The global economic crisis has spurred new rounds of layoffs, home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies. It's also hit an annual workplace rite – the office holiday party.

Many large companies -- American Express, Disney and Viacom – among them, have cancelled big holiday bashes as the economic gloom deepens. Lavish bashes held at swanky hotspots replete with entertainment, open bar and buffet tables groaning with goodies are out. In fact, executive search firm Battalia Winston Amrop reports that 2008 will mark the lowest percentage of office parties in 20 years: The firm reports that as the financial crisis deepens, nearly one-firth of U.S. businesses have decided not to hold their holiday parties.

Battalia's annual report indicates that only 81 percent of companies are throwing a holiday party this year – that's a lower percentage than the holiday season directly following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Of the holiday season of the parties that are going forward, only 71 percent of companies will offer liquor, according to the report

When times get tough, it's time to start bartering.

In case you're unfamiliar with the concept, bartering involves a swapping or trading of goods and services for other goods and services without the use of money. Bartering can involve two people, several people or groups of people. In developing countries, bartering is a common mode for transactions involving food, domestic work and physical labor.

In the current economic climate, we're all getting a little more creative. I'm not only referring to using eBay or swap sites like SwapThing, but the idea of offering a service that a friend, acquaintance or professional contact values in exchange for something that you need or want to accomplish. Or, in my case, bartering involves a balance I'm looking to pay down.

So I'm running a balance at my dentist's office. I don't currently have dental coverage and even if I did, there are many services that aren't covered or covered appropriately. My dentist has been great and I've paid a nominal sum on my bill each month. In talking with him, I realized he could use my writing/editing skills to help him market his services more efficiently. I came up with a proposal to rewrite the copy on his Web sites that will help me pay down my bill. It's a service he needed and the time was right. I placed a value on my writing and editing services, offered him an hourly rate and we are set to begin work soon.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Underrated In America!

If you're short on cash, bartering is a great idea. You can barter for everything from babysitting, cleaning and housekeeping services to repair work and professional services. Not everything in our economy needs to revolve around the cash economy. Think about bartering...

It goes without saying that buying holiday gifts for everyone on your list can add up... really fast. And this season, you're probably feeling even more pinched. If you have credit card debt and are concerned about losing your job or even your home, you've probably already cut back. Why rack up more debt buying holiday gifts?

This year, a lot of people are in the same boat so it's time to get creative: How about giving the gift of your time or services to family and friends?

For example, give elderly relatives who live nearby a gift certficate for a homecooked meal or two, assistance with a time-consuming or otherwise overwhelming (at least to them) domestic chore like cleaning out the garage, offer to wash their car or give lessons in how to use a computer and the Internet. For friends and family with kids, offer your babysitting services; it could be a one-time only offer or a series of three childcare sessions spread throughout the year. If you both have kids, do an "even" swap and call it the gift of childcare.

CDs. Certificates of Deposit. They may offer low interest rates than you've grown accustomed to, but at least they offer some return on your money and are a lot less risky than the stock market right now.

Yes, that's right. Putting money into CDs is probably one of the safest things you can do with your cash amid protracted economic uncertainty and volatility in both the stock market and the banking sector. If you shop around a bit, you can find rates as high as 8% depending on the length of deposit. A good source for comparison shopping on CD interest rates is bankrate.com.

CDs usually carry a fixed interest rate and can be opened at your bank or online for as little as $500. There are three, six and one-year CDs that pay interest at the end of their term. If you open a CD online, banks often offer a higher rate of interest. Another plus is that CDs, as bank deposits, are secured by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.).

Don't miss the rest of our series on Underrated In America!

Be sure to check the FDIC coverage of the issuing bank. Given, the recent wave of bank mergers, it's a good idea to double-check to ensure that your deposits are protected. CD accounts are insured up to $250,000.

Opening a CD account or two is certainly a better idea than tucking your greenbacks under the mattress!

The U.S. economy is in meltdown mode. Or maybe it's more like a lockdown, since the credit markets are essentially frozen. Job losses are on the rise. The real estate bubble has burst. Home foreclosures continue to mount. Gas prices remain high. People are feeling wary and uncertain. About the only thing I am sure of is more uncertainty.

Teetering at the tail end of the Baby Boom generation and thrown in with the GenXers, a group that has little, if any reasonant identity, I feel a bit strange. Born in 1964, I don't identify with either generation and never had any expectations that Social Security, pensions or 401ks would be there for me anyway. I lived through the long gas lines of the mid-1970s, the Reagan years, the recession of the 1990s and the tech bubble. When the market softened post-9/11, many of my friends were laid off from their jobs in publishing, finance, public relations and other fields. At the time, I felt incredibly lucky to have been spared. I still feel lucky.

Here's why: Somehow, I managed to buy my first home less than two years ago in New York City. I secured a mortgage fairly easily when loans were much easier to come by. I bought a tiny sliver of the American dream. I had a full-time job that enabled me to do this, I'd saved money for years and had a little pixie dust to help me out.

Things have changed a bit: I'm a freelancer, i.e., I am self-employed. That means I pay for my own health insurance, pay quarterly taxes to the federal government and to the state where I reside and finance my own retirement account. Most of my career, I was fortunate to have full-time staff jobs where benefits were offered, but the last job I had was at a startup that offered no health insurance. The one before that offered health insurance but the employer didn't contribute to it and there was no 401 k or pension plan. I still felt fortunate.

The latest market meltdowns probably have you downright jittery, and rightfully so. It's pretty scary when big investment firms and other financial institutions end up needing a life raft. The stock market's lost a lot of value, your 401k is in the toilet and, well, you might feel like Chicken Little. Remember him? "The sky is falling! The sky is falling"!

OK. Don't panic. There are some things that you have a degree of control over and they can help prevent you from making costly financial mistakes. One strategy you can deploy in these turbulent economic times is to begin diversifying your investment and savings portfolio.

By not diversifying your portfolio, for example, keeping only a handful of stocks, you run the risk of tying your fortune to the fate of a single company or sector. Invest just in stocks and you are exposing yourself to market volatility -- the kind we're currently experiencing. Prolonged exposure may put you in the hole for a long time and make it very difficult to recover. Why should you put yourself at risk like that?

Don't miss the rest of our series on 15 Ways to Ruin Your Financial Future!

For my own part, I bought an apartment in New York City less than two years ago, so my funds are, well, not exactly plentiful anymore. But what I do have left, I stowed in a cash management account with my brokerage house. There's a Roth IRA and another retirement account, CDs, a handful of stocks and a mutual fund. I have no bonds.

Okay, call me crazy, but I'm sooooo over blogs and blogging.

The blogosphere is choking on itself. Blogoreah is the result of well over 100 million blogs out there in the vast cyber wasteland. With new blogs being created about every three minutes and mainstream publishers putting out their own blogs, aren't we just about finished riding this wave? Who has time to write and maintain a blog? But more importantly, who has time to read and comment on blogs?

Enough already...

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There are blogs about popcorn, trash, orchids, cereal, toddlers, poetry and virtually any topic that comprises the daily arcana of life. Call them diaries and call the writers diarists or documentarians of the obscure. And well, who cares? Some blogs are started in a sudden and great burst of energy and sink into the abyss just as quickly, untended. Everyone's a writer, i.e, blogger. Everyone's a publisher.

But others, created and tended by big publishers like this here one called WalletPop, are considered a staple of online publishing, a source of advertising revenue and reader loyalty. Self-made blog stars can go up against the mainstream publishers or be acquired. Hint: It's all about the page views and rankings.

Blogs are just content in a different form, albeit a much more casual and topical form, where creators can interact directly and instantaneously with readers. They create conversations.

Ok. Ok.

If everyone's doing it, it must be ok. But if everyone's zigging, why not zag?

Blogs... they're overrated. They take up too much of people's leisure time that could be spent offline interacting in person. What do you think?

Need to get away and you're short on cash? Is the idea of a "staycation" less than thrilling?

How about a volunteer vacation?

You can hit exotic and remote locales in Indonesia, Africa and South America by going on a volunteer vacation where you'll also be doing good for others. ABCNews.com reports on the new trend.

There are all kinds of organizations that can hook you up with volunteer gigs working with kids, refugees, construction projects, economic co-ops and teaching. In some cases, you'll pay a fee to get started and for airfare to and from the destination but participants say it can be well-worth it for what many deem as life-changing experiences. In the case of Wildnerness Volunteers, a group that matches people with opportunities at national parks, the the cost is just $259.

Here are some organizations and their Websites to check out the opportunities: Ambassadors for Children, Wilderness Volunteers, ProWorld and Cross Cultural Solutions.

So in order to get away, why not consider giving back? It might be more satisfying than a beach-bum vacation and less expensive too. And who knows, you might find another career direction.

Ever think what your life would be like without high-speed Web access? Frankly, I can't imagine it, and maybe you can't either. Whether as a productivity tool for work or life or both, broadband Internet access would seem to be a slam dunk for most people who can afford it.

But that's just it. There are plenty of people who can't afford it, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says high-speed Web access is so important that everyone, all Americans, should have it. He spoke with USA TODAY about broadband Internet access for all citizens, and hopes to dedicate a portion of the wireless airwaves that will be auctioned off next year to the cause.

While broadband penetration rates have grown, there is something of a digital divide. USA TODAY reports that only 38% of rural households are broadband customers, citing the stat from a Communications Workers of America report. Not surprising, the numbers are higher in urban and suburban areas -- 57% and 60%, respectively. As with utilities, the cost of high-speed access is an issue, according to the report.

Broadband growth in the U.S. has stalled over the past five months, according to a report released last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The report says about 55% of all adult Americans now have a high-speed internet connection, or a broadband connection, in their home. That's compared with 47% of adults with broadband in early 2007, and 54% in December 2007.

So what do you think? Does the government have a duty or moral obligation to ensure that all Americans have high-speed Web access and access to wireless services as well? Should there be tax incentives for companies that offer lower-cost services or subsidies for low-income Americans?

It's not only middle-class Americans who are feeling the recession's pinch -- there are new signs that the affluent and wealthy are increasingly feeling frugal, according to a new survey that evaluated the sensibilities of the wealthiest 10 percent of U.S. households.

So while many of us make regular visits to Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and all manner of dollar stores, it seems that wealthy Americans are starting to feel more frugal as well. The survey, conducted at the end of June by Harrison Group and American Express Publishing, polled households with discretionary funds of at least $100,000 after taxes, mortgage, education costs and regular, monthly payments and found that 80 percent said they were monitoring all spending categories to see where they could save money. That's up from 68 percent in April.

In addition 56 percent of those polled said they were purchasing fewer expensive items than they did six months ago, and 82 percent claimed to wait for an item to go on sale before buying it. Of course many of us never buy an item unless it's on sale. This is a regular practice. How about your household? Do you ever buy something that's not on sale? Of course, when it comes to groceries or drug store items, you buy what you especially like and what you absolutely need. But a silk blouse, a new pair of jeans, those Adidas sneakers you've been eyeing? No way.

Now there are certain items that never go on sale. You know, that Hermes tie or the Coach bag (okay, so you can go to the Coach outlet store and it'll be a little less expensive). You can buy namebrand disposable diapers with some coupons, right?

Yet more signs that the luxury market has softened: Neiman Marcus reported that its sales at stores open at least a year declined 1.4 per cent in the three months from May to July. And while diamonds may be a girl's best friend, elite jeweler Harry Winston reported that U.S. sales declined in the first three months of the year. Some advice: Purchase a good fake...