Facebookers and Foursquare Denizens Beware

Facebook was probably a boon to stalkers and stalker wannabes.  Given the general unfamiliarity with Facebook’s ever-changing privacy controls, you could be unwittingly letting that overly nosy frenemy or slightly creepy ex-boyfriend know all your business with accompanying photos. And who knows, you might have an inner stalker lurking inside you.  Ladies, get some help.  [...]

Living Clutter Free Does Not Happen by Accident

By Dee Dee Bass-Francis, Chaos Solutions Clutter is generally a case of mind over matter.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.  However, most of us do mind.  We mind when our homes, cars and offices become disorganized because whether we realize it or not, physical clutter creates mental clutter.   January is National Get [...]

Holidays and House Guests: Tips To Get Invited Back

With the holidays come house guests.  Do you know how to be a good house guest AND get invited back?  Sooner or later you’ll be a guest in someone’s home.  Whatever the situation, you’ll want to be considerate of your host, and leave a good impression. Here are some suggestions on how you can do [...]

Homeownership No Longer Building Black Middle Class

Kai Wright, writing in the liberal American Prospect, discusses home ownership as the foundation for black middle class and the imploding mortgage crisis’ effect on it, all told through the lens of his mother’s own foreclosure experience: For years, scholars have primarily turned to one of three measures to identify the middle class: occupation, income, [...]

Buying a House? Watch Out for Meth

If you’re in the market to buy a house and in search of deals, be careful out there.  Your neighborhood meth lab is dangerous in and of itself.  But once it gets busted it up, some house flipper or bank comes in with a few coats of new paint, perhaps a marble counter top and [...]

Scams: Hitting Us When We’re Down

So much for not hitting someone when they’re down. Scams are attacking the unemployed and homeowners.    When Nancy Dix received a letter promising to help her prevent foreclosure on her home in Ansted, W.Va., she jumped at the chance. The letter, from an organization called Mortgage Rescue, said all she had to do to save [...]

Turn Cheap Into Charming: Supermarket Bouquets

From the last glance of my retirement savings, we are still in a financial crisis/depression/generally poor economy. The much touted economic recovery may be here for months before anyone actually starts spending again. We’re still cutting back, focusing on the necessities and less on luxuries. But there are certain life luxuries that you cannot do [...]

Unsafe in Your Own Home

If you are like me, you consider your home as your sanctuary, a place you can go and block out all of the world’s nastiness, renew yourself, and be at peace. This is especially true if you live alone. Everything is in its place. You have a certain comfort. You don’t realize how much that peace and comfort is fleeting, until someone comes and destroys it.

Help for Actual Homeowners

Michelle Singletary elaborates on the government’s launch of a new website to assist troubled homeowners looking for help. The Making Home Affordable program and accompanying website arranges in one place information on the two-pronged approach of the new initiative.