A little editorial background first.
1) Don't buy any of the "expert" statements about how this couldn't have been seen in advance. Lots of people have been saying for years that as long as the U.S. economy is based mostly on borrowing money from China and spending it on worthless consumer junk we are getting into ever deeper financial trouble (how much of what you bought last year was really needed as much as the money you paid for it is needed now?)
2) Who couldn't see that giving house loans and credit cards, and cell phones to people who couldn't aford them wasn't a good idea?
3) Locally, how sensible is that new school swimming pool looking now? Could the millions of dollars been a bit better spent?
Fortunately (very fortunately) we are doing exceedingly well here in this region. Between agriculture and the natural gas boom property values and even employment has remained pretty stable around Punxsutawney.
But people are hurting even here.
SCAMS - When people are in fear or facing trouble you can be certain someone will try to take advantage of them.
There are always new scams out there but it is amazingly easy to see through all of them.
Nothing is free.
Few things are as easy as they seem when someone is trying to get your money.
Here are some simple rules:
1) Work-at-home requires MORE skill, knowledge, and effort than working for someone else. If you aren't well educated in business, very hard working, and a great sales person, you will fail. No One will pay you to assemble things at home when they can pay Chinese prisoners 10-cents per day to do the same thing.
2) You can't buy a good foreclosed home for almost no money.
3) No one, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, can get bad credit changed to good credit. It simply can't be done. Some free tips available online can help raise a good or bad credit rating a small amount.
4) No one is going to pay you to help them transfer money out of some other country (if they could you would go to jail for money laundering). You didn't win a lottery you have to pay to collect on.
5) If something is FREE except for shipping and handling, then it actually cost about 10% of the difference between actual shipping cost and the amount you are asked to pay for S&H. In other words, the cost, plus a gigantic profit are burried right in the shipping cost - if you don't believe me, call a TV station and ask how much a 30-second commercial costs - their "free" product makes enough profit to pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising each week.
TANSTAAFL There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (or, is there?)
Other than "Do unto others" there is probably no other such simple and vital guide to life than TANSTAFFL. Simply put it means that you always pay, even if you don't realize it. For example, take the recent silly debate about raising or not taxes. Your "taxes" go up every day and have for decades.
How can this be? Every time the government "loosens credit" (prints more money) things cost more because the dollar is worth less. Your housing costs more, clothes more, food costs more, education costs more, cars cost more - virtually everything. This isn't the same as simple inflation, it is a devaluing of the dollar intentionally by the government because they can't use the word "tax." Doesn't matter what you call it of course, you still pay for everything the government does.
Did you realize that almost everything still costs the same if priced in gold or silver? It is only the paper (printed money with nothing behind it but printing presses) which are worth less. Even the famous Dow Jones Industrial Average can be bought today for the same amount of gold (about 2 oz.) as it could in 1896, 1920, 1940, and 1980.
Land, cars, houses, food, stocks, clothing, fuel, all still cost about the same as they did for a century, it is just the value of the paper dollar that has gone down. This is called "fiat" money, money not backed by anything but a promise. It is legal tender for debts by "fiat" another word for government decree.
All governments always spend more than they take in openly, eventually they ALL print more money to keep from scaring people with the "tax" word, and just as inevitable, they all eventually run out of credit and make it illegal to own gold. (It happened in the U.S. several times.)
No politician ever understood TANSTAFFL because they always insulate themselves from the consequences.
Coupons
You can find lots of free coupons online, just print them out.
Also, when buying online, always search on google.com for "coupon xxx" where xxx is the item you are buying or the store - you can often find free shipping or discount codes to use.
But, please use some common sense with coupons.
A coupon for something you don't need isn't a good deal. Paying $3 for a new frozen food instead of $6 doesn't mean you couldn't buy a store brand for $2 or make it yourself for 50-cents.
Rules
Don't pay for coupons, you can get them free.
If there is a coupon then you were paying too much in the first place - coupons are for name-brand items, the generic (store) version is probably identical and costs half as much to begin with.
(Sell your junk)
Selling unwanted items can be a way to make money, but by the time you pay for a newspaper ad you make almost nothing.
Did you know that there are dozens of local Web sites which offer totally FREE non-commercial ads and even advertise the ads on TV (such as Channel 10's wearecentralpa.com). Even WalMart has free online wantads.
And, check any other TV station's web site, almost all of them offer free wantads
And, of course there is ebay.com (where I have a store, thecountrycraftstore) but after all the fees and time it takes to learn how to use eBay profitably, don't expect to just open a store and start raking in the money. Buying is easy, but selling more than an occasional unwanted gift or old game station - in other words, making a business of it requires a LOT of work. For example, drop shipping (taking orders and having someone else warehouse and ship the item) NEVER WORKS. Although the companies involved are actually honest, drop shipping schemes are so difficult to run successfully that most people should consider them virtually the same as scams.
If it were that easy to make money, why doesn't the drop shipper just sell directly and keep all the profits? Why? Simple, it isn't easy at all, it is a vast amount of work and best left to the skilled, trained, and experienced sales professional.
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Don't get software from strange sites, but shareware and freeware from reputable sites are terrific bargains.
and
Check out free photo editing software for example
are both safe (I used to work for CNET.)
FREE Stuff
Some things actually are free on the Internet.
How about old movies? Books? Audio books, magazines, free software, etc.?
Best Job Hunting Site
By far the best way to search for a job online is to use
You can search for ads in thousands of newspapers and Web sites - ALL FREE, of course.
You can even search for jobs by ZipCODE, a great idea when we are worried about the cost of commuting.
The WalMart wantad site also lists a few jobs.
Check a bank's status
These days people might want to keep an eye on the condition of their bank even though most deposits are guaranteed by the FDIC.
Others might want to join a credit union such as napusfcu.org Federal credit unions in partucular have a different guarantee program and much stricter lending standards making them far less likely to experience problems.
Go to http://www4.fdic.gov/IDASP/main_bankfind.asp to find the
condition of any FDIC insured bank
Check a hospital or nursing home rating - get the best for your money
U.S. Dept. of Health Hospital ratings for local hospitals
And the super index to most old Web site pages, videos, music, books, etc.
And, of course, Google offers hundreds of free services including word processor, calendar, news, spreadsheet, online storage, email, great photo management software (Picassa), satellite photos (google earth), maps, etc.
This page was last updated: December 12, 2008
