If you've got some mad art skills, or at least the ability to cut and paste, this contest is for you.

Case-mate, the makers of the cheapest (and perhaps ugliest) iPhone case the "Recession Case" is tempting customers and iPhone carriers to doodle their way into Recession Case history with the chance to win a Suzuki moped straight from the 1980s.

Those who can't afford to cough up the 99 cents to buy their very own Recession Case, or artsy types who don't have an iPhone, can download the file to make their own.

To check out the current entries and cast your vote (you can vote up to 10 times a day) visit the contest's gallery page.

The contest runs until November 30th, so put your thinking caps on and get your colored pencils sharpened. And may the best Recession Case win!

It appears Uncle Sam will keep propping up the still shaky real estate market for months to come. The Senate last night voted to extend the $8,000 first-time home buyers tax credit, and the House followed suit today. The president is expected to soon sign it into law.

But is the bill good for real estate? Not at all. What better way to fix a bubble caused by way too much home ownership than to encourage more home ownership?

Extending the home buyer tax credit is a bad idea because the real estate market doesn't need it. The panic phase of the housing crisis is essentially over. Americans know full well that house prices are no longer in free fall, but still have a ways to go before resembling anything close to a recovery.

Members of Congress seem to be holding their noses as they vote to extend the new homebuyers tax credit through April. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the $8,000 credit yesterday and the House followed suit today. But not without some whining -- or is that warning?

According to the Associated Press, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., was among the skeptics.

"For the vast majority of cases, the homebuyer tax credit amounted to a free gift since it did not affect their decision to purchase a home," Bond told the Associated Press. "And for the small minority of buyers whose decision was directly caused by the credit, this raises the question of whether we are subsidizing buyers who may not have been able to afford buying a home in the first place."The extension is expected to cost $10.8 billion in lost taxes.

Bond's gripe has been a familiar refrain in Washington, ever since the benefit first was offered in February. Opposition mounted after the Department of Treasury released a report last week about fraudulent activities.

Not surprisingly, the beleaguered real estate industry disagreed and had lobbied hard for the extension, estimating that 350,000 of the 1.4 million first-time home buyers who qualified for the credit through August would not have bought homes otherwise.

"Well-funded marketing campaigns and perverse incentives to brokers are targeting seniors' home equity and using reverse mortgages as their tools," attorney Tara Twomey said in the NCLC news release.

Once upon a time, two or three years ago, when the housing market was robust and homes sold in a matter of days, people seemed to move a lot.

Or ,even if they didn't move, they thought they might. Everything seemed so temporary. We had "starter homes" and people were "trading up." Homes were financial investments rather than investments in something far less tangible -- our community.

If there's one side effect of the recession that warms my heart, it's the fact that people are less mobile, less likely to move so much.

Homes aren't selling, employers aren't recruiting and paying relocation costs at the same high rates, and people are settling into their homes with the knowledge it's going to be awhile before moving becomes an option.

Chocolate lovers have a reason to celebrate. David Edwards, a professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard University, has developed an alternative to the pesky wrappers keeping chocoholics from enjoying a delicious indulgence: "Le Whif."

Edwards' "Whif" is an inhaler that puffs micro-particles of calorie-free cocoa bliss into your mouth that's exceeded the inventor's wildest expectations. Le Whif isn't lasting long on stores shelves, with its initial production run of 25,000 selling out in a few weeks last May in Paris.

"We did not imagine the reaction that we got at the end of the spring," Edwards said in a Reuters story on CNBC. Women seem to be "Whif's" biggest fans, stashing the inhaler in their purses to satisfy anytime chocolate cravings.

This holiday, visions of sugar plums won't dance in the heads of nearly half of America's kids. That's because a new report says these kids might not be sitting down to a holiday feast. Or those who are sitting down to a holiday meal, they will be "feasting" on a paltry one.

"49% of all U.S. children will be in a household that uses food stamps at some point during their childhood," says the author of a new study, Mark R. Rank, Ph.D., poverty expert at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. A sign Rank says is a clear indication of poverty and food insecurity. "Two of the most detrimental economic conditions affecting a child's health."

I had the opportunity recently to speak with WhiteFence.com's CEO Franc Arbride about home utilities and how we might trim these expenses. He describes his site as "a comparison shopping engine for utilities and other home services," which allows the user to input his address and receive detailed comparisons of terms offered by competing utilities.

I called Arbride after reading a WhiteFence report that showed the huge difference in utility bills from city to city.

Who pays the most? This is one crown that I doubt that those of you in Baltimore, Maryland will enjoy wearing, but the average bill, according to WhiteFence.com, in the summer quarter of 2009 was $390.44.

The same report should put a smile on the faces of those of you in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Denver and San Francisco. L.A. was the least expensive at $192.97, less than half of those in Baltimore. Fortunately for the East Coaster, the cost of housing is skewed in the opposite direction.

Will the American Dream of home ownership go the way of the myth that our streets were paved in gold?

Home ownership has long been a milestone rung on the ladder of success. Much as we use birthdays to measure our personal progress toward life goals, buying a home of your own has been the way we announce to the world that we have arrived.

Throwing in tax incentives like mortgage interest and property tax deductions just sweetened the pot. If you wanted to keep up with the Joneses, you added a bigger deck whether you needed one or not.

I bought a framed poster on eBay for $40 (including shipping) but the seller -- apparently the dumbest person in the world -- decided that the best way to ship framed art was to wrap it in saran wrap and then stick it -- with no further padding -- in between a couple slabs of cardboard.

I took it to the frame shop at Michael's to find out how much it would cost to have the glass replaced, and was astounded when she mentioned the words "one hundred and twenty dollars" -- explaining that it would be less except that it's a custom-sized frame so they'd have to special order the piece of glass.

So then I took the mess to a local glazier's shop -- located in a rundown building in a much less expensive part of town -- and was astounded when he told me his fee: $15.50.

I couldn't believe it. I told him the price that the clerk at Michael's had quoted me and his response was classic: "The problem with that is that it's just ripping people off. There is absolutely no possible justification for charging someone that kind of money for a piece of glass of that size. It's a ripoff."

Bottom line? The framing shops inside big discount craft stores might (and might not) be good for a lot of things. But if you have a frame with a piece of broken glass, take it to your local glazier.

Authorities in Hong Kong have moved in to dampen demand at the highest end of that city's real estate market.

Coming on the heels of a developer there last week setting a world price record for the sale of an apartment -- $9,200 U.S. per square foot -- the Hong Kong Monetary Authority increased the amount of the down payment required from 30% to 40% of the purchase price to buy property valued at U.S. $2.8 million or more.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority functions as a central bank.

Lots of us find that at the end of the month, we don't have any money left. The recession has forced millions of Americans to put off dreams of renovating or redesigning their homes. Designer Michael Moloney has a gift for quick and effective decor. After all, he whips up stunning new rooms within days every week on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Taking off from the show's episode this Sunday, in which a family's plans to build their dream home are derailed by a freak accident, Moloney calls in to WalletPop's studios to talk with Jason Cochran about the things you can do if you find you can't afford that dream makeover anymore.

You can whittle down the things you already own. You can freshen things up by moving your stuff all around the house to new locations. Or, if you have $14 left in your pocket by the 31st, you can give any room a dramatic new look with one simple solution.

Watch our conversation with the design whiz below. You can also watch our conversation with music star Xzibit, who is making his second appearance on the show this weekend as he pitches in to help another needy family.

If you hear bloodcurdling screams and ghastly groaning this Halloween, it's coming from retailers. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) consumer spending for the holiday is expected to drop from the average of $66.54 spent last year to a recession rocked $56.31 for 2009. In 2008, revelers shelled out a spooky $2.1 billion dollars on costumes alone. Eeeek!

This year we've been scared straight. Halloween costumes will not only be judged on their cuteness or creep factor but also their cost.

With this in mind, it's time to get creative. Think Project Runway: the home version. The challenge: Create children's costumes utilizing household items to assemble a Halloween ensemble that won't haunt the budget til Christmas. Oh, and your kid has to be willing to wear it. Although, free candy is a terrific motivator...

Obvious answers include a neighborhood costume swap, or the time-honored tradition of sibling sharing. Borrowed sports or cheerleading uniforms, re-purposed bridesmaid dresses (see, it really can be worn again!) or sleepwalker-style pajamas are also fun, easy and most importantly free(!) options. The hobo look hits a little close to the nerve this year, it would be more fanciful to dress up like someone with eighteen months of living expenses in savings and flowing credit at zero percent interest...but I digress.

If you've already mined familiar themes for hauntings past, following are five fabulous costume tricks that treat your wallet right.

Emergency rooms and doctor's offices are flooded with phone calls and patients related to the swine flu. For instance, four hospitals in Onondaga County, N.Y. saw an 11% spike in patients in September 2009 over the same month last year.

And while it's causing a fury in the health care industry, some analysts say there may be a few silver linings to the flu.

It appears out of the ashes of all those sniffles and fevers, the ailing economy is getting an unexpected -- but much needed -- boost from the double flu season. Here's a quick look at a couple unexpected economic impacts of this season's H1N1.

The deadline for first-time home buyers to take advantage of the government's $8,000 tax credit appears in line for an extension. But the popular tax break has already been fueling a phenomenon that many struggling real estate markets haven't experienced in years: bidding wars.

Lower-priced homes on the market in many once-beleaguered areas have seen a flood of offers, say real estate brokers from Boston to Portland, Ore. Though the original tax credit is good on homes sales completed by Nov. 30, because home deals can take months to complete, new buyers are rushing to close escrows so they don't miss out on the credit.

"It's a welcome change from the way things have been around here," says Carrie Novotny, a realtor in Edina, Minn., outside Minneapolis. She says a recent open house for a two-bedroom, Craftsman-style home listed at $213,000 drew several dozen prospective buyers and more than five serious bidders. The home eventually went into contract for $217,000, Novotny says. "It's been a bit crazy," she says. "People really want to nail down a sale to cash in on the tax break."