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Sure, having a college degree generally makes you more employable and tends to increase your average salary too - but there are still a number of professions out there that don’t require a degree and can make you salaries over $100,000 a year. According to Forbes there are a dozen or more jobs that frequently give these high earnings for people without much in the way of qualifications. The jobs include:

• Air traffic controller: The union has ensured that these important positions are well-paid but it’s pretty stressful.
• Plumber: There is meant to be a shortage of plumbers in many areas and that means their services are in high demand.
• Construction superintendent: A lot of responsibility contributes to a high salary here for those with many years of experience.
• Real estate broker: People with a knack for sales and who don’t mind working at all hours of the week can do well here.
• Data communications manager: While some might have degrees in this area, it’s not required and non-graduates can earn well.
• Police supervisor: Depending on the state, you often only need a high school diploma to enter the police service and can work your way up to positions with a high salary over time.

But it’s not all easy: most of these jobs require a lot of overtime, or a lot of stress in the form of earning through commissions, to be able to reach a high salary.

There’s (almost) no such thing as a person who can’t save, says Money Magazine - only a person who won’t. For most people, saving is a matter of being disciplined and “paying yourself first”. If you’re having trouble putting away any savings, think about these tips:

• Track your spending for a month and note categories where you could easily save money - for example, cutting down on takeaway coffee or DVD rentals. Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey stats if you want to compare your spending to the “average American”.
• Use what author Walter Updegrave names the “two line budget”. The first line is how much you earn in a month; the second line is a calculation for 10% of this amount (the percentage could be more or less if need be, but around 10% is a great start). This is the amount you should save each month, simply by putting it into your savings account as soon as your pay check arrives, before a single dollar is spent on bills or anything else.
• The other alternative to transferring your 10% into a savings account is to sign up for a 401(k) or similar through your employer - this is even better because the savings will be tax-free, your employer may be contributing extra, and you don’t actually see this money - it is taken from your pay check before it gets to you, so there is no temptation to spend it.

Wisebread.com has a tip for families suffering in the recession: send your kids out to work! Okay, it’s not quite as drastic as that, what they suggest is that now, and really at any time, there are quite a few benefits for your teenager in having a part-time job.

First of all, having a job can teach your teenager many life lessons early on - how to save money, how to be responsible, punctual and hard-working, and how to juggle commitments and responsibilities. And it can also help the family out if your teenager can earn their own spending money rather than totally relying on the parents.

But of course, you have to be careful. First, make sure all the legal requirements are met (for example, fourteen years old is the minimum working age across the United States, but many other local restrictions apply, like how many hours they can work in a week). Make sure that you set limits on working time yourself, so that your child doesn’t end up focusing more on the fun of earning money than on their schoolwork.

To help your teenager find a job, there are a few strategies including asking around amongst people you know, and dressing nicely to take a resume around to prospective employers in the neighborhood. And don’t forget that even seemingly mindless, boring jobs can be great life lessons for kids, so don’t overlook them.

We might not be able to do too much these days about choosing our employers - most workers are happy just to have one - but nonetheless having a read of Fortune Magazine’s best company to work for lists is interesting. Some of the highlights from their statistics for the best 100 companies in the United States for 2009 include:

• The top 5 companies to work for: NetApp, Edward Jones, the Boston Consulting Group, Google and Wegmans Food Markets.
• Companies who pay 100% of health insurance premiums for their employees: From the top 100, just 15 companies did this, including Microsoft, SAS and the Boston Consulting Group.
• Highest paid employees: The average salary at Bingham McCutchen is over $256,000.
• Companies where employees feel they have a good work-life balance: In the top ten are SAS, MITRE, the Camden Property Trust and Mattel.
• Interesting extras: employees at Wegmans Food Markets get discounts on their groceries; at Devon Energy, they get larger 401(k) contributions; and at Vanderbilt University, employees can get scholarships for their children.
• Locations of the top 25 companies: They’re spread down both the east and west coasts of the United States, with a number in central states like Texas as well.

While the financial crisis might feel like it’s hitting our own bank accounts hard, as individual consumers we sometimes forget that it’s also a tough time for companies, and that they don’t want to lose us as customers. But it’s something we should remember, as proven by an article on negotiating phone bills on Yahoo’s Finance section.

In this story, there’s a great example for us to follow: a customer of AT&T who was frustrated by a high monthly bill for his television, internet and telephone service rang them up to ask for a discount, telling them that because of the tough economic situation, he didn’t think he would be able to continue paying such a high fee for long. Instead of the 10% discount he was hoping for, they cut his charges by almost half for the next year - because they don’t want to lose a customer. So as consumers it’s really important to think of the consequences - if a company loses us as customers completely, they’ll lose a lot more money than if we pay a bit less. And as always, if you don’t ask, you don’t get - so don’t be afraid to try and negotiate cheaper rates for your regular payments. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Living life simply can often mean you live life a little more cheaply, and so it’s no surprise that the suggestions on the On Simplicity blog for being thrifty are pretty useful. From the original story and the helpful comments of readers, there are all kinds of useful tips for saving a bit of money, including:

• Plan your meals for two weeks at a time, do one big shop every two weeks and then have no need to go out for fast food at all.
• Clean your house with white vinegar and baking soda instead of buying expensive cleaning products.
• Don’t leave your present buying until December - be on the lookout for Christmas gifts (and birthday presents) all year round so you can pick some up at discount prices and avoid the end of year craziness. And shop for Christmas cards and decorations on December 26, when they’re the cheapest of all.
• Learn to mend or alter clothing so that it lasts longer and you don’t need to buy new clothes so often.
• Buy fruits that are in season rather than paying a fortune for imported fruits out of season.
• If you take your kids to a restaurant, buy them one adult meal to share instead of two kids’ meals - as well as being cheaper it is usually a healthier option.

Unfortunately, it’s probably too late for those who had planned to retire in the next couple of years and have just discovered the retirement savings have been so dramatically reduced that they will now have to work a few years longer - but for the next generation of workers, there are a few things you can do to try to avoid such a scenario. Of course, nobody has a crystal ball to see the economy of the future but The Simple Dollar does have some realistic suggestions on tactics that will help lower the risk of the same thing happening:

• Contribute a bit more than is “theoretically” needed to your retirement plan. Adding an extra 1 or 2% won’t make a big difference to your current lifestyle but the compounding effect will definitely help in retirement.
• Change your investment strategies throughout your life. Investing more aggressively when you are younger is fine; as you approach retirement, change your mix to be more conservative - you no longer have the time to wait for the economic cycle to go back in your favor. Some retirement plans will do this automatically for you if you choose their “target retirement fund” options.
• Don’t put any of your money into an investment that you don’t understand or that seems to risky to you. And don’t be afraid to ask plenty of other people for help and advice.
• Assume that you will also do some part-time work in the early years of your retirement, so there will be some additional income to help you out at the start. This is becoming increasingly common as people are still active and healthy when they reach retirement age.

Having (and sticking to) a budget is one of the key ways to become debt free and manage your money well. Yet plenty of people who try to run their finances according to a budget fail, and that’s probably because they’re making common mistakes that mean failure is much more likely. Here are some key features of a successful budget to help you out when planning where your money will come from and where it will go:

• Make sure categories are appropriate for your personal situation, rather than just copying categories from somebody else’s suggested budget categories.
• Don’t forget to include expenditure that doesn’t happen monthly - for example, maintenance costs of your car which might only occur twice year.
• Ensure that you take account of cash that you spend as well, not just what gets put on the credit card or you write checks for. It’s easy to “not notice” the couple of dollars you spend on a coffee each day, but it adds up quickly throughout the month.
• Include “savings” as an expenditure category so you can “pay” into your savings account (or investment or emergency fund, for example) the same way as you would pay a bill.
• Don’t make the categories and information required for tracking your spending so detailed that you give up doing it because it’s too labor-intensive.

College students and anyone who has just turned 18 are targets for credit card companies looking for new customers, but if your 18-year-old is either still living at home or is financially dependent on you and away at college, then the decision on whether or not they should get a credit card fairly lies more with the parents. A recent post at About’s Financial Planning site had a good discussion about the pros and cons of giving a teenager a credit card, and the end result: usually, the best answer is yes, sign them up.

But of course, there must be rules to go with their new found credit freedom, if parents are the ones who have to foot the bill. For example, it should be used to pay for something that the parents have already agreed to pay for (gas for the car, for example) or only in case of emergency.

One of the biggest benefits of getting your 18-year-old a credit card is that they can begin to develop some credit history. Length of credit is an important factor in calculating credit scores so if they are able to use a credit card without creating debt from a young age, that stands them in good stead. But the key thing is that they should treat the card as a bill that must be paid off in full at the end of every month.

That all important credit rating can make a big difference to what loans you can get and how much interest you’ll pay, so these tips on ways you can ruin your credit can remind us of the best ways we can act to be sure we don’t damage our credit score, wherever possible:

• Don’t forget to pay a bill on time. Sure, if you can’t get to the post one day and your payment arrives a day late - one time only - it’s unlikely to have any effect on your credit score. But make it a habit to pay your bills on time or early.
• Don’t spend up to your credit limit. The ratio of your debt compared to your credit limits is a big factor in calculating your credit score. Experts recommend spending no more than 10% of your credit limit.
• Don’t cancel all your old credit cards. Keep one or two credit cards that you have a long history with as this will help your credit score.
• Don’t sign up to a dozen new cards a year. Ignore all the offers that land in your mail box. Stick with the cards you have and your credit score will like you a whole lot more.
• Don’t borrow money you don’t actually need just because somebody thinks it will help your credit score.