Personal Finance

There's no easy way to survive a recession, but with a few basic strategies in place, you can weather the worst of economic storms.

1. Keep your job. The best way to survive in tough economic times is to stay employed. Don't rock the boat, at least until you find a new boat to jump on to. And if you are lucky or skilled enough to be employed, put as much money aside as you can, because a layoff could be around the corner. It can take years to make up for income lost after a layoff, so having a reserve fund is smart.

2. If you lose your job, find another one.  Finding a job -- especially in a recession -- is difficult, but it's the best way to survive a recession. If you've been laid off, remember that a layoff is usually out of your control and has little or nothing to do with your work performance. It's important to keep your confidence up as you hunt for your next job. Since it could be as much as three years before job creation catches up to the end of the recession, plan for stamina.

3. Save money. If you can't control your income, you'll have

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Finding the best refinancing, or the best time to refinance a home mortgage loan, can send even the most mathematically capable homeowner running for cover. But with a few basic tips, finding the best refinancing terms can make affording your home a lot easier.

First, realize that timing the financial markets is almost impossible, so if you see a good interest rate you want, jump on it quickly and have your refinancing application completed and ready with a loan officer.

It's also a good idea to start with a mortgage calculator to find out what type of loan you want, interest rate and how much you should expect closing costs to be.

A good rule when looking for the best refinancing options is this: It's a good time to refinance if you can save at least 1% in interest on a loan similar to yours. So if you have a 30-year fixed rate loan, look for the same loan at 1% less than what you have now.

For anyone with an adjustable-rate mortgage or a balloon payment, finding the best refinancing and a low, fixed-rate mortgage is a good idea as the Fed considers raising interest rates.

What are the top finance blogs? Searching for a quality source of financial information -- for personal use or just for tracking your favorite companies -- is no small order. The amount of financial information available online is staggering. Finance blogs have risen in recent years as an excellent source to locate not only factual information about all things money; they've become an excellent source of opinion and analysis. From company quarterly report tracking and live-blogging, to time-tested tips on 529 savings plans and when to refinance your mortgage, these finance blogs put an interesting and fresh spin on what many consider to be boring financial information. Without a good deal of financial know-how, though, most folks would be up a creek without a paddle in a manner of speaking.

Where should you go for your financial blogging fix, then? There are some excellent sources in this arena, and we'll just deal with the top 10 here. Ready? Here we go:

1. Seeking Alpha
This finance blog is more geared towards those in the stock market more than anything. Seeking Alpha has a bevy of good writers who do their research, write intelligently and time what is written to the beat of the market every day. If "alpha" is not in your investing vocabulary, you might want to look elsewhere first and brush up on your market knowledge. After that, return to Seeking Alpha and jump in. you can even...

Finding the best refinancing, or the best time to refinance a home mortgage loan, can send even the most mathematically capable homeowner running for cover. But with a few basic tips, finding the best refinancing terms can make affording your home a lot easier.

First, realize that timing the financial markets is almost impossible, so if you see a good interest rate you want, jump on it quickly and have your refinancing application completed and ready with a loan officer.

It's also a good idea to start with a mortgage calculator to find out what type of loan you want, interest rate and how much you should expect closing costs to be.

A good rule when looking for the best refinancing options is this: It's a good time to refinance if you can save at least 1% in interest on a loan similar to yours. So if you have a 30-year fixed rate loan, look for the same loan at 1% less than what you have now.

For anyone with an adjustable-rate mortgage or a balloon payment, finding the best refinancing and a low, fixed-rate mortgage is a good idea as the Fed considers raising interest rates.

If you're in the market, you probably want to analyze your holdings and stock market results from time to time. Who doesn't? Although most financial experts suggest not obsessing over your portfolio and/or your specific stock market results too often, you need to know what facts and figures really count when you do. What do all those terms mean and what should you look to maximize and minimize? Over what periods of time?

The first rule of thumb: look at any stock market result metric on at least a yearly basis -- nothing shorter. The market gyrates way too much from day to day for you to be able and make any solid judgment on any stock result within a few weeks, a month or even half a year. The metric most can easily understand - rate of return -- can either be positive or negative. If you purchased shares of a mutual fund or individual stock share for $100, and the value of that stock or mutual fund share was $110 after a year, you would have made a positive 10% rate of return. That is, your ending price ($110) divided by your cost ($100). If the value of your share(s) were only $90 at the end of a hypothetical year, then your negative rate of return would be -10%.

Most financial calculators that help you plan for future events like college savings, home down payments and retirement use a 10% or 12% positive rate of return to zero on potential stock market results so you can easily find the number of years you have to build that veritable nest...