According to various measurements, the price of food and energy have increased anywhere from 6% to 9% in the past year. Meanwhile the interest rate on savings accounts have been slashed dramatically to less than 2%. In this environment, it is easy for a saver to feel like a fool, but there are ways you can mitigate the effects of inflation and still save for the future.

levitra overdose- Obviously, you can’t stockpile fresh food for very long, but you can certainly keep quite a bit of dried, canned, and freezable goods.  If you have room for storage, things like pasta or wine can be kept for a pretty long time. Sales are even better for stockpiling. For example, in my story about I got quite a bit of pasta roni,canned tomatoes, and toothpaste for very little money. Now I wish I bought more because we went through the food pretty quickly. Stockpiling food is a form of non-financial investment that could pay off better than stocks as long as you do eat the food before it goes bad.
levitra overdose – I have a few stock holdings that have been giving out very high dividends. The ones I own are mostly natural resource and mineral stocks. I’m not an expert in stock picking, though, so the percentage of my individual stock holding is about 6% of my entire portfolio. There are a lot of ways to pick your dividend stocks and a simple and popular method is In the current market, you have to be careful with the stocks that give too high of an yield because some of them may be dying financial services. As always, do your research before you invest.
levitra overdose – If buying a house makes sense in your area it may be a good hedge against inflation. I am a staunch bubble sitter here in because home prices are still way too high to justify buying a home. If inflation actually drove rent to within 10% of mortgage prices, I would consider buying, but the situation I am facing now is that home prices are falling but rent is still 1/3 to 1/2 the price of a mortgage on a comparable unit. However, if you can afford a home and in your area it is cheaper to buy than rent, it makes sense to buy a house to protect yourself against further rent hikes. As long as you get a fixed rate mortgage, your payments will stay the same throughout the term of a home loan.

I am sure there are many other ways people protect their savings from inflation. I have read that many people invest in I-Bonds or TIPS, which have variable rates related to inflation. I actually own some I-Bonds because they are state tax free. The problem is that these treasury bonds fluctuate with the core inflation rate, which doesn’t include food and energy. The result is that the return is lower than the real inflation, but they are generally better than dumping all your money in the bank or in a money market. The key is that you can manage your money well and diminish the effect of inflation when you put a little time into it. What have you been doing to fight inflation?

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CNN Money is running a slideshow where people have sent in their photos and stories about how they are doing in the current economic atmosphere. A lot of these stories are pretty sad and involve people losing their homes, businesses, and jobs. Here are some of the stories that stood out to me and not all of them are bad.

– I liked this story because the girl is about the same age as me and she’s got things figured out.

- This couple seems to be doing just fine, too. They are cutting back, but they’re not in dire straits.

– This is a great story with a bit of advice – if you need something , start saving for it early.

- This story made me laugh. If I just waited a few months to deposit a wedding gift from my dad’s cousin from Canada I would have gotten more money, too.

– This is a couple who are savers, and felt that their money have been eaten away by inflation and they have been fools for not spending their money. This is why investing money in things other than CDs could help.

- The guy on the picture just looks scary.

– When I read this story I thought, hey a $250 commute a month really isn’t that much. My hubby and I spend about $200 a month on gas, too.

– This guy makes a lot of sense. A lot of these people who are in trouble can’t blame everything on businesses and the government, they have to be self sufficient.

– I liked this story. It’s nice to see that someone sees the silver lining in a bad situation.

– Here is a story that annoyed me a little bit, because the woman says “like most we carry $17,000 in credit-card debt and don’t have much in savings”. I don’t know if that is true for most people because $17,000 in credit card debt is definitely above average.

There are currently 51 stories and you can submit your own. I think there needs to be more positive stories amidst all the dreary news.

Hello everyone, welcome to the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances for the week of April 7th, 2008. In this edition we have more than forty articles on a variety of financial subjects that twenty somethings could learn about. Read on for some financial enlightenment!

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Investing Man presents posted at . This reminds of my post where . Investing Man’s article expands the idea to all types of negotiation.

Finance Girl presents posted at . Finance Girl followed and wrote about her childhood money memories. There are some great stories here!.

Monevator presents posted at . Monevator gives great advice about not panicking in this economic environment. This is a very detailed and well written article.

Tip Diva presents posted at . This is a pretty interesting list of tips. I haven’t gone dumpster diving, but in the past I have gotten clothes, furniture, and books that were discarded on the side of the street. I am wearing a pair of my neighbor’s unwanted jeans right now.

Sarah presents where she discusses how expensive a diploma really is! I never got my diploma because I was too lazy to order it. I think it’s still in Sproul Hall somewhere and employers verify everything online these days so I never needed my physical paper diploma.

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Heather Johnson presents posted at .

GBlogger gives us posted at

zork presents posted at .

Dividend Growth Investor presents posted at .

Livingalmostlarge presents posted at .

Faron Benoit presents posted at .

Seb presents posted at .

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Michael Bass presents posted at .

Steve Faber presents posted at .

FIRE Finance presents posted at .

Shuchong presents posted at .

Ray presents posted at .

Michael Bass presents posted at .

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Ted presents posted at .

Patrick A. Sizemore presents posted at .

Realm of Prosperity presents posted at .

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Shanti presents posted at .

Tracy Kiss presents posted at .

Passive Income Investor presents posted at .

Karin Verbeek presents posted at .

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Wenchypoo presents posted at .

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Sally Thompson presents posted at .

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Rio presents posted at .

Charles H. Green presents posted at .

David Carter presents posted at .

Richard M. Rothschild presents posted at .

Jorge H. presents posted at .

Moneywise presents posted at .

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Ana presents posted at .

Dorian Wales presents posted at .

Roshawn Watson presents posted at .

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David presents posted at .

KCLau presents posted at .

That is all for this edition. Thank you all for submitting your wonderful articles and make sure to link back and promote the carnival via social bookmarks! If you want to participate in the next carnival it will happen in two weeks and you can .

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An it might be, is not the answer to situation. The solution is learning to spend wisely. This means resisting borrowing a of any sort on your . Even if you have a , retaining it is the best measure.

Even though this is old news, I couldn’t believe what I read.  A company in Oak Park called Chicago Spectro Service Laboratory Inc. created phony statements every year and lied about the contributions they made to their employees’ profit sharing plan.  The result is that an engineer who worked for them for 30 years found out that instead of $200,000 he had nothing in his retirement fund. The engineer had to endure five years of litigation to get a settlement that paid him $3000 a month.  Apparently theft from 401ks and other pension plans is quite common in small companies where the plans are not audited. So what can you do about it?

levitra overdose – Obviously, when your company actually fakes the statements this would not help.  However, you can still check for irregularities.  For example, does the contribution on the statement match what is deducted on your paycheck?  Some companies steal money by withholding your contributions.  Basically, they deduct the money from your check and never deposit it.

levitra overdose – No matter what you invest in for your retirement plans, you should know approximately how much you have.  It could fluctuate according to the market, but any fluctuations that are larger than normal should be looked at.  It could be possible that your company withdrew money from your account.

levitra overdose – Some shady companies do deposit their employees’ money, but they do it very slowly and collect the float on the money they take.  By law your money should be deposited into your account by the 15th of the month following the deduction.  Federal regulators are thinking of shortening this deposit period to seven days after the deduction because too many companies are waiting until the last minute and shafting their employees.

levitra overdose- A recent case where an employee sued his company for mismanaging his 401k is due to the company’s negligence in carrying out his instructions to move his investments.  This kind of incompetence is pretty common, and you have to check that your retirement plan administrator follows your instructions through statements and paystubs.  For example, my hubby had to bug his HR repeatedly to get his 401k contribution percentage changed. The process should have taken just one or two paycycles, but instead it took about 3 months because his HR just neglected his request.

levitra overdose – It seems that quite a few companies raided their employees’ 401ks due to their own financial troubles.  If it seems that your company is dying out, it might be best to leave the company and take your money with you in a rollover IRA.  You have more control of your money with your own IRA and you have more investment options.

The good news is that most companies with more than 100 employees generally have their retirement programs audited yearly.  If your account is in a reputable financial firm such as Fidelity or Vanguard you also have less to worry about because these financial firms will do a lot to protect their own reputations. It is a shame that some employers would betray the trust of their employees and raid their nest eggs, but stealing and embezzlement is against the law  and if you discover such illegal activity you should blow the whistle for the good of your retirement.

Recently I read an article about financial planners talking with their clients about their childhood.  The point is that events that happened in childhood often shape how we manage our money.  So I thought about it, and I took a trip down memory lane. Here are a couple of my most distinct childhood memories about money, and how they relate to how I manage money now.
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When I was 4 or 5 my mom sent me to the corner store to buy a box of crayons.  I think it cost about 8 fen (1 fen is 1/100th of a yuan, the official currency of China).  So I clutched the coins in my hand and walked to the store. When I got to the store I laid down my money and asked for the box of crayons, and the storekeeper told me that I didn’t have enough money!  It seems that I lost a couple coins on the way. So I walked home with the coins I had and told my mom.  My mom gave me a couple more coins and told me to try again.  So once again I skipped and hopped to the store.  I put down my coins again, and unfortunately I didn’t have enough money again.  So I sulked a little and went home.  My mom laughed at me a bit, and decided to come along.  She asked me where I walked and I showed her, and she found the three or four coins I dropped.  Finally I got my box of crayons with my mom’s help.

I still sort of remember the fence I walked by and the grass I hopped on, and my mom repeats this story ad nauseum to whoever would listen because she thinks it’s hilariously cute.  I think this is an incident that made me wary of carrying cash in my hands. It has been twenty years since it has happened, but I still don’t like carrying a lot of cash because I fear I would lose it. Another habit instilled by this event is that I look at the ground .

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When I was about 12 my family lived in Hawaii, and we were quite low income because my parents were both immigrant graduate students. My dad tells the story of being a minimum wage souvenir salesman .  Anyway, we needed some photos developed and my dad went to the supermarket and dropped off the film. They had an advertisement that said if you choose express developing and they don’t deliver the film by 9am then they will give you the photos for free.  My dad fell for the advertisement and ordered express development.  Then the next day he sent me to pick up the photos.  Usually it cost $4 to $5 to develop a roll, but because of my dad’s folly the final bill came out to be $11.29 or something.  I handed over the money on the verge of tears because it just felt like I lost something.  Then I went home with the photos and cried.  Then my mom asked me why I was crying and I said that dad made us pay extra money for photos.  She kind of laughed at me again, but chided my dad a little bit for falling for the supermarket’s ploy and making me cry.

Of course, these days my mom makes fun of me for this incident, too.  I cried because I felt tricked, but also because I knew that money was hard to come by in my family at that time.  This was a time when we bought the overripened produce and clipped every coupon to survive, and $11 was a lot of money. Because of this incident I am very against paying for extras tacked on by stores and anything that is “express” or “premium”.  For example, I don’t buy extra warranties offered by stores, and I always just get the cheapest or free shipping.

Anyway, this post was very therapeutic for me and I hope you were amused by it. It is kind of funny to look back, but these memories do explain why I have such a cautious and frugal attitude towards money.  What are some of your childhood memories about money? Do they explain how you treat money now?levitra overdose