Recession
Military service members get increase in allowance for housing
Charles Feldman
Dec 23rd 2009 at 3:00PM
Filed under: Home, Real Estate, Career, Recession
While President Obama is preparing to send more military personnel to Afghanistan with the new year, for those servicemen and women who are remaining in the United States, the Department of Defense has announced an increase in 2010 for what is known as the Basic Allowance for Housing.
Giving to charity declines in Scrooge's America, and that's not bad
Marc Acito
Dec 21st 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Charity, Recession, Recession Diaries
This just in from the Department of Why I am Not Suprised: Americans are giving less to charity this Christmas. A recent poll from the Red Cross shows that 20 percent of Americans plan to reduce their charitable giving this year. Salvation Army centers and Toys for Tots drives across the country all report decreased giving of at least that much. Indeed, donations to the San Francisco Firefighters Toy Program are down a whopping 60 percent from last year, while demand is up almost 20 percent. "A lot of people who donated last year are now in lines to receive help," said Sally Casazza, the program's chair. "This is our worst year ever."
Frugal fatigue is now officially what ails us
Ann Brenoff
Dec 18th 2009 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Kids and Money, Saving Money, Shopping, Recession
Enough of us are apparently experiencing frugality fatigue that it's not only made it into the lexicon but may well soon be declared an official psychiatric disorder. I am personally so relieved. Perhaps someone will come up with a 12-step program fashioned to control it? Forget group hugs; let's organize a group shop!
It seems it goes like this: Frugal fatigue, according to Word Spy, is the mental exhaustion caused by constant frugality during hard economic times. Gee, and here I thought it was plain old garden variety anxiety over losing my job and worrying about paying the mortgage.
Wrote Christopher Muther in Boston.com last month: "[I]t seems that after a year of watching our wallets, bank accounts, and 401(k) plans with the tenacity of a wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, some are throwing up their hands, taking out their credit cards, and wading back into pre-recession spending habits. The official term for this behavior is frugal fatigue. It started creeping into the lexicon last spring, and now frugal fatigue -- the idea that we're getting worn down and stressed out by constantly watching our budgets -- may as well be an officially diagnosed psychiatric disorder."
When this city's B. Dalton closes, no bookstore within 150 miles
Jason Cochran
Dec 17th 2009 at 12:30PM
Filed under: Shopping, Technology, Recession, School
When mall storefront B. Dalton shutters 49 stores next year, the city of Laredo, Texas will be closing the book entirely. Industry associations and book experts say it will be the largest American city without a single bookstore.The store wouldn't close, of course, if more Texans had shopped there. For whatever cultural reason, though -- feel free to interject your own theory -- the people in Laredo, a border town of 230,000 citizens, don't read enough to support a single shop. Soon, they'll have to drive 150 miles, or nearly three hours, to San Antonio if they want to stock their shelves.
The Associated Press caught up with one customer as she left with a sack full of nine romance novels. "It's going to be a total bummer," she said. "It made me wish I had shopped there more."
Podcast: Translating military experience into a civilian job
Aaron Crowe
Dec 17th 2009 at 11:00AM
Filed under: Career, Recession
Enelow is the co-author of the second edition of Expert Resumes for Military-to-Civilian Transitions.
Former military members have many skills that transfer to civilian life, including promptness, team building and innovating. Enelow talks about how to make them shine on a resume.
A Christmas Carol for the age of foreclosure
Charles Feldman
Dec 16th 2009 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Home, Real Estate, Recession
As Christmas time approached, Derek Frazier got the bad news from his bank: his Fort Lauderdale house was being placed in foreclosure, like so many other houses in the Sunshine State. Frazier had been out of work for months.
It didn't take long for the electricity to stop surging though the modest home; it had been turned off by the electric company.
To keep his family warm , Frazier reportedly started using an indoor gas generator to provide power. It also provided an atmosphere saturated with carbon monoxide.
This week, Frazier's four young children were rushed to an area hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Holiday light sales short out
Tom Kraeutler
Dec 16th 2009 at 2:00PM
Filed under: Home, Saving Money, Technology, Recession, Green
Santa's reindeer may have a little trouble finding good little boys and girls' homes this Christmas due to a reported nationwide shortage of holiday lights. While the economy slowly rebounds, holiday light displays are selling out at home centers and discount retailers around the country.
Home Depot, Obama and sexy: 3 terms not normally found together
Tom Kraeutler
Dec 16th 2009 at 12:30PM
Filed under: Sex Sells, Home, Real Estate, Recession, Taxes-tax credits
Adding an entertaining dimension to the appeal of energy-saving home improvements and building on the promise of new tax incentives for homeowners, President Barack Obama termed insulation "a sexy subject" during a Home Depot visit in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday.
"Here's what's sexy about it. It saves money," Obama noted in comments aimed at encouraging Congress to pass incentives for homeowners who insulate and otherwise upgrade their homes to make them more energy efficient.
Act like a guerrilla in your job search
Aaron Crowe
Dec 16th 2009 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Career, Recession
Tired of getting nowhere in sales at a cemetery and essentially unemployed, Gail Neal decided to expand her job search.Neal, who lives in Detroit, Mich., where 15.1% unemployment makes it one of the most difficult places in the country to find a job, was working for commission at a cemetery outside Detroit and wasn't selling anything for almost a year before she decided to change her job-searching methods.
Is 30 too old ... for a mortgage?
Charles Feldman
Dec 15th 2009 at 9:00AM
Filed under: Real Estate, Recession, Mortgages
It may be time to have a re-think! About what? About 30-year fixed rate mortgages.I know, this is practically sacrosanct territory in this country and questioning it is like questioning, well, God or country.
But there are those who are, in fact, raising some questions about the wisdom of this American institution -- most countries offer only adjustable rate mortgages.
For one thing, the typical American picks up and moves every 5 to 10 years, says the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). That makes a 30-year fixed rate mortgage sort of silly on the face of it.
Tips for the unemployed to stay sane during the next two weeks
Ann Brenoff
Dec 14th 2009 at 3:15PM
Filed under: Career, Recession
Unemployment isn't a disease that needs a 12-step program, but let's face it, being broke and trying to feel festive around the holidays don't exactly go hand-in-hand. Which is why a California business coach got my attention. Deborah Gallant normally commands big bucks for telling people what they need to do to start up a business or grow the one they already have. She has first-hand experience dealing with professionals who got the axe in the recession during the past year: Her husband was laid off from his big-deal job in finance 16 months ago and is still looking. She also coaches people who are frustrated with their job search. And she does that for free. Heck, she's even helped me for free.
Gallant runs a free group hug every Tuesday morning called the Conejo Jewish Support, held at Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, CA. You don't have to be Jewish to attend and nobody expects you to actually cry or bare your soul. She arranges free speakers about different aspects of the job search, serves free coffee and has one rule: When you get a job (notice, she says "when" not "if") donate a few bucks from your first paycheck to the coffee kitty. The woman is Santa with a New York accent.
House passes bank regulatory reform bill, complete with a gaping loophole
Bob Cesca
Dec 14th 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Recession
The House finally passed its financial regulatory reform bill today by a 21-vote margin. Apparently, there are 202 members of the House, Republicans and Democrats, who aren't interested in clamping down on the too-big-to-fail financials that helped to get us into this mess. While there are a lot of great things in the bill, there are also some gigantic loopholes.Mortgage deliquents in Philadelphia get reprieves -- and may get more
Amy Pyle
Dec 11th 2009 at 3:30PM
Filed under: Home, Recession, Mortgages
For those falling behind in their mortgage payments and other home bills, Philadelphia looks like the place to be, at least on the surface.A special program requiring banks to sit down face-to-face with delinquent borrowers at the courthouse before they foreclose on their homes recently reached its one-year anniversary with an estimated 5,700 homeowners helped, 1,400 of whom were temporarily saved from foreclosure.
And now the city council is considering an amnesty for penalties related to past-due property taxes and perhaps water bills, to give low-income residents some temporary relief.
New poll finds demand for job creation, tax hike on the rich to pay for it
Bob Cesca
Dec 11th 2009 at 2:30PM
Filed under: Career, Recession
So The results of a new Bloomberg poll about spending and job creation really comes as no surprise, considering the unemployment situation. 60% of Americans support government spending on job creation. And a full two-thirds of Americans want to pay for it by raising taxes on the wealthy.And it's no wonder.
I popped into the hardware store the other day to summarily mow down the rack of replacement twinkle lights with an Uzi 9mm. It's a long story that involves the lights in the star ornament we traditionally mount at the top of our tree. But, suffice to say, next year we're transitioning to LED lights once and for all. 29,000 hours of life in an LED, along with never having to buy another packet of twinkle bulbs, is worth the higher price tag.
Grab bag: States take unclaimed gift-card money
Martha C. White
Dec 10th 2009 at 1:00PM
Filed under: Shopping, Recession
We've warned you plenty of times about issuers' terms, conditions and requirements that can eat away at the balances on your prepaid cash or gift cards. Now, this article from the Times-Union newspaper in Albany, NY, highlights yet another threat to your unused gift-card balances: New York and a growing number of other states will take the money on them if they go unused for five years.How do they do this? New York and other states have dug up an old law referring to a practice called "escheatment," the article says. This is the law that lets a state claim abandoned property. Now, you might think of abandoned property in terms of deserted buildings and junked cars, but New York puts that gift card sitting at the bottom of your drawer in that category, too.
