We’ve spent a bit of time here explaining some ways to prepare for a recession next year. Sometime around the end of this past summer, it was nearly a foregone conclusion that we were on a sinking ship and a recession was looming around the bend. Well, it looks like things aren’t looking quite so bad now. In fact, we may have just about weathered the storm and next year might actually be a bit better.

According to this article in CNNMoney, a recession is not imminent: “Recession is not around the corner. The consensus of the 52 economists polled each month by Blue Chip Economic Indicators is that the economy will kick off 2008 with annualized growth at the sluggish pace of 2 percent or so in the first quarter. Then it will gradually pick up steam and close out the year chugging along at just under 3 percent (see the chart at right), roughly in line with the U.S. economy’s long-term annual growth rate.”

Still, it’s probably good advice to read through the ideas to recession proof your portfolio. You can never be too prepared for a downturn, and paying close attention to your portfolio will help you isolate weaknesses in your game plan.

Popularity: 15% [?]

If you’d like to try something a little different this year instead of the same old tired Christmas cards, you might think about some holiday photo cards. You can upload your own photographs and use them to send out christmas photo cards. VistaPrint offers hundreds of different designs you can use so that you’ll find just the right card to suit your tastes.

In addition to different designs for your holiday photo cards, you can choose different types of cards as well. There are the traditional folding cards as well as holiday postcards. Another great option is to use a collage of different photos. You simply upload up to six different photographs and VistaPrint will turn them into a collage on the front of either a folded card or a postcard.

These holiday photo cards are the perfect idea to make your cards truly personalized this year and show your loved ones you really care.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Here at PfJournal.com I’ve always been a big proponent of shopping around for any credit product such as a loan or a mortgage. With the power of the internet, looking for the best deal is much easier than it used to be. Gone are the days you headed down to your local bank for a car or personal loan. Auto Loan Financing is now just a click away if you’re in the hunt for an affordable car loan.

A great place to look for your next auto loan is AutoLoansMania.com. They provide financial services nationwide and even specialize in working on loans and financing for folks with less than perfect or problematic credit. The application is quick and easy and customer service is a big priority. Get your auto financing started at AutoLoansmania.com today.

Popularity: 14% [?]

I’ve often found that making the green choice is not only a good move for the environment, but it can lead to saving a little cash as well. I’ve written before about saving energy and money as well as saving money on gasoline.

Now, it’s time to test your GreenIQ- How Green are You? The GreenIQ is a free online quiz to see what your carbon footprint is and find out how environmental your lifestyle truly is. Once you take the quiz you can find product suggestions and tips to help you reduce your environmental impact.

GreenIQ- Reduce your Environmental Impact

Do your part to stop global warming with our online calculator that measures the pollution your lifestyle produces.

GreenIQ takes your transportation, home and lifestyle choices into account when measuring your environmental weight.

More than reduce, reuse, recycle; buy organic food, bamboo clothes and natural makeup to decrease your environmental footprint. Try our questionnaire calculate it.

Reduce your carbon emissions and environmental footprint now with these environmentally friendly products and services.

Easy tips to green your home, office, gym and travel, to make you more carbon efficient and environmentally friendly.

Celebrities like Mandy Moore and Pat Monahan are going green. Find out how hybrid cars, reusable bags, and yoga have made then score a high GreenIQ.

Our GreenIQ team of environmentalists, scientists, and eco experts define your carbon and environmental footprint and minimize your personal pollution.

Green Gift Guide
Spread some green holiday cheer with our Green Gift Guide. We’ve got gifts for everyone from divas to babies, techies to pets.

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you’re a business professional looking for a way to simplify the scheduling of meeting rooms or shared business equipment, you might want to consider NetSimplicity’s Meeting Scheduling Software. The Meeting Room Manager program is not only easy to use, but very flexible and able to be customized to fit your needs.

You can integrate NetSimplicity’s Meeting Room Manager to work from the Web, Outlook or an LCD Panel to manage everything in the meeting environment from the rooms to the equipment and more. A free trial of the program is available from their website so you can give it try and start simplifying your meeting scheduling today.

Popularity: 13% [?]

If you’ve ever been short of cash and need some money right away, a payday loan might be your answer. There are quite a few options available to you, including the online payday load service offered by Paydayloanrescue.com. They offer nationwide loan approvals for payday loans when you need cash and you need it fast.

With paydayloanrescue.com, you can optain payday loans no faxing which is a great advantage when you don’t have time to wait for a lengthy application process. In fact, if you have an open savings or checking account and make at least $800 a month, they can assist you with a loan very quickly.  You can utilize their safe and secure online application form to easily start the process and secure the cash you need right away.

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you’ve been on the hunt for a small business loan to help you grow and expand your existing business an unsecured business loan or line of credit might be your answer. At EZUnsecured.com you’ll find access to a loan with an easy application process and fast funding. If you are qualified, you can expect to be approved in 1-3 business days and you can receive your funding, depending on the lender, from 3 to 14 days after approval.

Throughout the process, you’ll be treated well with great service to help you avoid the mistakes you might make trying to tackle a business loan by yourself. EZUnsecured.com’s motto is “Unsecured Financing Made Easy”, so take advantage of a small business loan soon and help your business realize its best potential.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Interesting little article from Bloomberg on the slowdown in the economy and its affect on the rich. According to the article, “Affluent consumers, pinched by shrinking stock portfolios, falling property values and smaller bonuses, are behaving like their less-well-off peers: They’re reining in spending.” The rich have long been a bell weather of sorts for the economy and this latest news supposedly signals that things have made a turn for the worse.

Just another story in a long string of bad news that keeps rearing its ugly head. Perhaps that recession is closer than we think…

Popularity: 25% [?]

As signs begin to emerge that an economic slowdown, if not an outright recession, is imminent, investors are looking for safe investments in a bearish market. I talked a bit before about how to recession proof your portfolio as well as saving money in a recession. Well, a bear fund, or a shorting fund, might be another investment tool to add to the mix. Generally speaking, a bear fund is a mutual fund that is positioned in such a way that it makes money when the market is going down. These funds will do things such as buy put options, sell short and other investment strategies to raise the value of the fund as stocks and other markets are losing value.

Considering that the market has been on a steady rise for a long time now and is possibly poised to drop, now might be an opportune time to take advantage of a bear fund.

Popularity: 23% [?]

If you’ve recently made an investment in your house by purchasing a new floor from an online dealer you might be interested in the recent offering from iFLOOR. Since a growing number of online buyers are having problems with their warranty claims, iFloor is offering warranty protection of up to $1,000,000. You can find more details on their website and in the press release below:

iFLOOR, America’s largest online flooring retailer, today announced a $1,000,000 limited warranty designed to protect its customers from predatory manufacturer policies that exclude warranty coverage from online purchases.

The policy, which goes into effect immediately, offers up to one million dollars of coverage in the event that a customer’s warranty claim is denied specifically because they made their purchase online. It is complimentary for every iFLOOR customer, and protects the buyer under the same terms as the original product warranty.

iFLOOR, Inc. CEO, Steve Simonson, came up with the program to combat “scare tactics” used by manufacturers of hardwood floors and laminate flooring. “Their idea is to discourage you from buying at a discount!” wrote Simonson in his blog “It’s About Flooring”. “This is not right! You deserve to save money! So we’re going to take care of this problem once and for all.”

And it would appear that federal law is on his side. Section 108 of the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Act, states that, “In general, tie-in sales provisions are not allowed. Such a provision would require a purchaser of the warranted product to buy an item or service from a particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible to receive a remedy under the warranty.”

Under iFLOOR’s new warranty, a key provision allows for iFLOOR to “seek justice” on behalf of the customer in the event of legal action. According to Simonson, “I’m putting iFLOOR’s money where my mouth is.”

About iFLOOR, Inc.
Since 1998, iFLOOR.com has been the leading online and retail flooring company, with 36 local retail stores nationwide offering more than 70,000 products, including hardwood floors, laminate flooring, bamboo flooring and cork floors. iFLOOR.com is the largest online flooring retailer according to Internet Retailer Magazine, and was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States for the past three years. Committed to quality customer service, superior selection and friendly expert advice, iFLOOR.com enables customers to buy flooring both online and in its retail stores at a substantial savings over traditional retailers. For more information about iFLOOR, please visit www.iFLOOR.com.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Well, the big news yesterday was the FOMC’s decision to lower the target rate for the Fed funds rate 25 basis points from 4.75% to 4.5%. Many homeowners, or potential homeowners, looking to either refinance or get into a new mortgage might think that this is good news for them as it surely means mortgage rates will also drop. Oddly enough, however, this is not really the case.

The Fed funds rate is the Fed’s tool to try to exert some control on the economy. That is, to either rev it up a bit when things are slowing down or to perhaps reign in inflation when things are getting too hot. Recently, we’ve seen the US economy beginning to slow down, largely due to problems in the housing sector and the credit markets. The Fed fears that if the economy cools off too much we’ll head into a recession. Technically, a recession would be a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters, although that definition is not universally accepted. Regardless, the Fed tries to stimulate things a bit when there is a slowdown by lowering the fund rate to encourage borrowing and get things going.

The Fed fund rate is only indirectly tied to mortgage rates. Speaking broadly and over time, when the fund rate falls 30 year mortgage rates tend to go down as well and vice versa, but not always. The fund rate is more directly tied to adjustable rate mortgages, car loans, credit card interest rates and similar credit areas. Longer term mortgage rates might actually move in the opposite direction than the fund rate, counter intuitive though that be. The reason being that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate is more or less determined by the price of the 10-year Treasury note. That is, the yields on the 10 (and even 30) year Treasury notes are used to set the longer term mortgage rates like the 30-year fixed.

Popularity: 33% [?]

A few weeks ago I ran a short piece on saving money and energy, specifically discussing things you can do to save money on your hot water bill. One of the specific recommendations I had made, though only in passing, was a solar hot water heater. What a great way to save some money by simply using the heat and energy from the sun to supply you with hot water, even on an overcast day. The beauty of these systems, besides the fact that they harness the energy of a renewable resource, is that you will recover the cost of the system within about 4-6 years. The fact that there are many different Federal and State incentives and tax rebates to encourage the use of renewable energy will make solar heating as economical as ever.

A great source for both solar hot water heaters as well as solar air conditioning systems is SolarPanelsPlus.com. You can learn a lot more about how there systems work and the kind of savings you can expect to have utilizing solar power for heating and cooling. Considering that energy costs have been rising in recent years and don’t look like they’ll be slowing down anytime soon, now is a great time to start utilizing the power of the sun to meet your energy needs.

Popularity: 31% [?]

I’ve recently been making some renovations to my house, and as part of the finishing touch I wanted to upgrade and replace some of the furniture, particularly the dining room furniture. I was initially a little shocked at the prices for furniture these days. I guess my mindset was stuck back in college when you were happy to just have a hand-me-down dining table and an old couch. The good news is that it’s not impossible to pick up some nice furniture at affordable prices and a great place to start would be GreatPricedFurniture.com.

I hadn’t originally considered shopping online for furniture, thinking the shipping would be outrageous, but I was pleasantly surprised. They have an amazing variety of products and you can browse to your heart’s content to find just what you’re looking for. I’ve always found it hard to shop for furniture in a store since there’s usually a salesman breathing down your neck, ready to pounce on you as soon as you enter the door. At GreatPricedFurniture.com there’s obviously no high-pressure sales tactics. If you do need some help or have a quick question though, their sales department is just a quick, free phone call away.

Whether you’re just looking to make some upgrades around the house or you’re getting ready for the holidays and need a bigger dining table, you should check out the new furniture and specials featured on GreatPricedFurniture.com.

Popularity: 22% [?]

If you’ve been hunting around for restaurant or business loans, Advance Restaurant Finance might be a perfect solution for your needs. ARF specializes in providing loans for small to mid-size merchants including restaurants and retailers who might not have the best credit but are committed to taking their business to the next level.

ARF provides a simple and straightforward application process and funding is generally completed quickly. You know you can trust them because they are an actual company, licensed and regulated by the state of California, with a large, friendly staff to help you. This way, you can be sure you’ll be able to get your questions answered by a knowledgeable employee who’s interested in providing great support.

Visit the AdvanceRestaurantFinance website for more information and find out how ARF can help you improve your business.

Popularity: 25% [?]

There’s certainly a lot of obstacles a new business owner needs to overcome to get a business up and running smoothly. In the past, an expensive phone system might just be one of them. The good news now is that an extremely high quality business phone service can be yours at a very affordable price through the Packet8 Virtual Office.

If you subscribe to their Virtual Office services you can avoid a huge expense since there are no on-site hardware requirements. The system will work with your current broadband service so there’s no need for extensive and costly upgrades on equipment that you’d face with a traditional business phone service. What’s more, you can install Virtual Office in just a few minutes.

Business VoIP has never been better since you’ll get tons of great features coupled with flexible service plans and scalability to fit your particular needs. You can get unlimited nationwide and global calling in addition to all the phone features you’d find in complicated systems like voice mail, call forwarding, caller ID, auto-attendant, 3-way conference calling and much more. Basically, you’ll get all the features you’d expect to find in an expensive phone system from a traditional phone service provider.

If you’ve been looking around for a VoIP solution for your business, don’t settle for a single line plan with poor features and functionality. A Packet8 Virtual Office business VoIP system will allow you to experience a robust phone system for your business without the unnecessary hassle and expense.

Popularity: 23% [?]