By SARAH WELCH and ALICIA ROCKMORE, getbuttonedup.com

Someone we know described the feeling he had the moment he was told he was being laid off a few weeks ago:

With the price of travel increasing, and the amount of money in American pockets decreasing, many families won't be spending the holidays together this year. But there are options.

Alicia on "Non-peak Visiting":

Our financial world is topsy-turvy. Each week, Wall Street takes us on another stomach-turning ride, new job cuts are announced and reports from the media leak out comparing our economy now to the Great Depression.

Daily headlines, news reporters and breathless bloggers make it impossible to escape an all-too-gloomy reality: Financial crisis! Rising costs! Retail sales down! Recession!

Pets have become more than just companions; they are a part of the family. In fact more and more pet owners are taking the love for their pet to the next level and dressing them up for Halloween. This practice is fun and adorable but it's also important to think about your pet's safety to protect them from things that go bump in the night.

Just because teenagers look more like adults, doesn't necessarily mean that they think or function like adults! A new Web site by the Partnership for a Drug Free America (www.drugfree.org/teenbrain) explains how the human brain takes 25 years to fully develop, with the prefrontal cortex, responsible for complex judgment and decision-making, maturing last.

As a general rule, we wear very few of the clothes we have in our closets; some people put the figure as low as 10 percent to 20 percent. Shifting from your spring and summer wardrobe to one for fall and winter provides the perfect opportunity to streamline.

With the kids back in school, the biggest benefit to busy parents is settling back into a nice routine. However, school also brings the dilemma of packing daily lunches.

When you're working, wrangling the kids and generally living a full life, it's easy to let taking care of your home fall to the bottom of the priority list. But you need to stay on top of maintenance chores if you want to keep your home and all the good things in it functioning smoothly.

College students all over the country are putting away the sunscreen, packing up their possessions and heading back to school. For parents, this can represent a period of high anxiety because for many it means that monthly expenses are about to go way, way up.