As most of you know, just a few short years ago my little one was born. One of the biggest things my wife and I had talked about was, should she be breast feed or should we use baby formula? The choice for my wife and I was an easy one, breast feeding was the best way to go. Not only is breast feeding the best for the baby, the money savings are huge. We know how much baby formula cost, it’s not cheap at all. For me I could never really figure out why the brand name formulas cost so much more. The U.S government, FDA regulates what goes into baby formula. So basically what I’m saying here is, there’s no difference between brand name formula and store brand formula, it’s the same stuff. So why can one charge more than the other, don’t get it.

With the economy in one of the worst shapes it’s ever been in since the great depression, people are scared and have no clear idea what to do with their money. The U.S markets as well as the world markets are showing signs that things are still improving slowly. But you know what, the bottom could fall out in one day, that’s how bad things still are. Me personally I review the U.S markets every hour on the hour, I drive my wife crazy reporting to her. I do this because it’s not about long term investing for me lately, it’s short term. I only care what our investments ending at for the day. I think this way because we took a really hard hit last year, and that’s not going to happen this year. Once I see a sign of bad news or a report that comes that’s not going to be good I get ready to sell. I wouldn’t recommend this to any one, because it takes a lot of watching and reading, but we need to get our money back, which we are.

Are you one of the one million plus people who have lost your job this year? And are you still unemployed, but hunting for employment? If so you’re not alone, there’s over a half a million people doing the same thing. And some professions have been hit harder than others have. For example the legal professions have been hit pretty hard with the collapse of Wall Street and big corporations. And if you’re an attorney looking for employment it could be harder to stick out. And with all these websites out they’re offering job search’s you just don’t know who to use or where you’re going to get the best results. I did come across a site that offers job searches and matches that could work for any profession, even legal jobs. Just do a simple job search via Google and you will see a ton of sites to go to. You just might have what you’re looking for to get ahead and get that new job you’ve been seeking. So click your way on over now.

I just read an article online that states that the Blu-ray Disc Association recently started to license their technology to Chinese manufactures. You all know what that means, Blu-Ray players for under $100 bucks. I hate to say it, but that’s when I’ll get one. If we could build these players and sell them at a much more affordable price I would have gotten one a long time ago. Right now these Blu-Ray players are selling for more than $200, which is way to high in my opinion. And the disc’s cost about twice as much as the standard DVD, why? I once heard that making a Blu-Ray disc was cheaper than making a standard DVD. The same happened when we went from a VHS tapes to a DVD, it was cheaper to make the DVD. At the time they where selling the DVD for twice the amount of the VHS tape. If these makers would stop being so greedy we wouldn’t need Chinese manufactures to get the pricing under control, and people would by more things made in the USA. I really feel that if the maker of anything would charge reasonable prices for their products we would be much better off than what we are now. The greed needs to stop!

With the economy in the shape that it’s in, it seems people are turning more and more to payday loans. And there seems to be no short of payday businesses or sites. I’ve never used the service of a payday provider, so I won’t even begin to tell you where to go. What I would tell you though is try to find one that offers low rates, which could be a hard thing to do. Also make sure you can fill out a secure online application. When faxing information you really have no clue whose getting the fax, so don’t do the faxing ones. And a unsecured application means anyone could see your information. So do the smart thing, if you need a payday loan make sure you research the company your applying to. And if something doesn’t look right, don’t apply.

I have a few questions for all of you. Are your fed up with your hosting provider? Does your site have a lot of down time? And do you feel that your hosting provider could deliver much better customer service? If you answered yes to any of these questions you need to seek out another provider, fast.

If you’re business website constantly goes down it will cost you money, and customers. If you’re a site owner, business or personal, you know how hard it is to find reliable web hosting, which is very critical to your business. As most of you know, when your site goes down you just want to pull your hair out. You purchase a plan, your promissed up site time, then out it goes, drives me nuts. So do what I did, research, research, and research your next provider. Call them, talk to someone on the phone. Most of these providers don’t offer toll free numbers, but that’s not a big problem. They just want to reduce the calls for low level questions. To avoid phone charges, call from your cell phone. I know I’m running on here, but I can’t stress enough, call your provider, and research them. Good luck on your searches.

During this last summer high school students were looking for summer work. Most were doing it to past the time by, others because they needed the cash and a lot of them to help their parents pay the bills. Most of these kids were looking to get the jobs at fast food restaurants and pizza shops, which count for most of the summer help hiring. But there was a problem, the summer jobs wern’t available. And the reason why is because of high fuel costs and raw materials. With no one eating out much these days, these jobs won’t be there for a long time to come. Hopefully the economy will turn around and people will start eating out more. And once this happens, the jobs will return. Good luck to all job seekers!

Are you a business owner looking to increase your sales in this economy? I am, and I’m always looking for new ways to increase my sales. Lately however it’s been really tough going with sales. It seems what ever I try to do it’s just not working like I want it to. Some of the things I have is running discounts and compiling services, selling packages basically. I’ve even lowered prices on a few of the products I offer, which has worked a little. But when you start lowering prices it underscores your products services in my opinion. And then what do you do with the customers you have paying full price, do you lower them as well? I know I would want my price lowered if I was a customer paying full price.

So I’ve been looking for new ways to get my name out there. One way is marketing offline, something I’ve never thought about before. Since all of my services and products are related to webmasters and site owners I’ve never marketed offline. I’ve been thinking about doing some direct marketing by sending out fliers. I’m even thinking about sending a postcard to some of my customers to let them Know I appreciate their business. I think by sending a full color postcard could go a far way, and hopefully bring in new customers. I know I would like to receive a great looking postcard with the vendors I do business with. The cost of a few postcards is very cheap, and the amount of business coming in could be huge. After all word of mouth is the best form of marketing. The more people you have saying great things about you will grow any business. What do some of you think about marketing online services offline, do you think it would work?

A few in President Barack Obama’s cabinet need to be fired. He needs to start with everyone in charge of protecting us from terrorists. But I have yet to hear that one person was released from their job. What is Obama waiting for, is he waiting till the terrorists kill thousands of Americans again? Obama is making a huge mistake by leaving the people in charge in place. I’m starting to question if America made the right choice. You know, just a few months ago Obama was passing the blame of all of our problems on President Bush, I think he needs to start taking blame now. I also ask myself, has Obama made any changes to our great Nation, I don’t think so. The economy is still in the toilet, and jobs are still in a free fall. And now I read that his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told AIG not to report were the bailout money is going, or were it went. This is the same man, Timothy Geithner, that got caught not paying taxes on some of his income. Remember, he came out and said sorry, then paid off his taxes. I said it a long time ago, he needs to go, he’s ask a company to hide information, a public company, he’s a robber. He was one of the main people that stepped in and pushed hard to bailout AIG, mostly because I think he had money tied up with them, or affiliates. I can’t confirm that, but that’s how I feel. Anyway, Obama is losing ground with the American people, he needs to fire a few in his cabinet. And Obama needs to remember that he works for us, the American people, and he better start doing his job if he wants it for a 2nd term.

I was just reading that the U.S. House of Reps. is looking to provide another extension to unemployment benefits. These added weeks are going to be on top of the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks. From my understanding, states pay the first 26 weeks, then the government picks up the extra weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year. Now I understand families out there are really feeling the bad economy, but come on, where is all this money going to come from? Then when the extra weeks are up, and these people still haven’t found a job then what, give another 13 weeks? Now this new bill is only for states with a high unemployment rate of 8.5% or higher, so every state won’t be included, yet. I think the government is taking the motivation out of people to get out and look for a job. I read that the recession is showing signs of coming to an end, so we don’t really need this bill, but it will pass, no one in the House or Senate will vote it down. Hopefully this recession will end very soon and we all can get back to living the normal life again. And most important, hopefully we’ve all learned something from this recession.