Graduating from college is supposed to be one of the most hopeful times in a person’s life. Upon receiving a degree, the world is supposed to become your oyster and the job market is supposed to be a vast field from which you can choose the job that you like the most. For the roughly 1.5 million people graduating in 2009, however, the prospect is a bit different. While the dream scenario has been true for many graduating classes, 2009 college graduates find themselves entering the job market at the time when there is the least money available for hiring new workers. (more…)

An interesting thing happened to me last week. As a (very) belated Christmas gift, my father gave me a $100 coupon for the local department store. But he gave it to me on one proviso: that I buy something I wanted, rather than something I needed. In other words, clothes for work or kitchen equipment were out. Fun was the order of the day.

I headed out shopping, coupon in hand, and after about an hour, I hadn’t found anything that I really wanted. I only wanted to buy something worthwhile, not something frivolous that would soon sit around taking up space. When I read Philip Brewer’s Needs, Wants and Not Even Wants post I could recognize that I’ve got beyond that place where I wanted to buy something just because someone else has one, or because it satisfied some short-term want. I’ve become frugal!

I guess that’s a good thing, as I’ve got a mortgage to pay off and a retirement fund to contribute to. I’ve lost the ability to go and spend money frivolously, and that means I’m still carrying around that $100 coupon. I might even end up spending it on something I need instead - just don’t tell my father.

If you’ve been unfortunate enough to lose a professional job in the last few months, you might be amongst quite a large proportion of these people who think this interruption to their career might create a good opportunity to go back to school full time and get an MBA qualification. Apparently applications for MBA programs have had huge increases over the last few months.

All that means that if you’re applying for an MBA, you have to make sure your application is going to stand out a bit more than all the other people who are in the same situation as you. According to Annie Fisher at Fortune Magazine, your application (and interview, if you’re invited) needs to focus on the following:

• Your ethical values - give an example of your own ethical behavior in business, even if you were working for a business that might not have been entirely ethical
• Your extra-curricular activities - interests like coaching, volunteer work or adventure travel show you have positive attributes
• Your future focus - outline your career plan rather than dwelling on a job loss

She also mentions that, when there are more candidates than usual, it’s very important to follow instructions carefully and submit applications before the deadline - don’t give schools an excuse to discard your application from their large piles.

Discussing financial matters with your husband or wife can be a tense situation, especially if your financial situation isn’t too good. If your partner has a different approach to financial matters from you, or even if they’re similar but have different priorities for money you save, then there is bound to be some conflict. Trent at the Simple Dollar has some talk tactics that should help your discussion work out better, including:

• Start off by talking about your financial goals and ideas for the future
• Focus on one issue per conversation (reducing spending, or retirement planning)
• Don’t make any accusations without admitting to some of your own faults at the same time
• Be realistic with expectations, and how much change you can expect - both from yourself and from your partner
• Decide on precise tasks for each of you to do before the next conversation (for example, researching retirement plan options)
• Consider what financial or material sacrifices you are willing to make (before you start talking)
• Don’t hide any spending secrets or unpaid bills from your partner - put all the financial story on the table
• If you have trouble talking about it calmly together, consider having the conversation in another way, such as by email

Sure, you have to watch your budget a lot more carefully these days, but plenty of people think they still deserve to live a little. Yahoo came up with some useful tips on how to save money on your splurges so you can have some fun without completely blowing the budget:

• Internet service: Rather than canceling your internet service to save money, shop around to see what the prices are at the competitor - then see if you can negotiate a better deal with your current provider.
• Cell phone service: Make sure you are not paying for a larger plan than you actually need. If you’re not consistently using all the talk time or messaging services that your plan includes, then downgrade to a cheaper monthly rate.
• Cable service: Try to bundle your cable subscription with another service like your cell phone - these days you’ll often get a better deal if you use the same provider for more than one service.
• Dining out: Always high on the hit list when we think about cutting back on spending, just find ways to make it cheaper and you can still go out sometimes - for example, buying an Entertainment Book for your city, or using sites like DinnerBroker.com where you can get 30% off your meal just for making a reservation ahead of time.

You can imagine the scenario: one partner is a big spender and the other a big spendthrift, and it’s a marriage doomed to arguments and conflict forever. Or is it? Some recent tips from Laura Rowley do at least provide some hope for couples who have major financial differences of opinion.

One suggestion is to seek the aid of a financial coach who can work with both partners to reach a compromise on your financial strategies. Since a lot of your financial approach to life can be a result of your childhood and family circumstances, it’s sometimes difficult to understand where your partner’s seemingly crazy ideas are coming from - a coach will help you both explain your thinking and work together to have a compatible outlook for future saving and spending.

Another helpful way to get partners on the same financial track is to use an effective tool to manage your money - for example, finding a good piece of budgeting and money tracking software that you can both use. Some of these tools, like Mvelopes.com, include a section for discretionary spending for each individual - for example, a clothing or computer game budget per month - which means that you can each buy something you like for yourself without feeling guilty, because it’s part of the agreed budget.

If you’re interested in saving money or getting out of debt, then you’ve probably heard this advice a hundred times: “Skip your daily Starbucks coffee and you’ll save a heap of money per year”. It’s sound advice, but a recent discussion at The Simple Dollar questions whether we should be focusing on small steps like these or big steps like - as in their example - selling the jet ski we only use once a year - and probably saving more money than we would by foregoing the daily coffee at Starbucks.

But the summary of the discussion is this: the best way to personal financial stability is to take a combination of small steps and big steps. If you take a lot of small steps, like brown-bagging your lunch instead of buying out, skipping that coffee, and hiring DVDs instead of going out to the cinema, then they will add up to be the equivalent of some of the big steps. If, at the same time, you also take some big financial steps, like downsizing your home or surviving with one car instead of two, then you’ll be accumulating a whole lot more savings there.

In combination, not only will you learn to live more frugally, but you’ll be feeling more secure because you are likely to get out or remain out of debt, and to be able to save towards a your retirement, too.

If you’re one of the many people looking for work at the moment, it won’t be a surprise to hear that this is a particularly tough time to be doing so. At CNN Money they have listed a few key tips for particular groups of job hunters, and perhaps one of these will be the tip you need that snags you a good job.

• For the older unemployed: the statistics are scary, with 9% of people over 50 losing their job in the past year - but check out AARP’s website which collates all the benefits you could be eligible for, and look at Retirement.com to see a list of companies that are more likely to hire older workers.
• For the younger unemployed: teenagers without any work experience are obviously finding it especially hard to find work in the current economic climate. Take advantage of your flexibility by being able to work nights or weekends without family responsibilities getting in the way; and don’t ignore internships as a great way of getting your foot in the door.
• For everyone: take this chance to gain more skills and thus make you even more employable. This is the time when many kinds of skills courses are out there recruiting trainees and students because they know this is the time they’re most needed.

photo credit: lumaxart

When you have a child, the big decision is how soon, or if at all, to return to the workforce. Of course, there are plenty of personal factors involved here, but one major influence is often the financial situation. But make sure you take into account all the costs before deciding whether or not returning to work makes sense from a financial viewpoint:

• Calculate child care costs: This can quickly reach into the thousands of dollars. Unless you’re really career-focused, you want to make sure you’re earning significantly more than you’re paying to put your child into child care. And in this case, more children make it more expensive.
• Calculate extra costs of being at work: For example, the quick coffee that you buy on your lunch break (even if you are frugal enough to bring your lunch from home); and the extras you need to be able to be at work, for example, work-style clothing. On top of that, factor in the costs of transport or commuting both to the child care center and to your place of employment.

Once you’ve gathered this information accurately, compare that to the income you will receive by returning to work - this makes at least one aspect of the decision a little more grounded in reality, because it’s not an easy decision for many parents to make.

Everywhere you look, financial planners and economic advisers are telling us to save money for our retirement and our future. But the younger you are, the harder that is to really imagine - why should we put money away now that we can’t access for another thirty or forty years? What if I’m dead before then? What if something happens to that money and I lose it all anyway?

With these thoughts in mind, it’s useful to look into the psychology of saving for retirement. Obviously, our real “self” changes a lot from when we start working, perhaps as a teenager, and as we go through middle age, have a family, and then start looking forward to retirement - and even our attitude to money and savings will be forever changing.

Perhaps the best advice is to try to get outside of your own mind when you are looking into retirement planning and financial issues. Pat Regnier from Money Magazine put it really well:

Imagine that a court put you in charge of the finances of an elderly uncle you don’t know well. You’d set aside your own tastes and try to make prudent decisions for him. Do the same for you.