Merry Christmas Everyone!

Hello all my dear PRC readers! I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We appreciate you standing by and reading us all these years and hope to increase our user participation in the next year. There’s a lot going on in this economy and no shortage of interesting topics to be discussed, so it should be a really interesting year of discussions, tips and credit know-how this coming year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

People Driving Cars Until They Die Now

I was absolutely amazed when a car salesman told my husband and I about how much the production of new cars had fallen off of a cliff after the infamous 2008 stock market plunge and the ensuing financial chaos that we now know of as our “new normal”.

He said that the production of new cars was cut in half – we are talking millions of cars here – in a one year time span. That means that many less people were needed in the assembly lines, that many people lost jobs, and that much more productivity was lost here in the US because our outlandish, unwarranted lifestyles had gotten so out of hand that it finally came crashing down around us.

He also said that used car inventory was the lowest it has ever been simply because there aren’t enough to keep up with the demand. After all, with the new fiscally aware mentality of America, people are looking for good deals. People are also now driving their cars until they die so they can wait as long as possible in between new car purchases.

A good deal is not classified as something that costs a third more and loses a third of its value as soon as it is driven off the lot – the definition of a new car these days. He also said that it’s hard to keep up with the demand for the used cars, and that is why the inventory is so poor.

So my husband and I knew a great deal when we saw it. My husband’s eyes lit up when he spotted a light silver Jeep Liberty on the lot. It had only a little over 14,000 miles on it and it was priced ten thousand dollars less than the brand new 2011 Jeep Liberties we saw lining the lot.

What a deal. Sure, a Jeep Liberty isn’t the best on gas mileage due to its size and its six cylinder engine. However, we live in the snow belt and both have long drives to work, so gas mileage, while important, was not the end all be all to us.

What sealed the deal was that the dealer told us that they were great in the snow. That was just more important to us at this juncture. After all, we still have one car in the houseold that is excellent on mileage, and that’s my little Honda CRV that gets close to 30 MPG.

Is Gold a Good Hedge Against Economic Collapse?

I tried to find a clear cut answer to this on the internet, and was met with a couple brick walls. It seems the most safe bet against the dollar weakening and against any case of economic collapse, buying actual, physical gold boullion of coins is your safest bet.

ETF’s for gold and other precious metals are another option, but some say that owning the actual physical commodity is the safest bet.

However, when you think about it, what if the economy is all fine, then you are stuck with these gold coins and have to sell them? Or can you imagine a world where you used these as your currency? It all seems a bit far fetched and loony, but what if the world really did come to that?

That’s what I tried to find an answer to, and the truth is, no one knows what is going to ultimately happen over the next few years with our economy. There are a lot of alarmist views that the Euro will collapse, that we won’t be able to handle in massive influx of retirees from the baby boomer generation who will soon be selling off their stocks and assets to live on in the next year or two.

These views are very scary of course, and you cannot ignore the possibility of anything happening at this point. The truth is, we have a lot of leveraged debt right now, and it’s simply not sustainable. What will likely happen is that the US government, or other foreign governments, will be forced to print more money, which just decreases the value of currency.

It seems not anyone is safe right now except for the relatively cozy China, which has seen economic growth in the face of other foreign currencies suffering as well as jobless rates increasing.

In fact, a lot of countries, especially the US, are beholden to China right now for their currency and for the debts they have helped us pay off and the multiple rescue packages the government could not afford on their own.

China is actually buying up a lot of land in the US, and they are also buying a lot of gold. What does this all mean for us, the average American investor and consumer? We shall soon see. My hope is that all the worst case scenarios and alarmist views are wrong.

Ways to Beat the Other Applicants in Job Interviews, Applications

There are thousands upon thousands of people out of work still today here in the US. Many of them have been out of work so long they fear that the mere fact they’ve been out of work makes them a candidate for shunning from prospective hiring companies.

In fact, there has actually been a proven discrimination (at least mentally) against those that indicate a few years between jobs on their applications. It often opens up the questions from employers about whether this employee was truly dedicated to their former job, or perhaps just didn’t want to work for a period of time.

When filling out that first initial application for any job, there are a few rules that you must abide by in order to not get tossed out of the pile of consideration right off the bat. The first and most crucial is to absolutely make sure you have no typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors on your application or resume.

Employers rely heavily on this very first impression of you, and if that first impression shows even the slightest bit of incompetency or lack of attention to detail, they will eliminate you right off the bat. Especially if they have tens or hundreds of other qualified applicants.

You could be the best choice for the job and the most qualified applicant, but they don’t know that. So make sure you put your best foot forward in any initial contact.

On your resume, try to stay away from generalizations and cliches. They have seen the same claims of “being able to work well in a group but also work well independently” a hundred times. Be sure to be specific about your skills.

Make sure you mention any specific programs you know or database-based technology. Also be sure you mention any types of specialized skills such as negotiating, sales, marketing, managing teams of people, legal research, using special navigational or online programs and anything of the like that can help you stand out.

Not only does being specific about your skills make you stand out, but it also shows that you have easily learned things and that you will be easily trained on a new endeavor.

When you go to apply for a job these days, remember there are several things that employers can check about your befor deciding to hire you. They can check your criminal record and even your credit score these days, especially if you are applying for an industry that has anything to do with finances or the entrustment of funds in any way.

The Oxymorons in This Economy

What I am finding personally about all of this economic turmoil and sky if falling type of news is that it’s hard to know which way is up, down, or sideways. Every day I read the financial news in one way or another. And every day I am more and more confused about the state of the economy.

Should I be saving all my money and hoarding food since the end of the world is coming, or is it really all going to get better soon? The average Joe, such as myself, really doesn’t know at this point. You read differeing opinions, forecasts and different takes on even the most basic of seemingly cut and dry news in different news outlets.

How are we supposed to know how to behave in such a climate? Are we really just suffering from information overload, or are we truly getting conflicting accounts of what is really happening in the economy today?

A great example is how supposedly the economy is still in the toilet, yet retailers were already calling Black Friday the best in recent history. How is this possible when everywhere you turn you hear of family’s having financial hardships and not able to spend a dime?

Are all these people that are propelling the shopping season into a better one from last year just using credit cards? Are Americans just sick and tired of saving and are going out and spending money they don’t have? What gives?!

Europe is the big concern right now. If they don’t get their debt under control, apparently the world is going to again buckle and the world economy is going to enter into another, supposedly more painful, recession. But is that really going to happen?

It’s kind of making the American people seasick reading all the back and forth news. I almost wish that everything would just tank and we’d get it overwith already so we can begin on the REAL road to recovery.

New Info : Popular Credit Cards Today

We’ve put together a page on the most popular credit cards today as we know them. I’ve written a lot about changing legislation and how it has impacted not only debit cards, but also credit cards and the way these credit card companies have had to switch their business models around a bit.

It’s not necessarily all that great for the consumer either, although some would argue it will have an eventual trickle down effect to the consumer since it helps businesses out that rely heavily on customers using credit cards as a convenient means to pay for their goods.

The most popular credit cards usually offer something to the consumer in return for their use. SO without further ado, check out our new page on popular credit cards and see what is making the cut.

How to Avoid Over Spending This Holiday on Gifts

We all do it. That last minute scramble to see if we feel like we shorted Uncle Joe, Aunt Sue, or mom and dad on gifts this holiday season. Then we inevitably go out to the stores for one more last “guilt shop” to get some more gifts for those whose gift piles don’t seem quite high enough.

The whole thing with this last minute guilt trip we tend to put on ourselves is that the person will just about never notice that we shorted them a gift or two. Chances are, if this is a mature adult, they wouldn’t bat an eye or lose a wink of sleep over it. It is us that is the problem.

I was always guilty of the last minute gift dash. And it almost always meant that I was buying too much, and that I actually may have even inadvertently made the person feel uncomfortable that they didn’t get ME enough. Talk about defeating the purpose!

When you do this last minute gift dash, you are almost always over buying. Here’s how to avoid doing it. Wrap your presents early. By early I mean at least one week before Christmas. This means that you’ll be able to actually pile the gifts in neat stacks according to who they belong to.

This way, you can really see if the piles look discriminant or embarrassingly off. This is particularly true for parents with multiple children who really want to make sure everything is equal.

Now that I’m a little older and wiser, and feel more comfortable with what I get for people on my newly somewhat scaled back idea of Christmas, I feel pretty secure in what I’ve gotten for people. I also keep lists of what I’ve gotten for everyone.

There’s actually a really cool App that you can use on the iPhone that is called the Santa List that a friend of mine uses that could really come in handy for avoiding the last minute panic buys.

It helps you to show exactly what you’ve bought for each person on your list, and you can even plug in a price to keep track of how much you spent on each of your gifts for each person. So, you can actually see how much you are spending as you go.

This type of record keeping is easy and even fun, and it helps you to prevent over spending in the stores around the holiday season when it seems like we all bleed more greenbacks than we should.

Black Friday Getting Out of Hand

A lot of backlash is occurring over the stores going a bit too far this past Black Friday. As you know, Black Friday got its name because the holiday season, and that shopping day after Thanksgiving in particular, are the times when stores typically get “in the black” and out of the red, since many retail stores do not really profit until the holidays.

Hard to believe, but it’s true. It’s hard for stores to keep their inventory up as well as turn a profit, so they rely heavily on the holiday shopping season to actually put them in the black.

This past black Friday kind of got out of hand though. Stores actually tried to out do one another and they opened as early as 10:00 PM on the day of Thanksgiving. Really? Is Black Friday that important that these stores are going to make their poore employees come in and work on a day when you are supposed to be with loved ones?

That, to me, is not what the holidays are about, and I fear we are all losing sight of that and only seeing the holidays as dollar signs, stress, and corporate profits. Not that corporate profits are not a good thing, we need them to get the economy going again.

But the message of Christmas is getting lost. I went to some stores that had their decorations up as early as November 1st, the day after Halloween. Many of them already had the holiday music going too. It’s a bit much, and Christmas is my favorite holiday.

But even a die hard Christmas lover such as myself gets burnt out on the holiday season when they’ve heard almost two straight months of Christmas music and seen decor allover the place, trust me!

Let’s remember the holiday spirit. When you get in line and start to get crabby about the whole thing and think it’s just a commercial holiday, remember the reason for the holiday season. Even if you don’t believe in the particular reason for the holiday, the whole season has become a symbol of peace, love and giving to those that are less fortunate.

So go out and donate to shelters, give to the guys and gals that are ringing the bells for the Salvation Army, and try to really do things for your fellow man. Of course, these are things we should do all year long, but this is the time when we think most about those who need us the most.

Record Number of People Unhappy at Work?

With the economy constantly teetering on the edge of destruction over the past few years, Americans are really struggling with something they’re not used to. An inability to have a wide range of choices when it comes to their employment, and the terms under which they are employed.

The job market is still recovering. Even though we saw a three year record of job listing from employers in September as just reported, there are still far fewer jobs than there are qualified applicants for those jobs. The years of wear are beginning to show in many workplaces.

I’ve heard numerous “through the grapevine” complaints from people who feel utterly stuck at their job, even if they hate it and would love to try something new. They are saying everything from their work place is just piling on the work because they are trying to cut costs and labor, or that their workplace has become full of people who daydream about getting out all day.

We’re all used to the world being our oyster in our respective fields, and right now the pickins are slim, and you are really risking your neck going out and getting a new job when you’re the low man on the totem pole. Basically, it’s the newest that usually get cut, and people know that.

Why would you risk a perfectly safe job that, although it may make you miserable, brings in the paycheck every two weeks? People are really thinking about their wallets and their bills before happiness these days, and it’s beginning to show in higher stress levels and more career strain in many workplaces – no matter what field you work in.

Most people right now are clinging to the familiar and the safe rather than venturing out and finding something that may more suit their personality or lifestyle. It is showing in workplace satisfaction. Also, the fact that some companies are cutting benefits to save money doesn’t help with employee morale.

I imagine that whenever the economy and job market do improve, you are going to see a lot of career changes and job changes. People may have been restless for years at their current position at that point, and they may be jumping at the chance to get out and do something new.

Hopefully this will be in the next couple of years, but what with the PIIGS nations defaulting on their debt and all the crisis that is happening over in Europe now, we are bound see a huge spillover effect here in the US. It’s sad to say, but we are far from out of the woods yet, so it’s time to buckle down and hope for the best and save your money.

Happy Thanksgiving to My Readers!

Hey everyone, wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving before we are off to our family’s in Pennsylvania for some good old fashioned turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and the whole nine yards!

Sure, it’s the most expensive year in 25 years to buy the whole shbang according to news reports, but hey, consider yourself lucky if you are heading to a meal and a full belly today. Not all of us are so fortunate. Have a wonderful, safe and Happy Thanksgiving, and remember to enjoy your family!