There have always been factors outside our control that affect the ability to get credit. The current economic situation in the United States is a prime example. Even if your credit score remains unchanged, you may have a harder time obtaining credit because of a general tightening in the market. To make things during this difficult time even worse, a controversial policy used by American Express is starting to come to life.

According to MSNBC, American Express now factors your mortgage lender, geographic location, and shopping preferences into their determination of appropriate credit limits. So if you charge purchases at a store where people with higher credit risk tend to shop, you might see your credit limit reduced. Which stores have this effect were not disclosed. Living in an area near people with a higher credit risk could have the same effect.

While you have some control over where you live and shop – though you shouldn’t have to change those habits to keep your current limit – the company that holds your mortgage is completely beyond your control. In many cases your mortgage can, and will be, sold to another company on the secondary market regardless of whom you actually use for your loan. When I bought my first home, between the time when my offer was accepted and I went to closing, my loan had already been sold.

While American Express is the only card issuer admitting to this practice, it probably won’t be long before others disclose similar strategies or begin such programs. While these companies are trying to protect themselves from the risk and uncertainty in the credit market, it sickens me that they would go to such lengths. The practices may be legal, but they are certainly slimy and show a general disregard for customers. Add this practice to the growing list of reasons to use person-to-person lending and avoid credit cards altogether.

Have you seen your credit limits been reduced without a just reason? Please share your story with us.

Entertainment Books are the well-known discount and coupon books available from a wide variety of sources. The company behind the book, Entertainment Publications, states that it is able to provide billions of dollars in discounts every year. So the question becomes whether purchasing a book will be worth it to you.

Depending on where you live, the cost of an Entertainment Book can vary. Although the books for some areas can cost as much as $45, the typical price is $25. Books are often sold through schools and clubs as a fund raiser but can also be purchased at retail locations or directly from the publisher.

To maximize my potential savings, I like to look through the book when it arrives and mark any deals that I am likely to use. Seeing a discount may even influence my choice of vendor, which is likely why companies advertise discounts in the Entertainment Book to begin with. You should be mindful not to spend extra money just to “save” money but rather to use the provided coupons to save on purchases you would have made anyway. This will maximize the value you receive.

I like to start by finding a few deals that will save me the purchase price of the book. As few as one or two coupons may be able to do that. Our book, which cost $25, had a coupon taking $20 off a $50 purchase at my wife’s favorite store. Just using that one coupon lowered the effective cost of the book to $5. Given that you have an entire year to use most discounts, getting your money’s worth should be extremely simple. As great as the savings within the book can be, the value of an Entertainment Book can go even further. By registering on their website, you are eligible for many, many more discounts as well.

With practically no effort, you should certainly be able to save at least the cost of the book, making the purchase at worst a wash. With minimal effort, you could easily save a few hundred dollars in a year. Utilizing the enclosed coupons and discounts as well as those provided online towards every eligible purchase you would have made anyway could undoubtedly save you considerably more money. For this reason, I’d say that an Entertainment Book is a well advised small expense that is definitely worth the cost.

Have you saved a significant amount of money using an Entertainment Book? What’s the best deal you’ve ever found?

One of the most popular gifts this holiday season will be video game consoles, leading to one of the most popular reasons for missing Christmas dinner being "but I'm only 300 points away from the next level!"

The holidays bring out the purchasing in everyone, or so the major video game companies hope.

Traditionally, November and December have been good to Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, and the success of famous consoles like the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Playstation 2 can attest to the holiday hand-over-fist moneymaking. But this year might be different. There have been some fears that an economic depression and suddenly-frugal shoppers might put a damper on 2008's holiday numbers.

Surely, there will not be a shortage of options for video game connoisseurs. The three main competitors in the video game market each have their own console out for sale: Microsoft's XBox 360, Sony's Playstation 3, and Nintendo's Wii.

You already have a Wii, right?

The Wii has a distinct advantage over the other two systems, and no, I am not just talking about Mario Kart. But I will if you ask. The Wii's advantage is its family-friendly style and games. With a revolutionary motion-sensing controller, the Wii is completely unlike anything else on the market.

Throw in the accessibility and ease of games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Super Mario Galaxy, as well as the word-of-mouth popularity of the system itself, and it's easy to see why the Wii stands apart from the rest of the video game competition.

The real battle: 360 vs. PS3

So where the real battle will be this holiday season is between the serious-gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony. The XBox 360 and Playstation 3 cater to more hardcore gamers who enjoy their graphics rich and their games intense. The processing power of the two machines dwarfs that of the Wii, so consumers who are looking for a powerful, beautiful video game experience most often come looking for an XBox or PS3.

Deciding between the two used to be as difficult as the final level of Final Fantasy XII (or so I've heard), but Microsoft made the decision at least a little easier with a recent change to its Xbox product. Can you find the difference by looking at the system specs?

The Specs

XBox 360
Memory: Lots
Graphics: Really good
Game library: Practically infinite
Price: $199

Playstation 3
Memory: Tons
Graphics: Pretty sweet
Game library: More than enough
Price: $399

If you said "price," you are correct. If you said anything else, you should probably just go buy yourself a Wii.

The price drop from Microsoft gave the XBox a significant advantage in the console war with Playstation. The base models of each system are now $200 apart, with the PS3 coming in at twice the price of the XBox. Those numbers are hard for a consumer to ignore, especially at times like these.

Of course, the price tag alone can be misleading. Sony sells its product as if you know what you're getting: 80GB hard drive, Blu-ray DVD player, name recognition. A Blu-ray player alone costs $300, so the final price on the PS3 could be seen as a relative steal.

But the problem for Sony is that consumers aren't seeing a steal when they look at the price. They're seeing a significantly cheaper alternative in the Xbox.

The 360 will be the winner this season

Microsoft's system is on par with the PS3 in virtually every other gaming category except price. And while it might cost more money for basic XBox users to match the feature list of the basic PS3, the initial payment to purchase the console is all that people are really noticing. As far as most video game purchasers are concerned, the Xbox and the PS3 are too much alike. They are essentially the same product made by different companies. Where previous iterations of video game consoles used to have exclusivity for game titles, pretty much every game worth having is now available on almost any console worth having. There simply is not enough difference between the two.

Sony would like to believe that its Blu-ray DVD player would provide enough incentive to make consumers pony up the extra $200. So far, it isn't happening. Most people in the market for a video game machine are looking for a machine that plays video games, not one that makes Hope Floats look absolutely stunning. Saving $200 on an XBox is simply a better alternative for those anxious to buy a next-generation gaming console. The cost-benefit analysis on that is basic Microeconomics 101.

The obvious solution would be to drop the price of the PS3. Obvious, however, does not appear to be on Sony's holiday to-do list.

Right now, price is King. Blu-ray isn't enough.

Sony executives have stood firm that the $399 price of the PS3 will remain through the holiday season, despite evidence that it is seriously hurting the bottom line for the company. Microsoft's XBox has widened its lead over the Playstation since Microsoft dropped its price, and if the trend continues during the busiest shopping time of year, Sony can say good-bye to the console battle.

The battle will be over, and if Sony isn't careful, it may lose the war, too.

Many of the same updates to your home that help you save energy also help you save water. Energy Star compliant clothes washers and dishwashers tend to use much less water as well. Add to that the savings potential of improved fixtures in your kitchen and bath, and the savings can really add up. Whether you have a well and use an electric pump or get your water from your municipality, less water means lower bills.

Here are a few statistics from the Home Depot Water Conservation Know How site:

• Switching to efficient hardware could save 30,000 gallons of water per year, for an average savings of about $250 in water costs and $42 a year in energy costs.
• Leaving a faucet on for 5 minutes uses about the same amount of energy as leaving a 60 watt light bulb on for 14 hours
• An average of 8% of all home water use is wasted through leaks

Here are some suggested ways to save water:

• Keep a pitcher of water in the refrigerator instead of running the tap for cold drinks
• Collect and reuse water that would be wasted while waiting for hot water
• Compost kitchen waste rather than using a garbage disposal
• Run full loads through the clothes washer for maximum efficiency
• Wash clothes with cold water
• Replace older toilets, which typically use 3.5 gallons per flush with newer models, which use at most 1.6 gallons per flush
• Installing high-efficiency showerheads can save more than a gallon of water per minute
• Installing high-efficiency faucets can reduce water usage more than 30% by reducing flow rates
• Allow plants to dry between watering
• Run sprinklers early or late in the day to minimize evaporation losses
• Keep grass slightly longer to reduce watering needs

These are just a few of the ways that you can reduce water usage in your home. Whether the secondary benefits of water conservation, such as a reduced environmental impact, are important to you or not, even on purely financial grounds a strong case can be made for reducing your water use. You can then take the money you’ve saved and invest it or pay down your credit card debt.

What other ways do you save water in your home? Have you made any upgrades that have led to lowered water and electric bills?

As the normal age for retirement continues to creep higher and higher, more people are planning to retire before that magic number. What retirement means and how to achieve it differs from person to person, but we could all benefit from taking the time to consider the possibility.

As we’ve mentioned previously here on the Lending Club blog, the classic definition of retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. This definition is being questioned as the typical sources of retirement income – Social Security and pension funds – are slowly disappearing. The idea that a worker would have the same employer for his or her entire career is also becoming less likely.

The early retirement movement tries to redefine retirement not as the point when you stop working but the point where your living expenses are financed by non-work means. In other words, you don’t need a job to pay the bills. Such a situation makes work voluntary and opens up a whole new world of possibilities. In such cases, you are free to pursue whatever interests are the most satisfying, regardless of the income they generate. This can range from leisure activities, unpaid work, low-paying work, or even high-paying work with a higher risk of job loss. The focus shifts towards doing what you love without much regard for the financial benefits.

How can you make early retirement a possibility? Make an early retirement plan as soon as possible. The basic method to take an early retirement is saving and investing heavily when you’re working to cover expenses when you are not. The general rule of thumb is that withdrawing 4% from investment accounts should allow them to last indefinitely. That means you’d want to build a nest egg of twenty-five times your expected retirement expenses. Such a large goal illustrates why starting as soon as possible is key.

FIRE Finance has compiled a thorough list of retire early resources. My favorites from the list are the Early Retirement Forums and the Retire Early Homepage.

While early retirement isn’t possible or desired in every case, looking into it may be worth your time. Let us know if you’ve committed to an early r