piece of couture for an event for under $200.

And now, for a mere $30 monthly subscription fee, online shops like JewelMint will get to know your tastes and offer up pieces it’s sure you’ll like. All based on an algorithm. This is in some ways even cooler than the computer from Star Trek: The Next Generation that made Captain Picard all those cups of tea with a simple voice command.

The online shopping world will surely continue to evolve, getting cooler, more convenient, and quite a bit more manipulative in the process. So don’t forget to bring your brain when you go on your next online shopping spree!

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You may not have heard yet, but there’s been some interesting drama in the house of the country’s most-worshipped investor – the Oracle of Omaha, Mr. Warren Buffet. One of the top execs at his company (Berkshire Hathaway) seems to have, well, cheated at the game. David Sokol looked like he was next in line to replace Buffet when he eventually retires. But then he pulled a little thing called insider trading.

He bought a bunch of shares in a company, and then convinced Buffet that Berkshire Hathaway should buy that company, which raised the price of the shares and made Sokol a tidy profit. Unfortunately for everyone, that’s illegal. (For the record, Sokol so far denies doing anything wrong.)

There are many ways the company could have handled it – they could have tried to cover it up, or denied the whole thing and given Sokol a big bonus. But to his credit, Berkshire’s famous leader just fessed up. At the company’s annual meeting, where company executives meet with investors, explain their decisions, and take feedback, Buffet basically said that his top aide had done a terrible thing. He also heaped some blame on himself, saying that he wasn’t skeptical enough when Sokol came to him with the proposal.

Now Sokol is out of a job and the company is moving forward. Easy as that. The truth is, bad things happen all the time. But in business as in the rest of life, all it really takes to make things right again is to take responsibility for what happened, fix what you can fix, and move on.

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“People like to read the books,” says Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago. “But the expense statement tells a story, too. Not as entertaining, but perhaps just as revealing.”

This seems like an appropriate follow-up to yesterday’s post about operational costs… A prominent organization dedicated to building schools and increasing access to education in Afghanistan – the Central Asia Institute – has recently gotten some bad press about its alleged money mismanagement.

Well, not money mismanagement exactly… more like financial nondisclosure. State auditors, donors, and charity ratings organizations have been surprised to find that more than half the CAI’s annual budget was spent in the U.S. instead of being sent overseas to pay for bricks and pencils.

Now, no one’s being accused of embezzlement – but it does seem like, at the very least, the organization’s finances were pretty incompetently handled. This is a great example of why it’s so important to do your homework before you give. Most charities are required to make their financial statements public, and you can use sites like GuideStar.org to help you get a better picture of where a nonprofit’s money is really being spent.

It’s also a pretty good example of how important it is to be on top of your finances. Even if you’re a great person (or organization), someday you’re going to be held responsible for the money coming in and going out of your account.

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We’ve written before about how to give smart in the wake of a disaster, and unfortunately the situation just keeps coming up. While not as devastating as the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in April, the string of tornadoes that tore up the American South last week has left hundreds dead and thousands homeless.

One of the pieces of advice we passed on is to stay thoughtful when you’re practicing “crisis philanthropy.” One way to do that is to focus your giving on organizations with a local presence in the affected area. But what if there are none left?

That isn’t exactly the situation in Tuscaloosa, but the Salvation Army – a local charity giant – lost two buildings in the tornado, both of which could have really helped with relief efforts. We thought this might be a good time to point out the differences between program costs and operational costs, which are the two types of expenses you’re funding when you write a check to your favorite charity.

• - Program costs refer to money spent on the projects you hear about during fundraisers – feeding the poor, building temporary housing for flood victims. The exciting stuff.
• - Operational costs (sometimes called overhead) refer to more boring stuff – the electric bill, the salary of the person who answers the phone, the new office downtown.

People tend to want their money to go to program costs because it makes them feel good about themselves. But in most cases, paying for operational costs is just as important. Who will administer lifesaving vaccinations if an organization can’t afford to pay clinic staff? And who knows how much more prepared local organizations could have been had they had the extra cash to spend on additional locations or a disaster preparedness program?

Welcome to our new series, showing you how the changes you want to see in the world actually happen!

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Q. What’s the difference between defaulting on your student loans and defaulting on your credit card debt?

A. If you fall into a hopeless debt spiral because you can’t pay back your credit card company or your mortgage, you can declare bankruptcy and get a clean credit slate after a few years. If you default on your student loans, you can never escape. Ever.

Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of college grads are about to find themselves with a black mark on their permanent records. Your credit history, unlike that mythical permanent record your teachers threatened you with in 4th grade, can really affect your opportunities in life. It can determine whether or not you get a credit card, a school or car loan, or a mortgage on a new home. Some employers even check credit reports to get the dirt on potential new hires.

Check out this article on good.is for more fun details and a glance at the ever-increasing Student Loan Debt Clock!

See also: this depressing article on “mal-employed” college grads.

Also see also: this list of the “20 most useless college majors,” which shows the limited mid-career earning potential for chemistry majors, among other obvious low-paying career tracks (hello, art history scholars!) Of course, being “useless” financially doesn’t mean your degree of choice won’t make your heart soar like an eagle. We recommend you use your own criteria for success when making major career choices. And don’t default on your student loans.

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According to the International Energy Agency, cutting carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2050 will require almost half the world’s energy to come from sustainable sources (like sun and wind, instead of oil and coal).

These alternative energy sources are getting cheaper and more popular in the U.S., but the New York Times has just revealed a little-known fact about the solar and wind energy we’re learning to love: it’s backed up by coal power.

That’s right. Because the sun isn’t always shining and the wind isn’t always blowing, energy from clean sources can’t consistently meet the needs of our power-hungry populace. So when output dips on the wind farms, it has to be supplemented by old-fashioned power sources.

And the power plants of yesteryear just aren’t built for that kind of one-and-off output. The bottom line: Either alternative energy has to advance to the point of not needing supplementation, or traditional power plants need to spend a lot of money updating their equipment.

We wonder… could there be some financial incentive that would get the old energy companies to play nice with the new ones?

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Ah, spring! Baby birds stretch their wings, trees release deadly spores, and Wall Street awakens from its long post-Ponzi slumber. You know, Ponzi. Scheme. Ponzi scheme. Madoff?

This guy.

But we digress. Today’s news is about Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of a successful hedge fund called Galleon Group. He’s been accused of insider trading – this is, unfairly using information from outside sources in order to make a big profit for his company (and himself).

Here’s what you need to know about Bernie and Raj:

• 1. Madoff has already been tried, convicted, and sent to prison for 150 years. Raj is just on trial – and he’s still innocent until proven guilty. If he is proven guilty, though, he’ll be in the clink with Bernard for up to 25 years.
• 2. Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme, in which he collected money from new investors and handed much of it over to existing investors, calling it a return on their investment. In other words, he just moved the money around instead of investing it. It involved a huge network of people, funds, customers, billions of dollars, and many, many handshakes.
• Galleon Group is accused of insider trading by using a small network of tipsters from different companies. These tipsters [allegedly] shared valuable corporate secrets with Galleon, and Galleon [allegedly] used that information to make a killing on the trading floor. All very fine line behavior.

Now you know. Stay tuned!