Working people aren’t expecting a significant 2010 cost of living raise any time soon, but they are expecting higher food prices. While trying to pinch every penny in their food budget, many are turning to home gardening. Home and garden centers are trying to turn a nice dime too, by offering plants that people can just put in their garden and cultivate for a vegetable garden. Most of these are annuals, which means you may get a good crop of cucumbers, but if you buy plants you’ll have to buy them again next year. There are several strategies you can use to help you still get the vegetable and fruit garden you want, without wasting too much money on purchasing plants yearly.

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Recession gardens are all the rage this year, and why not? Growing a vegetable garden is one of the best ways to hedge against higher food prices or a lower income, just as when our elders had to grow victory gardens to learn how to survive a depression. One thing to keep in mind when first starting out is that you want to start small and keep track of your gardening budget and expenses. By tracking them each year, you can see where you made more money or lost money, and eventually refine your garden methods to help you preserve wealth, not spend it. You want to make the most of every dollar so that the tomatoes that you grow don’t end up costing way more than if you had simply stopped off at the grocery store.

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You may have decided that the best way to save on a vacation this year is just to stay put. That’s what the media has recently been calling a “staycation.” Granted, traveling costs are a large part of the expense of a vacation, but just because you’re staying home doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy yourself with some fun budgeting ideas for a staycation. Take a look and see how you can make this year’s staycation rival even your best vacation plans.

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You might be wondering how you can afford a vacation this year, what with the fall out from the credit crisis. Things may be getting better, but you may still feel a bit uneasy about spending too much, particularly when it’s a non-essential like having fun. Don’t worry! You don’t have to give up taking some time to enjoy yourself, particularly when you focus on these family vacation ideas on a budget.

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The Internet is an amazing world where you can find just about anything and information about many things. As time has progressed, it has become easier and easier to get part time jobs on the Internet as well as find a traditional job on the Internet through jobsite searches and most companies have streamlined their human resources department to a heavy web-based model. With SEO and online marketing becoming more and more popular every day, it is no surprise to see people create new and inventive ways of making money online. The lure of working from home is one that is very pleasing to single and stay-at-home moms and can be great for the disabled.

Sometimes there are things we just can’t do ourselves and we hope that we can find someone to do it and cheaply. We can surf Craigslist hoping to find someone, but there is a new website, Fiverr.com, that allows us to pay a small $5 charge to have tasks done for us. It is a great way to get something simple done for us when we just don’t have the time to do it due to our busy schedule. There are various tasks available such as photo manipulation or caricatures of pictures done for you in a flash, the sky’s the limit and you can also make money by offering your quirky services to the public.

Regardless of what you offer, you will make $4 on the task as the website takes $1 of your earnings to pay for their hosting and administrative costs, so many of the tasks are quick and sometimes do not live up to the hype, but for $5 you can expect perfection. Although the website is interesting, it is not going to replace Craigslist or any of the freelance design websites that using a bidding format to get work for struggling designers and artists. The main draw of this website is the low cost and the fun things you can find for people to do for just a few bucks.

Assessing the wealth of a cartoon character is something of a difficult task, considering that their wealth, like everything else about them, is completely fictional. Some organizations have made the attempt over the years, however, and what follows represents the opinions of those experts in the field of cartoon wealth. Some of the most well-heeled cartoons will be quite predictable and others may come as a genuine surprise. (more…)

Counterfeiting. It can range from everything from jokingly placing a dollar bill in a Xerox machine, to a real threat to our national security.  Think that’s an exaggeration?  Most consider counterfeit currency as merely an illegal means to accumulate wealth.  On the contrary, some of the most large-scale counterfeiting scams in history have been when one government floods a rival government with fake currency in order to weaken that rival government’s economy.  The British did it to the Americans during the Revolutionary War, and the Union did it to the Confederacy during the American Civil War.  This is why counterfeiting is often punishable by death.  It is equated with treason.  Fortunately today, a vast number of security measures are in place to protect much of the world’s currency.  But the problem still goes on. (more…)

They’re not just artists, they’re impresarios. Hip hop’s highest earners own record labels, restaurants and million dollar clothing lines. And when they’re not topping the charts, they’re hawking everything from booze to books. Here’s a look.

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photo credit: 96dpi

A recent Yahoo Finance report looked at a big bunch of research studies that examined various reasons why some people earn a higher salary than others. Some of the results were very surprising, and if the statistics are true, some of us just can’t help but earn less than others - and vice versa. Of course, statistics can often be manipulated to make the survey results more interesting, but perhaps there’s some truth in the matter? Have a look at this list to see whether or not you have a chance of earning more in the future.

• Taller people earn more than shorter people.
• Left handed people get paid more than right handed people - and college graduates who use their left hand earn around twenty per cent more than right handed college graduates
• People who drink alcohol have a higher salary than those who don’t.
• If you’re a man, and married, you make more money than a single man.
• Gay women who live together earn 10% more than woman living in a heterosexual marriage.
• Women tend to choose majors at college that end up paying them a lower salary - at least this is one point that we can actually change!

photo credit: paul goyette

Scouring the internet is a great way to acquire knowledge, but there are few things better than a comprehensive book, written by an expert. That’s why, if you’re trying to build your personal finance library, it’s best to start with the basics. The following books pour are like a personable, accessible course in Personal Finance 101, giving you a solid base on which to grow your knowledge. (more…)