Madison DuPaix had a goal of leaving the workforce by age 29. She has been saving since the tender age of 16, and has been planning her exit from corporate America for years. With two very small children, she's going to spend more quality time with them, but won't feel a financial pinch thanks to smart planning.

Did you ever think retiring at age 29 was even possible? I suppose most of us don't think it can happen for us. But Madison's site offers lots of information on how she and her husband were able to make this happen. She's not fully retiring. She'll be doing some professional blogging, but because of smart planning, she doesn't need to pull in six figures from it.

You can learn how Madison did this on her site, but here are a few of the highlights. Although Madison had a job with a six-figure compensation package, she figured that 2/3 of her earnings were going to pay for childcare and taxes. In her "retirement," she'll be slashing 60% off childcare costs. She was also putting a lot of her earnings into savings in preparation for her retirement. Madison estimates about 15% of her and her husband's salaries were going into retirement savings. She no longer has to worry about that chunk of money.

In what is surely to become a screaming nation-wide trend, New Jersey state Governor, Jon Corzine has given fair warning that most likely he'll soon be cutting heads. A report from Reuters News Service, in referencing comments from Barbara Buono, chair of the state Senate budget committee, indicated that Corzine is considering "consolidation scenarios" as remedy for a $2.5 billion state budget shortfall.

It is being speculated that payroll reductions of as many as 3,000 employees might be accomplished through early retirement offerings, but the long term effects of that solution on existing pension funds have yet to be fully examined. Buono told Reuters, "Our understanding is that (Gov. Corzine) doesn't anticipate layoffs." I interpret that to mean the pink slips shall be forthcoming.

Similar scenarios are certain to begin looming across the entire nation as property tax roles begin to feel the affects of massive real estate devaluations. As 2008 property tax bills begin to arrive in the hands of homeowners, there are surely going to be widespread demands for reassessment of properties to properly reflect value losses inflicted over the past 12 months. The cascading effect will mean that municipalities shall soon begin to see decreased funding for local operations. Government employee payroll populations shall soon begin to come under very close scrutiny.

The snowball is just getting started, in New Jersey no less.