This one's for you, Mo ... looks like babies have a poor ROI :)

Quoted: Typical families, those making from $56,870 to $98,470 a year, will spend a whopping $221,190 to raise a second child born in 2008 through age 17, estimates the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (.pdf file), a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

I think this article does a good job of pointing out that this solution isn't for everybody ... it's for those who are in tough situations and desperately need to curtail their spending. Because the reality is, if you DO want to buy a house (unlike in one of the men profiled in this piece) you need a credit score.

Quoted: The cash-only concept is probably a foreign one to most Americans who are addicted to credit. But believe it or not, people can actually survive without whipping out the plastic.

Um yeah, I'm totally on the outs with Suze over this one.

Quoted: Pay just the minimum on your credit cards? For most people, this shocker from influential media personality Orman is a lousy idea.

Damn, Washington and New Jersey are among of the highest-paying states in terms of unemployment benefits!

Quoted: Could you live on less than $300 a week? The average unemployment check in the U.S. is $293. Below you'll find a state-by-state list of maximum weekly benefits. The amounts vary dramatically, though, from a maximum of $230 in Mississippi to $628 in Massachusetts. But some relatively high-income states pay very little.

Okay, this is seriously effed up.

Quoted: The juxtaposition between poverty and growing wealth presents an unsavory dilemma for luxury goods makers jumping into India.

Um, yeah.

Quoted: Barack Obama's tax plan, laid out by advisers Austan Goolsbee and Jason Furman in the Wall Street Journal in mid-August, promises to improve the nation's fiscal standing by scaling back tax cuts for people making more than $250,000.

Bill Gates' ranking drops even though he is up $2 billion from a year ago. Apparently his unsolicited bid for Yahoo! (and the resulting 15% drop in Microsoft shares) is the culprit...

Quoted: Famed investor Warren Buffett soars past Bill Gates on our annual listing of the world's billionaires. Gates is now worth $58 billion and is ranked third in the world.

It is getting harder and harder to make ends meet for young people, especially in big cities... That fact that financial literacy isn't emphasized in school at all doesn't help matters either!

Quoted: Stats indicate our generation's financial literacy is abysmal, with personal finances to match. Only 52% of high school seniors passed a recent national financial literacy test, meaning adults entering the work force do not know enough about basic budgeting, interest rates or taxes to make sound decisions for their own lives.

I suppose the writer has a point. Still, I wouldn't proclaim the same level of enthusiasm for the IRS...

Quoted: I've come to have an amazing regard for the IRS. Not because of all the wonderful things that government does that the IRS makes possible, but because my experience has been that of all the organizations you can owe money to, the IRS may be the most rational and easiest to deal with.