You heard it here...

Stock downturns. Declining house market. These are things you don't have control over. But on the home front, it's another story. Here's a list that can help you get the year started off right:

Keep a record of where your money goes. Look at your spending over the past three months. Leave nothing out. And then, cut expenses where you can.

Change your energy consumption habits (turn your thermostat down five degrees and save 10% in fuel costs).

Watch what you spend for food (avoid frozen dinners - you'll be paying $300 a pound for those veggies on the side).

Try to establish an emergency savings fund that will cover three to six months of expenses. 

Make sure your savings and checking accounts are FDIC-insured. 

If you're facing a mortgage foreclosure, look into Hope for Homeowners (a federal program that can help refinance mortgages for borrowers who are having difficulty making their payments).  

If you didn't qualify for the 2008 financial stimulus and your income has fallen dramatically, you could qualify for a "recovery rebate credit" on your 2008 tax return.  See IRS's Recovery Rebate Credit explanation.

If you're a first-time homebuyer, look into the new tax credit from the IRS that can equal up to 10% of your home's purchase price, up to $7,500.  

Amp up your 401(k) contributions if retirement is more than 10 years out (you should be putting away 10% to 15% of your income).  

Clean up your own credit (get a free copy of your credit report and look carefully for incorrect, misreported or out-of-date information).

Decoder: The 'multiplier effect'
By: Sally Herships for Marketplace Money

The Obama administration says the economic stimulus plan's price tag will be worth the cost -- and then some -- because of something called the "multiplier effect." What does that mean? Sally Herships explains.

Tess Vigeland: Congress will keep wrangling over the economic stimulus plan this week. President Barack Obama upped the pressure on lawmakers. He said the bill isn't perfect, but that the failure to act would turn the economic crisis into a catatrosphe.

He's been trying to sell the idea that all this massive government spending is worth it. In part, because of something called a multiplier effect. You'll be hearing this term a lot: Multiplier. But, what does it mean?

Sally Herships: The multiplier effect is all about spending and generating a return for the economy. Justin Wolfers is a professor of business and public policy at Wharton. He says, say the government builds a bridge:

Justin Wolfers: The money it spends turns out to be income for someone else say a construction worker, that construction worker with his or her greater income will maybe go and buy more groceries.

The grocery store owner now has more income.

Wolfers: Maybe he'll need to hire extra cashiers.

And maybe they'll all need to go and buy new clothes.

Wolfers: And so on.

So the multiplier is simply the way the government's spending ripples through the economy. Say you drop a stone in a pool. The first wave is like the money the government pays our construction worker. The subsequent ripples are weaker but they spread across a wide area. Justin Wolfers says Obama's economic experts are estimating the multiplier, or the sum of those subsequent ripples, will be 1.6 times the initial amount.

Wolfers: So government spending has a multiplied effect on gross domestic product. The overall effect is going to be bigger then the initial effect.

The administration's talking about spending almost a trillion dollars. It's hoping that'll generate $1.6 trillion throughout the economy. But Wolfers says no one's sure that'll happen.

Wolfers: We're tremendously uncertain about it. We economists are always both absolutely friendly and always at war. What is the multiplier? Is it zero? Is it five? Or does it lie somewhere in between and as a result how big should this stimulus package be?

You've got to get the initial spending number right Wolfers says. If it's too small, the economy may not budge. But if the number's too large, and the government doesn't have the cash on hand, well back to our imaginary bridge for a moment.

Wolfers: In order to fund that bridge the government's going to have to borrow money. If the government's borrowing money it may be that there's less money available for the private sector to borrow.

And taking money out of the mouths of the private sector will crimp growth, which isn't multiplying anything.

Another view on the current economical crisis

Returning to the Gold Standard? 
Interesting comments in a video interview with Congressman Ron Paul.  Watch it here

Http: vs Https:// ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim Knudsen

Maybe you already knew this,  but I thought it was important enough to send even if you already know. The main difference between http:// and https:// is that it is all about keeping you secure.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, which is just a fancy way of saying it's a protocol (a language, in a manner of speaking) for information to be passed back and forth between web servers and clients.

The important thing is the letter S which makes the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.
 
The S (big surprise) stands for "Secure."  If you visit a website or webpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following: http:// this means that the website is talking to your browser using the regular 'unsecure' language. In other words, it is possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website. If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site. This is why you never ever enter your credit card number in an http website!

But if the web address begins with https://, that means your computer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on.  You understand why this is so important, right?
 
If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, you should automatically look to see if the web address begins with https://. If it doesn't, there's no way you're going to enter sensitive information like a credit card number.

A chuckle or two or even a gasp...

Gotta See These Houses ~ Thanks to Mr. Richard DeBiaso

What's With That Really Expensive House? is a voyeuristic special with a humorous edge. The show takes the viewers behind the closed doors of the most talked about houses in the neighborhood to meet the interesting characters who live there and tour their unique interiors. This special takes What's With That House one step further by checking out 10- 40 million dollar homes and asking the question: does anybody really need 14 bathrooms?

Here's the link to the show: Really Expensive Houses

Did you see that? ~ Thanks to Ms. Florence Pierson

The Presidents ~ Thanks to Ms. Florence Pierson

This is interesting. It’s the presidents morphing from one into another.

 The 44 Presidents - very unusual.

Worth a thousand words...

Before we say so long...