Holly’s Happenings

OK, the current economy is the pits right now across the entire country! Jobs are scarce, the cost of living is skyrocketing, and many people who have worked their jobs for years are finding themselves without a job or income. We stand the unemployment lines, we read all of the online job listings that we can, we go through the help wanted ads in the news paper, and it just seems like there isn’t much hope some days!

There are, however, options besides punching a time clock and working for someone else, some with a very minimal investment, and even a few with no initial cash investment! What is it that I’m talking about? I’m talking about the chance to invest in franchise opportunities and possibly live the American dream of owning your own business.

I honestly did not know that it was possible to get in on a franchise no cash investment and only $5,000 in capitol investment. And while something with absolutely no initial cash investment may scare you off, there are plenty of other franchise opportunities that you can get in on with an initial cash investment of less than $1,000! As the old saying goes, you do get what you pay for, and obviously you’ll need to invest more cash initially if you’re looking into franchise opportunities with companies that have a more proven track record for success.

But what this means is that it is possible to live the American dream of owning your own business without having to have millions of dollars to start out with. Maybe that’s exactly what this country needs right now. Maybe we need more people that are willing to go out on that limb and say “I WANT TO BE MY OWN BOSS”! I know I sure wish I could!

After hearing just how bad the current unemployment rate is in my county the other day, the thought of simply moving away from this area crossed my mind again! I basically grew up in the area I’m living right now, only difference is that I’m currently living in NW Ohio and I grew up in SE Michigan.

I do love living in this area, it offers the beauty of all four seasons of the year and some of the prettiest fall foliage you’ll ever see! The only thing I don’t like weather wise about this area is when we have bitter cold winters, those are something that I could really do without! But as much as I love living in this area, with our local unemployment rate sitting at 9.2%, the chances of my getting any calls on the numerous resumes and job applications that I’ve put out this summer are slim to none!

Some of the areas that I would consider living in would be Northern California, Washington State and both North and South Carolina. A couple of my choices would be automatically ruled out simply because of how high their cost of living is, and after checking out some of the beautiful Wilmington NC real estate that’s available, the North Carolina area is looking better and better!

But then we have my husbands job to think about. The possibility of his hours picking back up are looking a little more promising and do we dare take the risk of walking away from a good paying job that might have a decent future to move somewhere unfamiliar and start all over? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens and weigh our options when it gets to the point where we have no choice but to decide!

What about you? If you could move anywhere right now, where would you move?

I’m sitting here this morning watching The Today Show and Matt Lauer is talking about The Misery Index and how it’s at it’s highest point right now than what it’s been since Bill Clinton took office. I’m like, what in the world is this Misery Index and why have I never heard this term before? So, I did what I always do when I hear or read about something that I don’t know about, I Googled it! LOL

What I came up with was an actual website that shows The United States Misery Index and it goes all the way back to 1948 through the current year. Now, for those of you that are as clueless as am I as to what I’m talking about, the misery index in the US is decided by adding the unemployment rate and the rate of inflation. For instance, the current unemployment rate in the US is 5.5% and the current rate of inflation in the US is 4.18%, which means the current misery index in the US is 9.68.

Now, if we look at the misery index comparison on this page which goes all the way back to 1948, the last time the misery index was higher than 9.68% was in 1993, the year that Bill Clinton took office. During the four years that George Bush Sr. was in office the misery index never went below 10.09%, during the 8 years that Ronald Reagan was in office we started out with a misery index of 17.97% in 1981, it went to it’s lowest rating in 1986 which was 8.91%, then peaked up a bit by the end of his term in 1988 to 9.57%.

In defense of the current President Bush the lowest misery index we’ve had since he took office was in 2002 when it was 7.37% and it honestly hasn’t fluctuated very much during his years in office.

The lowest that the misery index has ever been since 1948 was 3.74% in 1953 when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and the highest it has ever been was 20.76% in 1980, the last year that Jimmy Carter was President.

Anyway, that is a very interesting website, you can go as far as to see the different ratings on a monthly basis over the last 60 years. So take the time to check it out and maybe even learn something new today, like I did!