Over the past few months, as the economic outlook has grown increasingly gloomy, various pundits, commentators and all-purpose wing nuts (including yours truly) have offered tips to help the average person weather the financial downturn. We've given suggestions for lowering bills, saving money on food, increasing equity, decreasing fees, and various other mainstream methods for reducing your fiscal burden.

While many of these suggestions have been intelligent, useful, and well-thought-out, they generally aren't all that inspiring. Every so often, however, a wild, off-the-wall solution comes along and shows how a little bit of creativity can shore up one's finances and improve one's community.

A perfect example of this is Blanka Amezkua, an artist in New York City. Noticing the lack of art venues in her area and eager to increase her neighborhood's sense of community, she decided to turn her bedroom into an alternative art space. Christening it "The Bronx Blue Bedroom Project," or BBBP, she began inviting a variety of artists to create art installations in the room, which she subsequently opened to artists and art lovers in her neighborhood. While Blanka doesn't charge for these showings, she and Laura Napier, another artist who lives in her building, also host art sales. These, in turn, help her market her own work while continuing to generate interest in the local art scene.

Were you convinced that the antics surrounding American International Group (AIG) couldn't get any worse? After all, there was that big $85 billion bailout... which somehow almost doubled within a matter of weeks. Then there were the stories of spa trips and luxury resorts. Taxpayers are rightfully dismayed at the thought of bailing out a company with their money, only to see funds squandered.

(Yes, I understand that the trips were by people in a subsidiary that is a different one than the one that needed to be bailed out... But it's all AIG and when one part of the company spends money, the whole company is spending money.)

But there's another side to the AIG story that hasn't been talked about as much. AIG employees are being harassed and threatened by angry consumers. Stock market celebrity Jim Cramer of Mad Money television fame told his viewers to harass AIG employees in public. Seriously? Most of the employees of AIG aren't to blame for the company's mess. Upper management is. The employees don't deserve to be harassed just for doing their jobs or being a part of a sketchy company.

News of layoffs is happening daily, with the latest being Citigroup announcing 53,000 more job cuts and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. saying it will lay off thousands more. They join the 10.1 million Americans already unemployed, a 6.5% unemployment rate. At least they're getting a little notice before Christmas arrives.

Even if they saw it coming, getting laid off is a jolt. It not only means losing an income, but can also be at least a temporary loss of self-esteem. I was laid off on June 27 at a newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area -- a paper where I had been an editor for 13 years, so I know first-hand what it's like to lose a job. It was the first time in my career that I had been without work.

While the shock and sleepless nights ended after a few weeks, it took a little longer for the sick feeling in my gut to go away. It was the feeling and constant worry about how to pay the bills and ensure my family can stay afloat and in our home. Some days I still have those fears, although a few part-time jobs have helped ease my mind as I look for full-time work.

My first job out of college, I was an office worker inside a movie studio near Hollywood, and as a 22-year-old who had just weeks before been a student at Indiana University, I was as excited as I could be. That said, my job was nothing particularly special or interesting. A chimpanzee could have done it -- or a chimpanzee with a driver's license, anyway. I drove to a few houses around Los Angeles, dropping off television scripts that I kept wishing I had written, but mostly, I did a lot of filing.

That is, for about a week. Then, when I had cleaned the office and organized the filing cabinet, it became clear that there wasn't a lot for me to do. I sharpened my boss's pencils and watered his plants. I washed out his coffee mug. It was 1992, and I had no computer to hide behind, and so I just wandered the office, trying to straighten things up. But everything was immaculate, and with the phone almost silent, I rarely even needed to answer the phone.

I was polishing a picture frame on the wall when my boss -- an assistant to one of the owners of the television production company, and so I was an assistant to an assistant -- came up to me and delivered the bad news: I was out of a job. Not because I was a bad employee. I simply wasn't a busy employee.

Welcome to WalletPop's new book club, where we will have an author-in-residence to give us a peek into a new book and be on hand all month to answer reader questions. Our inaugural writer is real estate expert Alison Rogers, who was the founding editor of the New York Post real estate section and a licensed real estate broker. The following is a Q&A with her about her book, Diary of a Real Estate Rookie, which was called "must reading" by the Wall Street Journal and a "Witty bunch of horror and success stories mixed with real advice for other Realtor newbies" by Newsweek.

ZB: You went from Harvard to Fortune magazine reporter to New York Post editor to real estate agent. How did that happen?

AR: I graduated from Harvard summa cum laude, at the top of my class -- and then I couldn't get a job. It took me a year to get hired on Wall Street. That was the beginning of a long love/hate relationship with corporate America.

Bascially, the Wall Street gig was a two-year in-and-out, so after I did that I decided to try journalism, and I had a connection at Fortune. That was a great job; it really trained me to write and think.

I then developed a sort of specialty in business-oriented publishing. When the New York Post needed an editor to launch the real estate section, I said, you know, this is the kind of publishing I do, and I love real estate.

Remember, if you've got questions for Alison Rogers, you can ask them here, or below in the comments field.

For those of you still employed and secure in your jobs, congratulations! You may be getting a raise next year. A survey by two compensation consulting firms revealed that businesses intend to increase employee pay by an average of 3.5 percent in 2009. But with good news comes bad news these days, of course, and the flip side is that these same employers are still intent on cutting jobs -- 26 percent of them plan layoffs next year.

If you're feeling secure, there's even more good news: Your raise will go farther. That's because economists believe the rate of inflation for 2009 will be just 1.5 percent. Still, you're not completely off the hook. A quarter of surveyed companies plan to raise contributions for health care. Overall, Big Business will be reducing benefits, and many don't intend to give bonuses.

Even if you're not on the receiving end of those raises, take some comfort. With this move, businesses are signaling their long-term confidence in the economy, believing that, hey, maybe the country won't fall into depression and Obama might actually do a good job. They're doing their part to get people shopping again and encourage lenders to reopen their coffers. Of course, that's faint consolation now if you've been axed or nearing the chopping block. But at least The Man is showing some mercy by not cutting back on everything.

The winner of the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition this year, Bill Loehfelm, received a contract for his novel Fresh Kills and a $25,000 advance. The book was printed by G.P. Putnam's Sons and has been widely praised. Now you, the budding novelist, have a chance to vie for similar success. Amazon has announced that it will repeat the contest, beginning in early February of 2009.

The route from finished manuscript to book on the shelf has become more difficult as the printing industry faces the same economic pressures as other businesses, and the Amazon contest, while a long, long shot, is worth a try. It costs nothing to enter. Authors upload their work (up to 10,000 will be accepted), from which the Amazon slush readers will choose 2,000 for the second round. From this group, expert recruiters from Amazon will pick the best 500.

Reviewers from Publisher's Weekly, the go-to magazine of the book industry, will cull this to 100, from which representatives of the company that will publish the winning manuscript, Penguin, will chose three finalists. Amazon customers, armed with reviews of the three novels by noted writers and editors, will vote for the Grand Prize Winner, who will receive 25 grand and a book contract.

Yes, this means your book has a 1-in-10,000 shot to win. But billions of dollars are spent every week by Americans on lottery tickets, where the odds are much longer. If you've tried to find an agent for your treasure, you might eventually get the idea that the odds on that route to publication aren't much better.

Also read: Build your own anthology

Kindle leading the move to electronic publishing

So you already pack your lunch and you've cut back on that latte habit. You still have to get dressed every day, get to work and stay there all day long, and that means you're most likely spending a few dollars here and there. How can you cut back even more? Here are ten suggestions you probably haven't heard a thousand times before:

Tupperware It
You want to update your wardrobe, but don't want to spend any cash. What do to? Trade. There are surely plenty of items in your closet that are perfectly fine, but maybe they don't fit right at the moment or you are simply bored with them. So fix up a little swap party with your pals. Everyone can bring some mix-and-match items to the party and you can try things on and swap. Then, if you have buyer's (or seller's) remorse, all it will take is a phone call to set things right.

Got Milk?
You may not work for a company like Google, which supplies full meals and snacks to its employees, but it's likely that your company supplies items like milk, sugar, coffee, tea and hot chocolate. Just think of the possibilities! Add a container of oatmeal or grits to your cubicle stash, and you've got a hearty, filling snack for just pennies. Heck, you can even spring for a 39-cent box of instant pudding and have an afternoon snack (or four). Or you can go a little gourmet if you bring in a few ingredients from home and make a steamed chocolate pudding in the microwave.

If you were thinking about getting a little part-time job to help pay the holiday bills, think again. Thanks (or no thanks) to the huge number of layoffs, these jobs are suddenly in high demand.

According to the Associated Press, a combination of a sudden consumer spending freeze with more applicants than normal have retailers fielding more applicants than they have seasonal jobs for.

Former professionals, now unemployed, are vying for these low-wage, no benefit gigs with the more usual applicant: high school kids or housewives. If a white-collar exec is desperate enough to take a part-time job paying $8.50-an-hour, who's the retailer going to hire? The kid with no experience who may or may not show up in the morning or the professional?

Strange jobs are probably common, but I had to laugh and wonder about job discrimination the other day when I came across an odd job description for the regular, everyday job of copy writer. The ad on Craigslist seemed straightforward enough, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a bit of discrimination.

A part-time, experienced channel editor/copywriter is needed for a social networking web site in San Francisco that focuses on hair loss lifestyle. Editors are needed in various categories, again, as they pertain to hair loss lifestyle. The categories include: Entertainment, travel, news and fashion (hats?).

Here's the part that caught my eye: "Preference given to those who live a hair loss lifestyle." So a bald writer will get preference over me, a man with a full head of hair? Is that fair? I understand that the company wants to hire someone who can best get their message across and knows what they're talking about, and as someone with a Don King type of hairdo if I let it grow for two months, I laughed out loud at the euphemism for being bald. But is putting that request in a job announcement akin to asking for writers who are white, female and have long, brunette hair?

As Circuit City seeks bankruptcy protection, and DHL U.S. Express announced plans to lay off 9,500 workers, I can't help but think back to decisions the companies made six months to a year ago that foreshadowed these moves Monday. For Circuit City, it was laying off workers that I think helped lead it to bankruptcy, and for DHL it was a merger that eventually led to jobs being lost. Either way, workers were harshly affected.

Circuit City has had its share of poor decisions over the years, but at least customers knew when walking in that it had some of the most knowledgeable sales people in the industry who were willing to help. I don't know much about electronics, but after going into a Circuit City store, I knew a lot more and could make an informed decision.

But a year ago, the company laid off thousands of its experienced salespeople. Sure, it saved money with fewer workers and the cheaper employees who remained, but it easily looked like a dumb move at the time by anyone who had done business there.

I recently handed in my 401(k) and health insurance, along with my corporate laptop, for a taste of the freelance lifestyle. This weekend I spent several hours happily trolling the aisles of Wordstock, a local celebration of writers and books, frequented (naturally) by writers galore. I was chatting with a friend who runs a quarterly magazine, offering ideas for one of her upcoming issues, when another freelance writer walked up. He, too, had recently left a "regular" job for the on-again, off-again world of freelancing.

"How's it going?" he wanted to know. "Great," I said, a little surprised at the realization. "I have too much work."

"Me too!" he said happily. "I've heard that a lot."

While it's certainly sad for workers who are offered the door in exchange for cheaper, less permanent freelancers, it's all good for those of us who have chosen this life with some deliberation. (Note to self: Always make the jump before everyone else figures it out!) We're here to fill in the blanks suffered by managers who have been forced to lay off so many employees that their work can no longer be accomplished by a dwindled staff, and those smaller companies seeking to expand without a lot of messy commitment in the way of payroll and benefits packages.

So it's a word to the wise: if you've been wishing to make the leap to freelancing, and not having the gumption, maybe now's the time. With a liberal administration coming into office, maybe you'll even get some relief on the health insurance front... at least, it's worth dreaming.

Now that General Motors and Ford Motor Co. are staring into the abyss of free market capitalism (stay competitive or die), the two remaining publicly -owned members of the vaunted Big Three automakers are sucking up to the Fed for a piece of the $700 billion financial industry bailout.

Congress has already slipped the industry a bone in the form of $25 billion worth of low-cost loans. But the auto industry is in its death spiral, and needs more. More!

I can't help but wonder, with all this hemorrhaging of money, why the men who helped make these iconic American companies the dinosaurs they are today are not taking a pay cut themselves. I mean, if you're going to exact a pound of flesh from your working rank and file, why not take a whack at yourself?

Ever know someone who "has it all," then throws it away by doing something stupid or worse--something fatal? The most well-known examples are celebrities; musicians, entertainers, and athletes, semingly making all the money in the worls and then doing something self-destructive. Think of Brittany Spears, Michael Vick, Paris Hilton, and Wesley Snipes; all are in a self-destructive spiral of their own decisions.

While, hopefully, you are not having similar experiences, many people sabotage their success in more subtle ways. What about you for 2008? Are you in a self-sabotage mode? Are you short-circuiting your own success? Check out the warning signs.

Success saboteurs:

• Fail to place a premium on learning. They become content with what they know and are closed to new ideas and challenges. Because they do not commit to continuous learning, their world narrows as they age. A narrow perspective becomes rigid and stagnant leading to poor decision making. Successful people know that the more they learn, the more they realize that they don't know. They read a wide variety of books and periodicals and have an appreciation of history. A continuous education keeps you humble and curious.
• Give up too soon. If at first they don't succeed, they quit. Yet, often people quit when success is just around the corner. A little more perseverance and the goal could be reached. If you look at the histories of very successful people, it often includes many "failures" that were turned into learning opportunities. Several years ago, more than 20 editors turned down two unpublished authors for a nonfiction book project. Refusing to give up, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen eventually sold the book for a nominal advance to a small Florida publishing house. Chicken Soup for the Soul became an instant best-seller and has sold millions of copies. The difference between a writer and an author is that the author did not give up.

It truly will be just champagne wishes and caviar dreams for most employees at their holiday parties. Big corporations like Viacom, Hearst and ABC News, which used to book Hiltons and serve booze galore, have either canceled or scaled back party plans.

Now small businesses are following suit in scaling back on festivities, says the Associated Press. It's not primarily due to limited cash flow; some feel it's just not appropriate to party when pink slips are fast and furious.

According to a survey done by Battalia Winston Amrop, an executive search firm in New York, only 81% of businesses will have some type of holiday party this year, the lowest level in 20 years. Also, 37% say their party has been cancelled or scaled back, double the 19% of companies affected last year.