Create a little side business to take advantage of the recession-era atmosphere. Start raising some chickens. Avoid car dealerships for oil changes and routine maintenance. Consider selling your home and relocating to a cave. And other ways to improve your financial outlook, if not necessarily your quality of life.
Careers & Workplace
Toss-Up: Which Is the Day’s Most Depressing Recession Story?
Today is a fine day for indulging in hard-luck stories for our hard-luck times—a.k.a., recession porn. These are tales of lost jobs, no prospects, and unemployment benefits that have run out. Or if there are jobs, they are jobs that have a 24/7 work week: no vacation, no weekends, no health insurance. And the people featured in these …
Bellweather for the Economy: The Hot Waitress Index
Sure, to get a sense of how the economy is faring, you could look at home sale prices, or unemployment stats, or what products are actually selling well at the time. Instead, a New York magazine story explores the symbiotic relationship between the attractiveness of restaurant waitstaff and the economic climate: Basically, if your …
Recession Ride Taxi Service: “Pay What You Want”
Eric Hagen may be the nicest cab driver ever. Perhaps he’s the smartest too. A full-time employee at the American Red Cross in Burlington, Vermont, Hagen recently started a new business: Recession Ride Taxi. He printed some business cards, and put the words “Pay What You Want!” on the back of the SUV that doubles as his taxi.
What Will a Cheapskate Spend Good Money On? Part VIII
When a cheapskate drops cash on something, you know it’s worthwhile. After a brief hiatus in the series of posts that explore what seriously frugal folks will spend good money on—and when cheap is the way to go—here’s another entry, from Gary Foreman, editor of The Dollar Stretcher.com.
Career Thrown Off Track? Ten Ways to Reinvent Yourself (Some of Them Serious)
The recession has lasted longer than any in history—certainly long enough for the unemployed millions to realize that their old jobs are gone for good, and that it may be time to make some dramatic career shifts.
Should Everyone Make at Least $10 an Hour?
The minimum wage just went up, from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. Many observers say that the timing of the wage hike—in the thick of the longest recession on record—is unfortunate if not counterproductive. But now a coalition of religious and community leaders is pushing for another minimum wage boost—to $10 an hour by 2010.
The New Work Environment: From Office Drones to “Co-Working” With “Digital Nomads”
Pink Floyd and Ronald Reagan would be happy: Some walls are being torn down. The walls of office cubicles, that is. The recession has quite literally pushed millions of workers out of their cubicles due to layoffs, and when people bounce back and do find work, they’re now more likely to land in an nontraditional workplace—perhaps in a …
Commute, Run Errands for $40 a Year
This is probably not going to bolster the struggling car industry, but if it helps the environment, eases road traffic, and saves folks some money, people will get over it pretty quickly. Bike-sharing, which has long been available in cities throughout Europe, and got a brief preview during last fall’s presidential conventions, will get …
The Great Recession: Is “Great” the Right Word?
Sometimes, an adjective seems inappropriate. Take “great.” It seems both overused and misused. Wayne Gretzky? No doubt about it: GREAT. Alexander the Great? Sure. Muhammad Ali? The Greatest. But plagues, wars, floods, depressions, economic panics, riots, and recessions? If any of these things are occurring, the situation seems less than …
Ten Oddball Ways to Save: Free Beer, Fighting Parking Tickets, Writing Off Expenses Like a Pro, and More
Today’s list goes beyond the basics. We all know that using coupons smartly saves money, right? To expand the amount of money you can save, you need to get creative and expand into more unusual spheres of money-saving.
How to Fire Someone—Or Just Watch a Co-worker Get Fired
It’s etiquette time. The day when someone you’ve worked with for years, or even for a few months, gets walked to the door with a box of personal items (and perhaps some pilfered notepads and pens) is awkward, to say the least. Since layoffs are so commonplace nowadays, it behooves everyone to have a clue what to do. How should the …