“Sprint Nextel Plans to Cut 8,000 Jobs in Quarter“

“Caterpillar Moves to Cut 20,000 Jobs“

“Starbucks Will Close 300 Stores and Open Fewer New Ones“

“ING Will Cut 7,000 Jobs and Its Chief Will Leave“

“62,000 Jobs Are Cut By U.S. and Foreign Companies”

What (aside from being disheartening and intimidating) do the above have in common? Several things:

• They are all headlines pulled from the New York Times
• They are all headlines from this week
• They are all signs of a growing problem

Take a look again at that last headline. On Monday, January 26, 2009 62,000 jobs were lost.

62,000.

And those weren’t all. Pfizer and Wyeth are in the midst of a huge merger that will cut 19,500 more jobs. On Wednesday (1/28/09) Starbucks announced they were closing 300 stores and cutting up to 6,700 jobs. Home Depot cut 8,000 jobs. Circuit City, with more than 30,000 employees is closing it’s doors.

Now, we are sorry that the picture is so bleak… and we truly hope that no one reading this post has been affected by these events – and if you have, we are sorry and wish you the very best.

The reason we are bringing this up is because while it is unpleasant, the truth is that this isn’t going to go away… things will likely take some time to turn around, and could very well get worse before they get better. A lot of people, literally more and more every single day, are feeling the effects of this situation in a very big way. We personally know someone who was laid off by a company he had been with for years. Eventually, that company bought out his next employer and guess what they did? Laid him off again!

So the big question becomes “What do I do if this happens to me?” or “How do I protect myself and my family?” The answer is to literally take matters into your own hands. There are so many different ways to make money from home, on your own time, on your own terms.

The events of the last week have shown, more strongly than ever, that “job security” is a thing of the past.

We strongly encourage anyone reading this, or other articles on the topic to start looking for alternatives. For ways to take control of your financial future and rely less on a big company and more on yourself.