Need help focusing on your total financial picture?
Schedule a free, half-hour consultation today, and let one of our fund sponsors guide you to the right resources for help with a variety of financial needs including:

• Consolidating your retirement accounts
• College planning, estate planning, wealth management
• Identifying strategies to help you meet your retirement and financial goals

To sign up for your free consultation, register by phone or online.

Note: Guidance provided by fund sponsors is educational in nature, is not individualized, and is not intended to serve as the primary or sole basis of a participant’s investment or tax-planning decision.

Tax-Smart Ways to Save and Invest
Identifying potential areas for saving money involves three important steps: reducing the taxes you pay on earnings, reducing the amount you spend, and making choices that are “tax smart” so you can keep more of what you earn. Learn about your individual tax rates, tax-favored financial products, Roth and Traditional IRAs. Access event information and registration.

Understanding and Achieving Your Long-Term Financial Goals
Living a hectic life can make saving for retirement and other financial goals challenging. Learn a few steps that can help put you on the right track to planning your future today. Topics will include determining how much you need to save, ways to bridge a savings gap, the importance of organizing personal financial information, setting financial goals and devising investment strategies to help meet those goals. Access event information and registration.

Your Retirement: A Personal Journey
What’s your vision of retirement? In addition to good health and relationships with family and friends, enjoying your retirement will depend upon having enough income to live on. A sound retirement strategy can help make all the difference. This seminar will identify savings gaps that can prevent you from reaching your retirement goals; keeping your retirement investing on track; and determining if you have enough for your retirement income needs. Access event information and registration.

Spring Registration is Open
Registration is open for more than 30 POD classes. Now is your chance to check out new offerings, such as Cultivating Cultural Competence, Managing With Motivation, and Punctuation Tune-Up, and to register for classes typically offered just once a year, including The Business of Listening, Payroll: Beyond the Basics, Presentation Excellence, and Strategies to Overcome the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Access course information and registration.

Rapid Process Improvement
This one-day class takes a straightforward, simplified approach to process improvement. Instead of getting unnecessarily bogged down in complex methodologies, this class gets to the heart of most workplace inefficiencies and employs a "lean" approach to eliminating waste. Access course information and registration.

Hourly Career Counseling
One-hour career counseling sessions are available with Training and Organization Development Consultant Susan Templeton. Career counseling can help you evaluate your strengths, assess your career fit, write a résumé or cover letter, conduct an effective job search, or gear up for a job interview. The charge is $80 per one-hour counseling session if paid with a UW budget number (with supervisor approval) or $92.48 if paid with cash, check, or credit card (due to a mandatory institutional overhead fee). Learn more about this service.

American Red Cross to Share Haiti Earthquake Relief Updates
The March UWCFD Meet the Charities workshop celebrates Red Cross Month on Wednesday, March 17, in HUB 110, from noon to 1:00 p.m. Cynthia Chirot, COO of the American Red Cross-King & Kitsap Counties, will provide updates on Haiti earthquake relief efforts. This event is free and open to all. Visit the UW Combined Fund Drive website for more information.

Family Caregiver Network
Planning to visit your older family members this summer? Thinking of "beginning the conversation" about their care needs? Bring your concerns and questions to Family Caregiver Network meetings and gather information and ideas from others in similar situations. The next meeting is March 30 from noon to 1:00 p.m. at the HUB. Access event information and registration.

Brighten Your Home on a Budget
Are you ready to spruce up your home or garden this year but aren’t sure how to go about it in this economy? Stop by the UW Home Improvement Fair on Wednesday, April 7, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at The Commons in Mary Gates Hall where you'll get inspirational ideas for brightening your home on a budget. Exhibitors include contractors, interior designers, gardening experts, do-it-yourself resources, and more. Refreshments, demos, door prizes.

This event is sponsored by HomeStreet Bank, a partner of the UW Benefits Hometown Home Loan Program. All expenses are paid by HomeStreet Bank and participating exhibitors.

Buying Your First Home?
Attend a free lunchtime seminar to learn about special programs for first-time buyers, low down payment options, using down payment assistance, and how to handle gifts and third party contributions. Access event information and registration.

Get the Most from Your Preventive Care Benefits
Did you know that eye doctors can tell a lot about your general health just by looking into your eyes? Have you and your dependents had your eyes checked within the last two years? Remember, as a UW employee, your routine eye exams are covered, less a small co-pay or coinsurance fee.

Also, depending on your age and risk factors, a colon cancer screening may be included in your routine adult physical exam. Read more about your preventive care benefits and other wellness topics—like diet, nutrition, and exercise—in this month’s UWellness.

Roll With It!: Introduction to Bike Commuting
Learn how to share the road with traffic, haul your stuff efficiently, and arrive in style for your day with this introductory class geared towards new bicycle commuters. Brought to you by U-PASS & Cascade Bicycle Club. Access event information and registration.

UW Relay for Life
Relay involves team members taking turns walking, jogging, or running around Husky Stadium track to raise money for cancer awareness, education, and research. Time off the track is spent listening to music, camping out, participating in a wide variety of family-appropriate and cancer awareness activities with friends, family, and other supporters. After dark, a “Luminaria” ceremony is held where candles are lit in honor or in remembrance of those who have been touched by cancer.

Anyone can participate in this community event—all or part of the time. Join a team, bring your family and friends, or participate solo. Access event information and registration.

Summer Care
Find over 500 things to do with your kids this summer through the local parent publication, Seattle’s Child. Select “Classes and Camps” to search for summer options.

Are you looking for someone to supervise your children at home over the summer vacation? Check out UW WorkLife’s Caregiver Directory to find listings of UW students looking for summer work providing child care.

Volunteer opportunities provide valuable learning experiences for youth and teens. Opportunities in fields of interest such as early childhood, arts & culture, and environmental are listed with United Way of King County. Search listings under "Volunteering".

Online Resources from UW CareLink
Attitude Adjustment is the featured theme of UW CareLink’s online resource, APS HelpLink, this month. Use UW as the company code to find informational materials and to sign up for a webinar “Emotional Intelligence for Success” on Tuesday, March 16.

UW CareLink’s monthly tip sheet focuses on getting organized. Find ideas on how to organize your work and living spaces as well as following through with your personal organizational system.

Planning for Safety
Did you know that SafeCampus, along with the Crime Prevention Unit at UWPD, can help your office make a workplace security plan? Coming up with a plan will help your workgroup know what to do in case of a violent situation. Being prepared is an important step in staying safe. If you’d like to set up a Violence Prevention Training for your workgroup, contact SafeCampus.

Recognition
Everybody can be involved—and it’s FREE! UW e-cards are a great way to express appreciation to a colleague. If you think it, just take a minute to write it; and because you took the time to write it, it will be remembered.

Take a Break
Less famous than the cherry blossoms of the Quad, the Grieg Garden, located across from Thomson Hall, is also known for its spring blooms—lavender, pink, magenta, and crimson rhododendrons and azaleas are in bloom. A slight detour when walking between the HUB and Red Square, the garden’s centerpiece is a bronze bust of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. The comfortable wooden benches along the path extend an invitation to return in warmer weather.

Staff Human Resources Building to Close
On March 13, several HR units are moving to Condon Hall while the Staff Human Resources Center (SHRC) is temporarily closed to make way for new student housing construction. Units on the move include the Office for the Vice President for Human Resources, Labor Relations, WorkLife, HR Administration & Information Systems, the Disability Services Office, the Violence Prevention & Response Program, and the UTemp Staffing Program. SHRC’s computer kiosks, available to UW employees and the public when applying for UW jobs, will be closed along with the building, but those in need of computer access can find it at the UW Libraries.