Save for retirement, because it may be coming sooner than you think.

There is no question things are improving. Let's start with the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index. On a trailing six month basis, five out of 10 components are moving in a more positive direction as of the end of June. In April it was only three. In March, two. This recession will end, and maybe soon.

But what about the job market? Have we seen any improvement there? The best I can say about the job market is that some companies I work with have stopped laying people off. Many more have at least slowed the rates at which they are letting people go. Few, if any, are hiring; even to replace employees who leave on their own.

The job market, in my opinion, will be looked upon historically as the single most important factor impeding growth for this year and next. What concerns me most about this is the dampening effect it will have on the above-mentioned recovery. And the longer it takes to recover, the longer it will be until employment begins to rebound.

The New York Times is running a story today describing a study run in the northwest. Utility customers were given a digital "knob" to turn on a web page. The position of the knob indicated to the electric company how much discomfort the customer was willing to trade for lowering his or her electric bill.

The idea is simple: Choose a range you're willing to live with. That sets a range for your demand. The electric company then aggregates demand from all customers. The result is a range of electricity demand which they can go to market to purchase.

It's a pretty clever idea. By going to market with a range of supply to purchase rather than a fixed amount, the utility company gains purchasing power. If the price for an extra kW of power is incrementally too high, they can choose not to purchase it. The customers for whom the extra electricity was not purchased, by extension, don't have to pay for it either.

It's not unlike your deciding to buy a smaller bunch of bananas at the supermarket this week because the price was higher than you like.

OK, I know it's only October, but it's always good to be thinking ahead. This is just a quick note to remind you and me (because I always forget these things and have to go look them up again) that the 2008 IRA contribution limit is $5000 for both Traditional and Roth IRAs

If you happen to be over 50 years old, your 2008 IRA contribution limit is $6000 because you are eligible for catch-up contributions.

Speaking of catching up, you've made your $4000 IRA contribution for 2007 already, haven't you?

I'm a firm believer in making sure every dollar I have is working full time on my behalf. Money sitting idle is a bad thing in my book. If it's not invested then it's depreciating.

You should adopt this philosophy. Make sure every last dollar you own has a job to do. You're the CEO of You, Inc. Your investments are your employees. As CEO it's your responsibility to organize your employees for maximum growth of your little enterprise. Here are six fundamental strategies you should use to ensure each and every dollar is invested in the most optimal way.

Read much about personal finance and you'll find there is one question few agree on: How much to set aside as an emergency fund.

The idea for emergency funds is sound. The odds are good we'll all need access to money in a hurry at some point. Nearly everyone encounters a rough spot somewhere along the road in life. When we do we might need fast access to money to see our way through.

The problem with emergency funds is in funding them. You work hard, you save. You invest money in the stock market for the long term because that's where the real investment returns live. You don't want to have to sell stock to meet needs in time of emergency because of the taxes we'll have to pay on our gains.

We're having a Christmas sort of day here in our household. We're finally replacing our old refrigerator, the one we purchased more years ago than I care to think about, with a new model.

Our reasons for replacing the old appliance with the new have almost nothing to do with the cost savings we will realize by upgrading to a more efficient appliance. But I happened to be reading an article recently about the true cost of an appliance and in the interest of all things money I thought I would have a look at the real dollar savings we'll be seeing.

I was surfing around the Internet yesterday and happened on this little financial calculator on the CNN Money site. It's woefully simple and bears little resemblance to the realities of making your first million.

It'll take you all of 30 seconds to input the data it needs to run through its calculations.

OK before I even start I want to give you a fair warning. I'm in a mood today. It's Friday. It's been a tough week. I'm tired because I didn't get to bed early enough last night and I didn't sleep well. That's all the right ingredients for a soapbox session, don't you think?

How much money do you make? How much do you want to make? Is your answer to the second question greater than your answer to the first? Sure it is. It's human nature to want more than we have. If this weren't true we'd never have bothered to come up with the free enterprise system.

Hey here's a good investment of your time. This Sunday stop in at Home Depot and pick up a compact fluorescent light bulb. Home Depot is giving away a million of them.

Sunday is Earth Day. This is Home Depot's contribution to the Earth and the good people like you and me who happen to live here.

You were probably headed to Home Depot this weekend anyway. This just makes the trip a little bit more worthwhile.

I've always had a thing about reading articles about achieving financial independence. I enjoy them. I especially enjoy the ones written by individuals who are working to achieve financial independence.

Uh, before I go any further, let me assure you I absolutely do not enjoy reading or advocate any of those "get rich quick" financial independence pitches out there. (Though truth be known, some of them are some of the best fiction you'll ever read.)

The stories by individuals, however; they're my favorite. Most of the time they're open and honest accounts of someone's journey to financial freedom. They're people like you and me expressing their dreams of being free from worries about their financial well-being.