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Were you recently let go? Do you know someone who just lost their job? This past week my mother lost her job. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows someone who has lost their job this year.

You can survive unemployment and put that pink slip behind you. Here's how:

1.Tell Everyone and Their Mom You Got Sacked

Are you ashamed you got laid off? Get over it. It probably wasn't anything personal.

Your best shot at a new (and better) job is by telling everyone you know you've been let go. It's time to cash in all those favors you did the last decade. Get the word out that you are looking for a new job, and would appreciate any help. Unless you're a total jerk, more than a few people will want to help you out.

2. File for Unemployment as Soon as Possible

You've been paying unemployment taxes your whole working life. Don't let your pride get the best of you. Take the checks. There is nothing wrong or shameful in this. File with your state unemployment office.

3. Lock Away Your Credit Cards

Now is not the time to go on a spending spree to ease your pain. Cut out all non-essential spending from your budget. You don't know how long you'll be unemployed. Those unemployment checks won't cover much more than housing and maybe some groceries.

4. Take One Day to Mope, Then Get to Work

You might be tempted to take a vacation to ease your pain, especially if you received a nice severance package from your old job. Don't do it.

Take one day to mope, and then get off your butt and on the phone. Start working your personal network, craigslist, old co-workers, your creepy neighbor, and anyone who could help you land your perfect job.

What's your dream job? Why not take this opportunity to go for it?

5. Get the Family On-Board

Unless you are single, your job loss will also affect your family. Call an old-fashioned family meeting. Go over what happened, what you are doing next, and how your spouse or kids can help.

When my father got laid off after the tech bubble burst, our whole family chipped in. Don't try to do everything on your own. Surely little Johnny can at least mow the lawn for you, right?

6. Avoid Being Alone

Transitioning from a busy office with lots of co-workers to just you at home can be tough. Get as many face-to-face meetings as you can. Work at coffee shops. Have lunch with old friends, former co-workers and roommates. Get out and around people as much as possible.

7. Consider a New Boss: You

Sometimes getting laid off can be a blessing in disguise. Have you ever dreamed of starting your own business? If you have the cash cushion, or can raise the money you need... this could be your time.

What other steps would you recommend to someone recently laid off?

More Tips For Laid Off Workers:

• Tips for if You Get Laid Off
• Job Search Tips

Having a young child, we take a ton of photographs at our house. A recent experience with a professional photographer reminded me not only how expensive they can be, but also how unnecessary they are in many cases.

Even though I consider photography a hobby of mine, I realize that I am still very much an amateur. Fortunately, the advent of digital cameras, image editing software, and low-cost printing methods have helped to make up for my shortcomings. I am able to take many great pictures simply because the low cost allows me to take so many. What I lack in skill I can make up for in volume. That’s why my professionally photographed family portrait was so disappointing. While the pictures were pretty good, I have hundreds of better ones that I’ve taken myself.

Before the stream of comments defending professional photographers starts pouring in, let me say that the value of professional photography endures in many circumstances, just not in all cases. Once-in-a-lifetime events, or situations where taking your own photographs would distract your attention from the event itself, are still best left to professionals. I’ve had wonderful experiences with the professionals who photographed my wedding and took pictures of my newborn child. In those cases, their amazing talent was well worth the price.

As for a cost comparison, my recent portraits cost $50 for two 5x7 reprints. At one popular photo-printing site, Shutterfly, 5x7 prints are just $0.99 each. Other sites offer even lower pricing. Even if you assumed that online prints were of lower quality and needed to be replaced every 5 years, they clearly cost significantly less. This greatly reduced price would quickly offset the costs of taking the pictures yourself. With technological advancements, even $100 digital cameras probably give you more capability then you’ll ever need. One final advantage of taking your own photos is that you own the copyright and can use and control your image as you see fit.

Family portraits and similar recurring events can likely be preserved just as well, and for considerably less money, by doing it yourself. There will still be times when using a professional makes sense, it’s just not nearly as common as it once was.

Creating an emergency fund is certainly important, but spending it wisely when the time comes may be even more essential. Poor decisions may make an emergency fund much less effective, or require a much greater sum to be amassed.

As was discussed in my short-term savings post, a general goal is to have three to six months’ worth of living expenses in an easily accessible form such as a savings or a liquid investment account. To reach that goal you need to know how much you actually spend each month and which of those expenses are truly necessary.

The first problem that often arises with emergency funds is that they are accessed for non-emergencies. Losing your job, incurring an unexpected medical expense, or facing foreclosure on your home are all examples of true emergencies. Wanting to go on an expensive vacation, upgrading your wardrobe, or financing the purchase of the latest gadget are a few examples of things that are certainly not reasons to access your emergency fund.

A second problem is that once emergency funds begin to be used, they may seem like a way to maintain your current standard of living. A better method is to use the spending of your first emergency fund dollar as a wake up call to drastically cut many of your normal expenses. You may need to go into financial survival mode at that point. The day I ever dip into my fund I would also cancel many of my discretionary services. I would only keep things that would help to reduce the duration of my emergency, such as Internet access if I was using it for a job search.

If you don't have an emergency fund, consider starting one today. If you already have one, ensure that you only access it for actual emergencies. Once an emergency arrives, spend wisely and cut expenses to make your prudent planning last as long as possible.

Do I really need two sets of AM/FM walkie-talkies?

I was approached by this conundrum out of the blue one afternoon, and neither I nor my monthly entertainment stipend was prepared to broach the subject. Unfortunately, the subject needed to be broached.

The question was posed as a result of my visiting Woot.com, an online store that self-professes to "sell cool stuff cheap." I associate with three of those four words, so Woot has become a fairly regular visit for me while surfing the web. The site started as a sort-of employee store for an electronics distributor, but it has since ballooned into a well-known and popular niche store.

The beauty of Woot is its cheapness, and that cheapness is made possible by its low overhead. Woot only offers one product for sale each day, and they often sell out long before the midnight deadline. So if I wanted those AM/FM walkie-talkies, I needed to stop measuring a 30-foot radius from my office desk and start placing my online order.

It's too bad my money conscience kicked in.

Despite the intended simplicity of Woot.com, there is actually a whole lot of fiscal anguish that those great deals create in the minds of consumers. Products that are priced right tend to be purchased regardless of practicality or need. But at the same time, unnecessary expenses can discourage shoppers who fear buyer’s remorse despite how incredibly affordable that six-slice toaster might really be.

The Woot paradox is a microcosm of the battles that consumers wage day in and day out, and it even goes all the way back to fundamental economics. The issue of scarcity drives demand in the real world the same way it does in the virtual marketplace at Woot. A sale at the GAP forces consumers to weigh the factors of need, price, availability, and whether or not these jeans make them look fat. Similar situations play out every day at Woot's store, too (only with far fewer self-conscious weight moments).

I was at the crux of this paradigm myself, and I found my thoughts wavering between two polar opposites.

"Buy the walkie-talkies," demanded my risk-taking, live-in-the-moment side. The walkie-talkies were priced to sell...$14.95! Take that, Radio Shack! Getting walkie-talkies at that price should have been a deal that I just couldn't pass up.

Besides, if I didn't take advantage of the offer, someone else would. Great Woot deals go fast because the marketplace is full of savvy shoppers. I wanted to be a savvy shopper, too, but I couldn't help but hear a voice of reason beckoning me to resist.

"You don't need walkie-talkies," that small voice inside my head scolded. "Tell that to the intrastate convoy I'm planning, you Jiminy-Cricket wannabe," I mockingly replied. But that frugal voice was right. I didn't need walkie-talkies. I had, at one point in time, wanted them. Sadly, this was 1989, and I was seven years old and spent most of my time imagining what it might be like to live in a tree fort. Being an adult, my priorities and my backyard landscaping had changed.

So there I stood at a stalemate between deal-mongering and rational purchasing. And it got me to thinking about how other people use Woot.

Certainly, I was not the first to struggle with a purchase decision like this on the Woot website. With all the fun electronic gadgets the site hawks each day, there were no doubt millions of others who have weighed some of the same options as I was presently weighing. But how do they decide what is prudent and what is pointless? A lot of Woot shoppers must have some sort of system figured out because the website is fast becoming one of the most popular e-commerce sites on the web. Perhaps all of Woot’s customers are irresponsible impulse shoppers; I know this decision would be a lot easier if I were one, too.

The more I thought about it, though, the more the answer seemed clear: to use Woot responsibly, you have to know what you want before you log on. If only I had realized this prior to Digital CameraGate 2006.

To make Woot as financially feasible as it can be, you have to have certain products in mind, and you can’t waver from your shopping list. If Woot's prices are some of the best you can find (and they are), then buying on Woot shouldn't have to be a guilt-inducing affair... provided you are buying the right items.

For instance, if you need a vacuum cleaner and you spot an iRobot Roomba on Woot, you should have no hesitation on snatching it up. Odds are good that you will not find it for a better price anywhere else, so you should be thrilled to pick it up at Woot’s lower price. However, if you spot a super cool set of headphones and you already have three super cool sets of headphones sitting at home on a shelf collecting dust, you should probably keep right on clicking.

Woot can be a great resource for wise consumers, but it can offer a lot of temptation to those with less self-control. Having specific items in mind when scouring for deals on Woot can remove the risk associate with online shopping; this way, all you’re left with is reward.

Using my newfound reasoning, I was forced to look at AM/FM walkie-talkies in a different light. I did not need them; in fact, I was not sure of anyone over the age of 15 who would need them. So despite the great price, I let the deal slide and kept my money saved up for bigger and better things... like AM/FM walkie-talkies that can vacuum my floor.

Change may be the only constant, but along with change, higher costs often come along for the ride. Resisting change may allow you to save money.

As anyone who has ever purchased consumer electronics can tell you, the longer you wait, the less expensive the products become. The cost of the top of the line model may continually rise, but often nowhere near as fast as the features of the most basic model. Paying a few thousand dollars for the greatest computer available may seem like a smart idea, but knowing that the same one will sell for a few hundred dollars in a year or two may cause you to reconsider.

When we already have a solution to meet a current need, there's really no reason to change until it makes economic sense to do so. I have an older friend who still uses her film camera. She does so because it works just fine for her, she doesn't have to deal with ordering prints online, and she doesn't currently own a computer. So for her, switching to a more modern picture-taking method would cost a significant amount of money. She might reconsider her position if she had a computer, or if she needed to replace her current camera, but until that time she'll continue with the method that has worked for years. Add in the time she would have to invest to learn how to use a digital camera (versus her simple point-and-click) and you can imagine that it may be quite some time before she makes the transition.

At some point, the value of a new item will start to outweigh the cost. Increases in efficiency of newer technologies and rising costs of legacy methods may both factor in. But until you reach that point, you'll be better off continuing to do things as you've always done.