Support Your Local Thrift Store

In our town there is a large new store being built and it is not a new Walmart. It is a Goodwill Thrift Store. Is this a sign of the times? A trend around the country? A rising opportunity for many to get by in difficult times? Or something else?

Increasing Use of Thrift Stores

A few days ago Donna Freedman wrote a post on her Surviving and Thriving blog site about the increased popularity of thrift shops. In her opening paragraph she shared some interesting statistics from the Savers/Value Village.

Donna Freedman Blog Header

It seems that 47%of U.S. residents report shopping at second hand stores. One-third indicate that they do so more now than three years ago.

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An Opportunity to Help Others

While shopping in the thrift stores is a great way to save money for ourselves, there is another idea I would like to focus on. These stores also give us an opportunity to help others out by contributing our unwanted items.

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A Third of Americans Are Delinquent on Their Debts

Would you believe that 35% of Americans are in collections for unpaid debt? According to a massive study just released by the Urban Institute that is the case.

What’s the Scoop About Debt?

Now you do not go into collections until the debt holder gives up and closes the account, reporting it to the credit bureaus and selling it to a collection agency. Ordinarily the debt must be over six months overdue for this to happen.

pile of debts

With two exceptions, states with the highest percentage of people into collections are concentrated in the South where incomes are lowest and the economic crisis proved more painful. Nevada, where the housing crisis was the worst, and Washington, D.C., were the other two.

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Is there a positive side at all to the debt situation? Yes, in fact there is.

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Is the American Economy About to Collapse?

Certain financial writers have been making a little news recently with sensational articles suggesting that the American economy is likely, in one popular writer’s opinion certainly, to collapse in the course of the next year—not sometime in some uncertain future time frame but over the next few months. What evidence does he have and how likely is it?

Escalating National Debt

Some of the major facts facing our economy are clear. One reason for fearing an actual collapse, rather than the existing persistent decline as debt service uses an increasing portion of the nation’s income, is that the size of the debt accelerates over time.

National Debt Chart

The national debt is sky rocketing and its escalation is near the tipping point where it will accelerate so fast it will be unstoppable. Factors beyond the Federal Reserve’s capacity to control will at some time push up interest rates dramatically if unchecked soon.

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Economic Disincentives: Woopi Goldberg and Dr. Ben Carson

There has been a lot of talk about economic disincentives recently, most of it confusing.

Recently Dr. Ben Carson appeared on The View. He and the ladies on The View, especially Woopi Goldberg, engaged in a debate that was quite significant. The problem is that they, and all the commentators I have heard, saw their views as polar opposites when they should have seen them as opposite sides of the same problem, a critical one for our nation.

Because there seems to be so little understanding of economic disincentive I thought I might share a little insight to help our readers understand what it really is and what it means.

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Food Prices Increase!

For more than a year now I have been observing the widespread anticipation of rising food prices among those who claim to be experts on the subject as well as talk among everyday shoppers as they observe trends in the local grocery stores.

No one expects anything but higher food prices in the months ahead. But how well are we prepared?

Higher Prices Are Here Already

Two Gallons of Milk

Have you been to the grocery store lately? Just a few months ago I could run down to a local store and pick up two gallons of milk for $5.00. Not any more. Yesterday my daughter told me the best advertised sale price now for two gallons of milk is $7.00!

…No really good solutions are out there, I suspect, but in general there are two things that can be done.

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Demand for Home Based Businesses

In a recent post I asked if you have you been thinking about starting your own home based business? I suggested that there may never be a better time to do it than there is today. Yes, even in this unstable economic environment. I want to explore some of the reasons for that thinking a little further.

In the last decade the number of employed people working from home has increased over twenty percent, but at the same time the number of people working in home based businesses has increased over twenty-five percent. Regulatory pressures on employers are anticipated to cause home based business growth to accelerate over the next few years.

Why a Home Based Business Now?

At the end of this year businesses across America will face a huge dilemma. The new health law will force them to make some serious decisions about how they will try to pay the increased insurance costs.

Many, perhaps most, do not have enough income to absorb this cost so what will they do? Several options are being seriously considered by many businesses.

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Is a Second Housing Crisis Imminent?

Are we past the home mortgage crisis? Or is there a possibility that there just may be a round two? If there is another round of mortgage defaults, how can we avoid getting caught up in it?

One Woman's Mortgage Problem

This morning I read about a woman who had just had her hours at work cut back. She was concerned about what to do because of the crimp it put on her budget.

In particular, her new hours did not provide enough income, as she saw it, to be able to keep up with her house payments….

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Your Outlook on the Economy
Determines Your Success!

One of the most important truths you can ever learn in life is that your thinking determines everything. The way you think shapes your life.

In no area is this more significant than in your financial life. You will never be successful with money until you see yourself and your opportunities as filled with potential rather than failure.

Mike's Money Success Attitude Story

Recently I read a great post by Mike McGroarty dealing with the economy. It isn't his particular field of interest—he promotes growing plants for sale as he has done himself—but he makes some great points in this…

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