It is no secret that we’re in the midst of a recession and many are struggling to pay their bills, keep roofs over their heads and put food on their tables. More and more people can name others that they know who have been affected by the recession. It is a scary time in the world and it isn’t going to get any better without a lot more struggles. One of the best things that you can do to survive right now is to find ways to start saving money. By saving money, you may be able to meet some basic needs that you once took for granted. And, saving money may be the best way to thrive in the future.

So, how do you go about saving money when you feel like you already cut corners? It isn’t easy and it could take some major creativity. If you are lucky enough to still have a job in the midst of the recession, do you buy a cup of coffee each morning on your way to work? Do you go out for lunch on a daily basis or even once or twice a week? If you answered yes to either of those questions, you may find that by cutting out that cup of coffee. By bringing a lunch to work, you’ll find that you’re instantly saving money. Take a few days to track exactly how much money you’re spending – whether it’s a few dollars or even a few cents at a time. After all, those dollars and cents add up rather quickly. Write down the money that you are spending; keep track of all of it on paper.

Grocery store visits can be rather costly when you’re looking to be saving money as well. Sure, cutting out and using coupons can save you quite a few bucks a week, but how do you find the coupons? Perhaps your weekly newspaper has coupons in them. It might be worth spending a dollar or two on a Sunday newspaper in order to save additional money at the grocery store. However, if you’ll notice, those manufacturer’s coupons might require you to buy two or three of an item just to save a few cents or even a dollar. Instead of buying the name brand grocery items just to take advantage of the coupons, perhaps you should compare the generic brands. For the most part, the generic label items don’t taste any different than the name brand. And you will find that the generic brands are less expensive even without using a coupon. Saving money at grocery stores could be easier than you think. If there’s a discount grocery store or outlet near your house, check it out. Who cares if those cans are dented? If you can cut your grocery bill in half by buying discounted items, that’s what matters.

Saving money isn’t about just stashing money aside. It’s about finding ways to lower your monthly bills and thrive in the hardest of times. It’s about making sacrifices and focusing on what’s most important in your world. If there’s a will, there’s a way. And it can happen.

For even more ideas, see:

• 100 Great Tips For Saving Money For Those Just Getting Started
• 10 easy ways to stash away thousands
• 55 Best Ways To Save Money: Frugal Ideas From Our Readers

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How to Save Money Faster

Have you wondered if there is a way to find out if you are at risk for identity theft without signing up for a monthly service? If so there is good news for you. There is a new service called MyIDScore.com which comes highly recommended by such experts as Clark Howard.

It works in a similar manner to some of the free credit score Web sites; when you go to the Web site, you fill in your personal information, i.e. name, date of birth, address and phone number, and your Social Security information. You are then asked several questions about who you are. It next goes through every digitized financial transaction record it has and finds out if anyone else appears to be using your personal information. This technology has been in use for a while now; financial institutions use it, for instance, when verifying information of potential new customers who apply for a credit card.

Click here to visit MyIDScore.

It calculates your ID security by using the identity database that belongs to ID Analytics. The database holds millions of bits of personal identity data — names, contact information, Social Security numbers — information gleaned from such sources as change of address forms. Fraud is detected, for instance, if it finds an application for a loan or credit card was submitted using your address.

Fortunately, most people are not victims of identity theft or fraud and thus get the safe low score of around 300. Anyone who gets a score exceeding 300 is asked to get in touch with a nonprofit organization called the Identity Theft Resource Center for a free investigation.

In addition to using a free service like this, it is strongly recommended that you check your credit report; by law in the U.S. you can receive the report free of charge once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com

While MyIDScore offers a great deal, it is worthwhile to be more proactive on you own in preventing identity theft. Be aware that this services does not encompass every credit card issuer; nor does it include direct deposit account information or medical information. Nonetheless for what it is, a free service, it is a useful resource. You can read more about it at ClarkHoward.com Also see the video below to learn more about Identity Theft and How Can You Prevent It

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Watch the BP Spills Coffee viral video by UCBComedy. Scathingly hilarious send-up of the Gulf BP oil spill. Directed by Peter Schultz and Brandon Bassham and written by Gavin Speiller, Eric Scott, Erik Tanouye, and John Frusciante. A must see.

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BP Spills Coffee (Video)

Your private medical documents can be faxed to strangers. The so-called “privacy” laws recently passed by Congress actually provide for less privacy and allow thousands of individuals and organizations to easily view your medical records.

It’s Obama Care and medical privacy on this week’s Independent Thinking as the Independence Institutes Health Care Policy Center Director Linda Gorman and Colorado Transparency Project Director Amy Oliver-Cooke join Jon Caldara to discuss the political and policy implications for Colorado of the recently passed federal health care reform bill (otherwise known as Obama Care), and the implications for medical privacy in Colorado should the state legislature pass House Bill 1330, the All-Payer Database, which would allow the state to collect and store your personal health care information without your consent.

Obama Care and Medical Privacy (Video)

Edward C. Reed High School (Sparks, NV) Multimedia Presentation for 2006′s FBLA National Leadership Conference in Nashville, TN. We placed THIRD in the nation with this baby, WHOO! Team: Billy Hong (Technical), Leslie Parawan (Presentation), Yilok Wong (Research)

Former Washington Redskins Cheerleader gets a flu shot and walks backwards thereafter? As seen in the video below, behind the startling headline is the story of Desiree Jennings, 25, from Ashburn, Virginia, who several days after receiving the seasonal flu shot, developed dystonia, which is a neurological disease with no known cure. She is in the news as she competed in an 8K race.

Video below shows that she walks backwards and runs forward normally, but cannot walk forward. In an interview she said her condition is worsening.

“My neck and tongue are not moving anymore,” Jennings told reporters before the race, according to MyFOXDC. “They’re paralyzed … that started yesterday.”

Source: Woman Who Says Flu Shot Brought On Disability Completes Race

In her own words, she described what happened:

On August 23, 2009, I received a seasonal flu vaccine at a local grocery store that drastically, and potentially irreversibly, altered my future. In a matter of a few short weeks I lost the ability to walk, talk normally, and focus on more than one stimuli at a time. Whenever I eat I know, without fail, that my body will soon go into uncontrollable convulsions coupled with periods of blacking out.

Her full story, as told in her own words can be seen here: Vaccine Injury Isn’t Just for Babies: The Desiree Jennings Flu Shot Story

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Cheerleader Desiree Jennings Gets Flu Shot; Walks Backwards Only after Developing Disability (Video)

A new law in Oklahoma is controversial for its disclosure of information which may violate patient privacy, according to critics. See video and find out more about the new law which will go into effect on Nov. 1, 2009. The law in question is the Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act. It will require doctors to disclose information about women who have had abortions; information derived from a questionnaire with 37 items of personal information which will then be posted on a publicly accessible Web site.

The Oklahoma Department of Health will be required to publish data online. Names will not be published, however, the following will be included among those 37 items: race, marital status, financial circumstances, years of education, number of previous pregnancies, and reason for seeking the abortion. Additionally, if a doctor does not provide the information, he or she will be criminally penalized and lose his or her medical license.

“The law itself is contrary to our Constitution,” said Lora Joyce Davis, an Oklahoma resident who, along with former state Rep. Wanda Jo Stapleton, has filed a lawsuit over the measure. [...]

“These are women who are already in a tragic situation, and the law will expose them about a very, very personal matter,” Davis told Foxnews.com on Tuesday. “It’s a violation of patient privacy rights to put that information up there.”

Source: New Oklahoma Abortion Law Violates Patient Privacy, Critics Charge

In a separate interview Davis discussed the impact on women in small towns.

“This law asks for so much information, and they are going to put it on the Internet for public scorn,” said Davis. “Women who have abortions are considered murderers by many people, and you are going to put the name of a town of 200 and the fact that the girl is 17 and it’s her first pregnancy and she in the 10th grade. People are going to know who it is.”

Source: Abortion Law Akin to ‘Undressing Women’

Video is below.

New Oklahoma Abortion Law Violates Patient Privacy (Video)

Filmmaker Chris Atkins has caught three British tabloids The Sunday Mirror, News of the World and People, in an attempt to purchase medical records of such celebrities as actor Hugh Grant and film director Guy Ritchie. Video footage has been revealed. It is a potential violation of Data Protection Act (DPA), privacy law in the UK.

A fourth tabloid declined; The Sunday Express, in refusing to meet with Atkins, who was posing as an administrative nurse in a fictitious cosmetic surgery clinic, told him that his proposal was “legal minefield” because it went against the code of practice of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), which is the industry’s self-regulating body.

“We wanted to do a test to see how they would react,” Atkins told Reuters. “It is just showing the public what goes on behind the stories that they pay for every day.”

Reuters further reports that The Sunday Mirror proposed to pay 3,000 pounds ($4,900) for every story published.

Source: British Tabloids Caught Out By Filmmaker’s Hoaxes

The Guardian in noting that the documentary, Starsuckers, will open at the London Film Festival, reveals that they are previewing the undercover footage from the film; this includes video of Atkins’ making cold calls to the four tabloids in which he claimed his ex-girlfriend was an administrative nurse at a clinic and had asked him to make “discreet enquiries” as to whether she could make money through the release of information about the celebrities which she could obtain via the clinic.

The story continues here: Tabloids lured by celebrity plastic surgery hoax

The video can be seen here “Revealed: Secret footage of tabloids being offered confidential information about celebrities: Video

British Tabloids in Medical Privacy Breach in Hoax by Starsuckers Filmmaker (Video)

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed an anti-paparazzi law that will crack down on unauthorized photographing of celebrities, making it a crime which carries with it fines up to $50,000 for both taking and selling of unauthorized photos of celebrities in “personal or familial activity.” The law will go into effect January 2010.

As MTV News points out it is actually an amendment to the 2005 law which allowed for fines against paparazzi who were found guilty of assaulting a celebrity in the attempt to take a photo, and any income from such photos had to be relinquished. The motivation behind the tough law were two high profile events, car accidents involving Lindsay Lohan and Scarlett Johansson as they were being chased by paparazzi. And additionally, a confrontation between Reese Witherspoon and her children and a photographer at a Disney theme park.

[Source: Arnold Schwarzenegger Signs Anti-Paparazzi Bill]

Additionally, the governor himself and his wife, Maria Shriver were victimized in 1997 when two paparazzi essentially imprisoned them in their car as they were taking their son to school; the two photographers were convicted of false imprisonment.

More on the story, with links to previous stories here: Will California’s New Anti-Paparazzi Law Unleash a Torrent of Law Suits?

See also: Schwarzenegger signs new anti-paparazzi law

A video is below.

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Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Anti-Paparazzi Law in California