Spending Time in School

Paul Sullivan looks at how the affluent are supporting education in his Wealth Matters column this week and finds that they are giving more than money - they're also giving their time.

He spoke to several affluent people involved in educational philanthropy who said that their volunteer work kept them involved. One, Charles Bendit, co-founder of a real estate firm, said he was able to make a difference at a Bronx elementary school by using his contacts in the business world.

Supporting education, of course, is not the sole province of the affluent. There are many ways to help a local school, from offering after-school tutoring assistance to volunteering in a classroom. Money does not have to enter into it.

Tell us about your efforts to help a local school or alma mater. Your experience may offer inspiration for others.

Spending Time in School

Paul Sullivan looks at how the affluent are supporting education in his Wealth Matters column this week and finds that they are giving more than money - they're also giving their time.

He spoke to several affluent people involved in educational philanthropy who said that their volunteer work kept them involved. One, Charles Bendit, co-founder of a real estate firm, said he was able to make a difference at a Bronx elementary school by using his contacts in the business world.

Supporting education, of course, is not the sole province of the affluent. There are many ways to help a local school, from offering after-school tutoring assistance to volunteering in a classroom. Money does not have to enter into it.

Tell us about your efforts to help a local school or alma mater. Your experience may offer inspiration for others.

Report Your Hurricane Sandy Home Insurance Claim Experience Here

In this weekend's Your Money column, I offer a preview of the types of resistance that homeowner's insurance companies may put up to the large claims they will be dealing with in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

I'd like to use this post to round up the actual experience of policyholders in the coming weeks and months. Please let us know the extent of your damage and what sort of adjuster came out to take a look at it. How long is it taking to get a full estimate or settlement offer from the insurance company? Are you negotiating? Or are you using a public adjuster to represent you? Or did you get a big check fairly quickly and are happy with the result?

I plan to write more about this in the coming months and will answer questions in the comments section when I can.

Friday Reading: Tips on Using Squash in Your Pumpkin Pie

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.

• After the election, states scramble over the health law. (National)
• New York imposes gas rationing to ease shortages. (N.Y./Region)
• Priceline.com plans to buy Kayak for $1.8 billion. (Dealbook)
• Getting back more than a warm feeling. (Giving)
• Tax breaks on gifts are soon to end. (Giving)
• Submerged older cars may be salvageable. (Wheels)
• More tips (from readers) on choosing passwords. (Bits)
• Why studies that compare treatments lack impact. (Well)
• The squash you should use in your pumpkin pie. (Diner's Journal)

The Breakfast Meeting: SEALs Punished for Video Game Work, and Samsung in the Lead

Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6 have been punished for disclosing classified information to the makers of the video game “Medal of Honor: Warfighter,” The Associated Press reported. The violations by the SEALs - which led to punitive letters of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months - include not seeking permission of their command to take part in the video project and showing the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit.

The Obama campaign's vaunted “ground game” to get out the vote was greatly aided by mobile technology and cloud computing, Steve Lohr reports. Volunteers were guided via smartphones or tablets to a neighborhood to knock on doors, or given phone numbers to call, without ever checking into a campaign office. The campaign used mainly open-source software and Amazon's remote computing service, so it could inexpensively write and share its own programs.

• The campaign is dead, long live the campaign: Politico touts its exclusive access to a new survey from Public Policy Polling that reveals, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would start out as a dominant favorite in the 2016 Iowa caucuses if she chooses to run for president.”

For a brief moment, a smartphone other than the iPhone is the best-seller in the world, Brian X. Chen reports. According to a new report, Samsung's flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, surpassed in sales Apple's older iPhone 4S. The report, from Strategy Analytics, found that Samsung had shipped 18 million Galaxy S III smartphones in the third quarter, while Apple had shipped 16.2 million iPhone 4S phones in the same period. But in that time, Apple released the iPhone5, Mr. Chen writes, “so while Samsung may have dethroned a specific model of Apple's phone, the iPhone product line hasn't lost momentum.”

Noam Cohen edits and writes for the Media Decoder blo g. Follow @noamcohen on Twitter.