Gold has been all the talk lately when it comes to where to put your money as a “safe haven” against all the craziness that’s going on in the economy today. But some, including myself, are hesitant to put significant sums of money into an investment that seems so arbitrary, and has little inherent true value other than the sentiments of the world at the time.

Truly, the only real use for Gold now is to make jewelry, and that, while a good investment, is only subject to the demands for jewelry, if there is small demand, the only good Gold feature is that it sits in a  vault, unused, basically a symbol of purchasing power. At least that’s its only intrinsic value to us as investors.

The thing is, even though there is this “true value” question, when there is economic uncertainty as there is today, just about every investment is “in the eye of the beholder” as gold is.  So really, it’s beside the point what type of value you place on gold – it’s what everyone else thinks at the moment that matters.

That is why I am seriously considering putting money into gold. Serious money.  With all the news coming out about the growth of the economy, and the knowledge taht a lot of this “growth” we are experiencing is really just residual from all the QE2 money that the government pumped into the economy, I wonder what will happen when that residual effect wears off.

More job losses?  An even bigger problem for the entire economy? Then of course you have the problems over in Europe, which can only compound the problems we have here in the US.  And yet you have politicians and economists poo pooing the idea that there is a major depression coming our way.  It’s enough to make your head spin. It’s all too confusing.

Although I don’t really want to put some of our nest egg in Gold, I am seeing more evidence that this may be the only investsment that makes significant gains for my retirement account in the long term. And that’s the game I’m in – long term investing for me and my family, so this is the one investment I am considering getting out of cash for at the moment.

This is my own personal view form hours of reading information on the subject, and I in no way claim I am correct, but then again, how can anyone be?

It’s tough to say for sure, but it’s unfortunately looking more and more like home prices will continue their free fall in 2012. This is a really hard pill to swallow for Americans, including myself and my husband, who have seen the price of our home do nothing but fall for the past four years since we bought it in 2007 at the very top of the housing market (lucky us).

It adds to the pervasive fear that seems to be dominating the US that our money is really losing value and even our long term assets, like our homes are falling in value and there is really absolutely nothing we can do about it.  Walking away from a mortgage only hurts you in the end, so I’d appeal to your sense of long term accomplishment and common sense to not even think about it.

The feeling of loss and helplessness is definitely not helped by this continuous free fall in home prices. It’s no wonder people are panicking and defaulting on their homes on purpose becaues they feel they are already under water on the home price.

Sorry to say that 2012 doesn’t look too good for home prices, and this “recovery” they keep talking about seems to be nothing more than a pipe dream fed to the Americans to keep us all from an uprising. The housing recovery is also a pipe dream, as there are still too many homes on the market that are abandoned or not selling to make it a real recovery at this point.

There are a lot of existing homes that have been on the market since the whole crisis started, which really adds to the falling prices as well. The inventory far exceeds the demand, and when that happens it forces prices even lower on not just houses, but basically anything for sale – Economics 101.

December showed that almost a third of the homes that were sold were considered “distressed” meaning they were short sales or foreclosures. Scary stuff. Some of this is even due to the whole “flipping” craze that got a lot of prospective home buyers in trouble when they bought homes expecting to flip them and make a huge profit and really did nothing more than get themselves into hock over their heads.

At least this whole situation has gotten the dangerous flipping craze under control, if we can find a silver lining anywhere. Here’s one comforting thing I always think of. You’re in your house, you have a roof over your head, and you probably don’t plan on selling any time soon. So just enjoy your home. Sooner or later this whole crisis will be over and you will once again resume your happy house dwelling, knowing your home is a solid investment.  So ignore those Zillow updates for now that tell you your home went down in value yet again and know that these times will pass.

In a word, yes. It is totally worth it to have a side business for extra income as opposed to another typical job where you are working and getting taxes taken out on a weekly basis. It makes more sense to have a small side business in addition to a job instead of getting another standard job for a couple reasons.

Tax reasons

One of the main reasons is for tax reasons. With two jobs, you are essentially having two jobs where you likely do not get any sort of tax deductions. With a business, you can deduct the expenses, so even if you are at a loss for the first year, you can at least deduct that at year end.

With a second job, you are likely to pay way more taxes because you have no control – it’s a flat rate. With a business, you have more flexibility because you pay quarterly payments and you have more control over your own taxable income.

Independence

I love have my second business in addition to my day job. It gives me a sense of independence and accomplishment. I actually had originally planned to have my day job only as long as it took for me to really get my side business going and be sustainable enough to replace the day job income.

However, certain economic events and circumstances beyond my control have derailed that plan. But it’s still a pipe dream I have, and I get a lot of gratification from doing my side business. It gives me a sense of purpose and a sense of control over my own financial destiny that a day job just can’t – at least not for me and my goals personally.

Something to Grow for Future Generations

Whether your side business is a true passion (I highly recommend that it is, that makes it feel less like “work” and more like fun and dramatically increases your likelihood of success) or just something to make money, it is something you can pass on. If you have children, or grandchildren, and the business is successful and sustainable, you can pass it on to your future generations.

This is a big draw for many people starting their own business. Instead of passing your children whatever is left after you are gone, you are passing them something that can potentially make them income years to come. It’s that saying “give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime”, that’s exactly what I’m talking about here.

Something to Pass Time That Makes you Passive Income

Some businesses can make you what’s called “passive income”, which means that a lot of effort up front can make you a lifetime of passive income in the form of commissions, or customers that become loyal, or whatever else may happen that can give you years of return income and can be one of the best ways to save extra money for your future.

It’s a great way to pass the time, and you can really enjoy it if it’s something that not only interests you, but also puts money in your bank account, food on the table, and pays for the roof over your head.

The stock market seems to be especially susceptible to the headlines for the past two years. Ever since the big US economic meltdown which started in 2008 (or at least made itself known then), the stock market seems to be the most volatile I’ve ever seen.

Granted, I haven’t been on this earth all that long, and I certainly haven’t been old enough to care about the various ups and downs we’ve had over the past few decades, such as the out of control inflation and the economic downturns of the 80′s.

What’s funny about the current state of affairs as it applies to the stock market and the sentiment that goes very deeply into the movements of the market is that it seems to move inversely at times.

Even bad news can move the market up, or down. It really depends on the perfect union of emotions that happen when the news headlines pop up that day. There are so many different headlines, and all of a caliber and seriousness that differ in their positivity or negativity that the markets seem confused.

The recent news that the job market is “improving” didn’t lift the market really at all. Common sense would tell you that the jobs report should have pushed stocks higher due to higher consumer confidence, but the inverse actually happened.

This goes to show how you can’t really count on the headlines to do what you think they will when it comes to the market. Emotions are running high. People are not only gunshy, but they are still scared due to events that have happened in the not too distant past in relation to jobs, housing, and stocks.

It’s gonna be a long time before the stock market gains any sort of sense or stability that makes common sense to most people in other words. Until then, it is pretty much a crap shoot as to what’s going to happen that day in terms of stock movement and which sectors move where.

Even jobs reports that say jobs have been added to the market are not regarded as good news. That’s because there are still so many people out there that are out of work and the unemployment rate is still way too high in order to sustain a good rally that is long term.

It’s so funny how a mere five to ten years can dramatically change your perspective. Well, let’s add in there that a large chunk of perspective when it comes to money and how much things cost and how far a certain amount of money per year is gonna get you, has a lot to do with inflation.

What I’m talking about here is the fact that just ten short years ago I used to consider $50,000 a year a LOT of money to earn. Granted, it was a decade ago, but how has that same amount today seemed to barely keep some people afloat – even people who may just be single and not responsible for supporting a family or even a spouse.

It’s ALL inflation. When I consider how much I used to spend on groceries back then, $50k probably would have supported both myself and my husband quite comfortably. Even when we were eating out fairly often at restaurants – both sit down and fast food.

Just the fact that groceries and staples such as grain, corn and dairy and meat have gone up astronomically in the past few years makes the simple necessity of eating a lot more expensive than it used to be.

When you’re an adult, you also have a lot of obligations, or things that you feel obligated to do where you have to spend money. Buying gifts for the endless baby showers, the wedding showers and weddings, the birthdays of your friend’s kids, the holidays, the special occasions, all the various financial obligations that are of a “social” aspect as you get older are pretty high.

This is especially true if people perceive you as being financially comfortable. It’s as if different expectations are placed on you if people have this perception. Granted, it’s probably a totally self-inflicted guilt thing, but I’ve found it is true for us.

Even the simple fact that at both of our jobs, we are expected to pitch in for group gifts, add to the pot for various causes, and spend money to do social events outside of work can be financially burdensome.

Then there is the cost of energy. There’s the gas bill, the electric gill, and of course the all too pervasive gasoline for the car to get you both to and from work five days a week. If you work far from home, this can really put a dent in the annual budget quickly as well with the high oil prices.

In general, the pressure on our money is much greater these days. The cost of living is high, while the prices for our hard earned homes is at a historic low. Put the two together, and you have inflation compounded several times – that’s why that 50 G’s no longer gets you too far in this world.

I’ve got to admit, even though I am the eternal skeptic when some expert comes forward and says that this mess we are in is going to get better when every piece of financial data here and around the world flies in the face of that assumption, I have to take pause.

It’s healthy to be a little skeptical, but I’m starting to think that I’m really letting the things I read with doom and gloom get to me. It’s beginning to embed in my psyche and chase out the natural optimist I once was, to be brutally honest. I will believe that it will get better when we see a year of GDP increase WITHOUT any government stimulus money.

I’ve read the book “Aftershock” which was the book by three financial experts who claim that things will get as bad as the World Depression of the twenties and thirties before they ever get better. I’m also subscribed to a variety of newsletters where the writers are eternal skeptics and realists, which I’m beginning to question whether this is healthy.

After all, if the world is indeed going to hell in a handbasket, what can we as individuals really do about it? The answer is nothing, other than save our money and be cautious with our investments. We can do what we think is best, be dilligent about keeping up on the latest news, and save for a rainy day.

And that’s about it. Other than that, we can hope the most dire and alarming of the New Year predictions and beyond are simply over blown. That these types of skeptics are only forecasting the absolute worst case scenarios, and that the financial world as we know it will not come tumbling down leaving us all to scramble to pick up the pieces.

The latest forecast by a group of financial experts says that 2012 will be a very rough year in terms of volatility, but overall things will get better. Not sure I buy it 100%, but I must admit, I’m hanging on to any good news after I’ve read so much fire and brimstone types of soothsayer opinion on where we are headed as a nation.

I love this country. I love capitalism. I love that I have the freedom to run my business as I see fit and I get minimum interference from the government in doing so in chasing my dreams. I don’t want to see that, and the dreams of so many other American business owners, dashed because of a global Depression.

And so I am doing the best I can to avoid thinking about it in those terms, and putting some positive energy out there. Or at least trying not to obsess over it. After all, what will be will be and we can only enjoy life as it is, in the moment.

It seems that more and more Americans are fearful of an impending economic collapse as new problems present themselves to our already weakened infrastructure. Are these fears justified? Or is it more a part of an increasing hysteria due to increased amounts of bad news coming out of the media as it relates to all different countries having financial problems.

Now that we also have the Euro crisis added in to the mix, it seems that people have lost faith in the dollar and the euro. Remember not too long ago when the euro was considered a safe haven against the falling dollar, and the Americans envied the strength of the European currency?

Well even that is an uncertain aspect of the global economy now, which seems to be fueling American’s concerns that another crisis just can’t be tolerated by the fragile economy and this one may lead to the “big one” – the depression that some pundits have been saying is long over due.

You hear the term “kicking the can down the road” a lot now. It seems like that is exactly what the government is doing with its quantitative easing, which basically means more money printing. This traditionally leads to inflation, and yet you read conflicting reports on whether inflation or deflation is happening in the near future.

It’s like a roller coaster ride, trust me – I’m someone who reads conflicting opinions on the economy and the dollar, and gold all the time. I constantly feel conflicted about what to so with my 401k, which now still sits idle in cash as it has done for the past six months or more until I can feel comfortable putting it SOMEWHERE.

A lot of Americans are feeling the same way, which can be attributable to the constant violent fluctuation of the stock market – more than we’ve ever seen in the history of the US. No wonder people feel insecure and uncertain.

A survey was done recently that showed Americans are more fearful of an economic collapse than they are other things like terrorist attacks. This shows that the economy is on the forefront of everyone’s mind, as well as embedded in the American psyche.

It makes me wonder, with this generation, will we become a generation of penny pinchers, like the people who lived through the worst the Great Depression of the late 20′s and early 30′s?

Will this financial problem become something that creates a lasting impression on our spending for years and years to come?

I’ve read a great deal of very interesting literature this year on where the economy is going, how to insulate yourself from any incoming torpedoes coming our way in this delicate financial system, and also on how to individually improve your own freescore.com credit score as well as your overall financial situation.

By far the scariest book I’ve read thus far is the book “Aftershock” by three authors that wrote another book where they say they are the “only ones” that forecasted the first big bust in 2008.

Their first book was adequately called “America’s Bubble Economy”. In it, the authors talked about the coming bubble busts that were going to threaten our global economy.

These were primarily the easy credit bust and the housing bust. They forecasted that this would happen, and to be fair to them, it certainly did. This next book, called Aftershock, tells you how to protect yourself and profit in the aftermath of the bubbles popping, which is supposed to come to full fruition by their estimation, some time in 2013 or thereafter.

The picture they paint is quite bleak. It’s actually downright terrifying if they are correct in their portrait of what the coming years holds for us after the currency, housing, and credit bubble fully pop. Could they be right? Could they be half right?

Well, if I knew those answers and could predict the future, I’m certain I wouldn’t still be working my 9-5 job any more! No one knows with any certainty what the future holds, but I must say the authors of this book do make some compelling points, and they were certainly right about the 2008 debacle that ate up years of stock profits in mere days.

If this has any truth to it, it would certainly be worth your while to get your financial house in order and to try to save as much money as you can to prepare. This is true in any case, but it would be particularly true if the images they paint will come true.

For me, I’ve decided to really hunker down on my discretionary spending. There is a trip my husband and I were going to take in March that we are considering not taking now for instance. It wasn’t an extravagant one by any means, but it was still money coming out of our pocket that didn’t NEED to be spent.

I’ve also decided that maybe accelerating my secondary mortgage may not be the best use of our money, so I’m going to cut back on the additional principle payments I’ve been making on it thus far. I’ve also reconsidered some of my investments.

In this book, the authors heavily recommend investing in gold and precious metals, but particularly gold. Why? They are convinced that inflation will go out of control as the government prints more currency to try to pull us out of this mess. Typically with hyperinflation, gold becomes even more of a preferred safe keeping place for one’s money.

Does anyone know what 2012 and beyond holds? No. We don’t even know our own financial futures with any certainty, so how can we accurately predict the financial future of this nation? I think a little preparedness – and maybe a touch of cynicism – would do anyone good though.

Happy New Year PRC Readers! And what a year 2011 was. Sorry I’m a little late in wishing you a happy new year, but as you know, the holidays can be crazy, and you don’t exactly get to relax as the songs say and enjoy family.

Instead, you’re usually worried about shorting people presents, stressed out about the gifts you’ve racked up on your credit cards, and wondering how the heck you spent so much again. I know that sounds a bit skeptical, but Christmas has become somewhat of a stressor because of all the money.

We’ve had quite a year. We saw a lot of back and forth on economic news. We had the new worry of Europe and the Euro being debased added to the US’s growing list of ticking time bombs.

These time bombs threaten to derail a “recovery” that was never actually a recovery in the first place. Rather, the “recovery” was purely funded by the constant bailouts of the US government.

We’ve even had government threaten to shut down due to several impasses on bills that were meant to help free up money and soothe citizen’s financial burdens.

Let’s hope 2012 is better. At least we can say we have our health, and that we always have hope. And money isn’t everything…let’s always remember that

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Balance transfer credit cards or even consolidation loans can be a wonderful, wonderful thing. But they are only truly a wonderful deal if you know, as a consumer, what to avoid and what to look for in the balance transfer deals you get from various financial institutions and credit card companies.

What you really need to do is read the fine print, as painful as that seems and as passed over as it often is in today’s confusing world of paperwork and jumbled legal jargon.

What you are looking for is the following on these offers:

1.) The biggest one is what is the percentage interest rate fee that you are paying to transfer your credit card debt to this lower interest card? If it’s zero – great, that’s a no brainer, it’s a great deal.

However, there may be an interest fee of anywhere from 3-5% on the money being transferred over. This can be a consideration, especially if the card or cards you are transferring balances from is not significantly higher than this amount.

It is even more of a consideration if the creditor also charges a one time fee on top of that interest charge. This means you’re not getting as sweet of a deal as they made it seem like at first.

2.) Look for a one time transfer fee. This is fairly easy to spot and usually is outlined in plain English. It can be a capped, set fee regardless of the amount you are transferring, or it can be related to the amount of money you are transferring.

For example, it could be a set fee of $50 for the first $2,000 you transfer, then 3% of anything after that. Or it could just be a flat percentage of the total amount of money you are transferring to the new card.

This is where you really want to be aware of what they are charging. As you can see, this could easily add up to hundreds in fees if you’re not careful.

3.) Be aware that applying for new credit cards creates a hit on your credit score. This is not always a bad thing, but if creditors see you’ve applied for ten cards in one day, that could be a red flag that you are prone to over extending yourself, and may be used to assess your credit worthiness.

Just be picky about what cards you apply for, and give it a while before you apply for something else. This is a good rule of thumb to not flag your credit too much for new potential thousands to rack up in debt.