Here are some interesting (and depressing) photos showing the impact of the recession around the world.

If you’re curious how your state and/or city is fairing in the unemployment rankings, check out this list of jobless rates by metro area. The list includes comparisons of December ‘08 unemployment rates with rates from December ‘07. I found it interesting (but not surprising, I suppose) that small cities in rural states like West Virginia, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Iowa are all fairing pretty well.

If you’d like to get a rough estimate of your current credit score without all the hassles of ordering a formal credit report, you might want to try this free credit survey tool. It took me about a minute to complete and seems fairly accurate.

At the moment, it’s tough to find a savings account that offers more than 3.5%, and long-term (as in two-to-three-year) CDs are only a point or so above that lately. However, there are a few banks eager to attract new customers with high promotional rates. One that caught my eye recently is Dollar Savings Direct, which has been offering 4% for the past few months. Dollar Savings Direct is a division of Emigrant Direct, one of the most popular online banks in the country. It makes sense that the company wouldn’t want to raise the rate all their current customers receive just to reel in new customers. So, the decision to create a separate division with an unusually high promo rate isn’t as strange as it might seem at first. I doubt the rate will remain at 4% for much longer, but even with a half-point rate cut, Dollar Savings Direct’s rate would still be very competitive.

If you’re in Chicago and you prefer a bank you can see and touch, you could try American Eagle Bank of Chicago. They’re currently offering a promotion that starts at 3% for the first year, then goes up to 4% for the second year. I’m pretty sure this is a savings account and not a CD, but you should definitely call a customer service rep for more info before taking the plunge. American Eagle is a very small bank, so don’t expect great things from their online banking system or their staff. They’re nice, but they’re not used to dealing with customers who can’t come to their local branch whenever they need something.

I left American Eagle because I found a bank in Ohio named CNB that was offering a higher rate. Once I finally got the account set up, things at CNB were fine. However, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend them since setting up the account required a lot of calling to check on the status of the paperwork and asking the service reps to resend emails that never made it to my inbox. CNB is currently offering 3.5%, which is quite good, so feel free to visit the CNB Bank Direct website if you’re feeling extra patient and would like to give them a try. They cut their rate from 4% to 3.5% after the last fed rate cut, so I’m hopeful that the current rate might be here to stay for a while, unlike Dollar Savings Direct, which is long overdue for a rate cut.

Like so many people, I learned a lot of investing lessons the hard way in 2008. Lesson number one: the vast majority of mutual funds don’t outperform the market. I’ve heard this a hundred times before, but it really didn’t sink in until I watched all of my funds lose over half of their value in 2008. Now I feel torn about what to do with any new money I save in 2009. On the one hand, I know I’m supposed to put more money into the market when it’s down. However, I feel like a fool for paying high fees to mutual fund managers who aren’t even adept enough to match the returns of the market.

John C. Bogle recognized this problem years ago when he began his career on Wall Street, which is why he founded The Vanguard Group. Today, Vanguard is known for the low fees it charges for the management of its mutual funds. Vanguard’s index funds match the performance of broad indexes like the S&P 500 at minimal cost to the investor.

If you believe the stock market will recover eventually and continue to offer returns consistent with its past performance, index funds are a great investment now. The only downside is that index funds aren’t very sexy. If you’re more of a do-it-yourselfer, you might want to buy a few individual stocks on your own. This can be a smart move if you stick to companies that feel you know well and you don’t invest any money you’ll need in the next few years. In addition, you should be willing to do a few hours of research, review the company’s recent financial statements, and compare its performance to its competitors’.

If that doesn’t sound too scary, you might want to open a trading account with a discount broker like Scottrade. At $7 per trade, they’re one of the cheapest online brokers and I’ve had a great experience using them in the past. If $7 still sounds pricey, you can try zecco.com, which offers 10 free trades per month for all their clients. Their site has advertisements and isn’t quite as user friendly as others I’ve tried, but the commission savings can really add up if you wind up making more than one or two trades a year.

For those of you looking for more reliable short-term options, I’ll post a follow up soon on banks offering savings accounts with the highest available rates of return.

A few months ago, my best friend’s house burned to the ground and he lost everything. My heart went out to him as he struggled to put his life back together. I don’t know that I could have handled it as well as he did. I’ve always had a hard time letting go of past mistakes and misfortunes. I don’t always prioritize my problems properly and devote an appropriate amount of anxiety and attention to each one. I nearly had a panic attack last week when I thought I’d lost my Qdoba rewards card and would miss out on the free burrito I had earned.

Just before my friend’s house burned down, I had nearly reached my newest financial goal: to be able to pay off the entire balance of my half of the mortgage I share with my boyfriend. (Not that I planned to actually pay it off. I just needed a new goal and figured it was a good milestone to keep me motivated.) My friend, meanwhile, was struggling to maintain a financial balancing act. He was spending more than he was making, his savings was drying up, and he had been trying to sell his house for months in the hope of breaking even and lowering his expenses by renting a more affordable place. He’d frequently call me to discuss his money woes and I’d chastise him for leasing a Civic hybrid or buying some $10 face cream.

My friend is incredibly intelligent and I knew his financial troubles could have easily been my own. We both envied our friends who bought houses while we were still lowly renters. We’d both been waiting since our teens to finally unleash our unbridled renovation lusts. We both dreamed of violating beige walls with bold colors that would never be painted over in the name of a $500 security deposit. We shared the same dream of home ownership, and unfortunately, we both gave in to our urges when it was the worst thing we could have done with our money. Although we made similar mistakes, part of me felt smarter for taking on a more affordable mortgage and waiting until I had plenty in savings before buying a home. I felt the whole situation was a sort of vindication—a sign from God that I was the stalwart ant who sacrificed to stockpile food all summer and he was the capricious grasshopper who spent too much on face cream.

Once my friend had completed the tedious process of listing all of his possessions in a giant spreadsheet for his insurance agent, my empathy and my sense of superiority began to wane. He had a great insurance policy and in the end, he’d wind up far better off financially than he was before the fire. In fact, it soon became clear he’d wind up better off than I was, and my feelings of pity and pride shifted to jealousy and resentment. After undergrad, I bought a no-frills Ford Focus while my friend leased a new Jetta with leather interior. I creeped through grad school while working full time at a job I quickly grew to hate, but I stuck it out because my employer was paying for my degree and a lot more. Meanwhile, my friend racked up tons of student loan debt while going to law school full time. My friend wasn’t lighting cigars with $100 bills, but he definitely wasn’t as concerned about money as I was. And that was fine by me because I was going to be the rich one and it would all even out in the end.

Now I call my friend to bemoan my huge losses in the stock market while he recounts his recent windfalls—the latest check from the insurance agency that covers the full replacement value on 20 pairs of designer jeans or a tempting offer he’s received on the lot where his house once stood. It’s hard not to feel frustrated as I struggle to find meaning in it all. Am I supposed to go on a shopping spree? Was the real mistake my choice to invest in the stock market? Is God watching out for my friend because he’s more charitable than I am? These questions remain unanswered, but I did buy some new glasses and a $200 facial exfoliation device just in case the correct answer turns out to be (A). However, one thing I do know for sure is that regret is fairly useless because it’s so hard to know what the future holds.

A few days ago, I had to throw away some pears that went bad because I put them in a place on my counter where fruit always seems to ripen way too fast. As I thew them away, I thought about what an idiot I was for not putting the pears in the fridge where they’d keep longer. Even a day later, I had a passing thought about how I had wasted those pears. I knew it was a ridiculous thing to waste any time regretting, but I couldn’t shake the thought that those rotten pears were some sort of cosmic joke—that they proved the universe had it in for me in financial matters great and small. Then a very funny thing happened. I went to visit my parents on Sunday and, out of nowhere, my dad asked, “Do you like pears?” I said, “Sure,” and he handed me a bag full of pears he’d just picked from the trees near his garden. Now when I find myself obsessing about the hundreds or thousands of dollars I’ve lost as the result of some bad decisions or just a bit of bad luck, I try to keep in mind that you never know when life is going to hand you a bag full of pears.

I think this previous paragraph was supposed to conclude with a higher-level epiphany like, “Don’t resent other people’s good fortune,” or “The universe sends us whatever energy we send out.” But for now, you’ll have to settle for my gratitude that the universe sent me some pears. When those pears are suddenly worth 10 grand or my damn mutual funds recover, I’ll reevaluate my position on resentment.

I just started using mint.com to keep track of my finances and I’m really excited about its incredible set of features. In a nutshell, mint lets you keep tabs on all your savings accounts, investments, loans, and credit cards in one place. (There’s a nice video demo if you’d rather get more info before diving in.)

One of my favorite things about mint is that it provides tons of graphs and charts to help you see where your money is going. For me, it’s a great way to keep tabs on how much I spend eating out. I can even see how my spending in various categories compares with national averages and local averages by city. I can also get email or text-message reminders when a bill is due, my checking balance is low, or a credit card is near its limit.

Obviously some people will have concerns about the fact that mint needs the passwords to all your accounts in order to access them. However, I think the mint team is well aware that their survival depends on maintaining a very high level of security. In addition, some users might be comforted by the fact that mint doesn’t require you to provide your name, address, social security number, or other personal information that might help someone steal your identity.

The only downside I’ve encountered so far is that mint has had trouble accessing my Citibank account info. (The system just keeps giving me a message that states, “We’re having issues. They should be resolved by trying again later.) For now I’ll give mint the benefit of the doubt on that, but I’ll post a follow up at some point in the near future if it seems clear that the site is too buggy to be useful.

In you’re trying to find the best deal on airfare, it helps to know how much one airline will nickel and dime you over another. For those of us who can’t keep all the fees straight, this handy airline fee chart can help.

If you’ve been thinking about getting a Chase Freedom card, I found a site where you can apply for it and get a $100 bonus (at least until this offer expires).

As another incentive, Chase recently announced that cardholders who also have Chase checking accounts will be able to get 3% back in their top five spending categories every month (instead of the usual three). The 3% back is capped at $600 in purchases per month. Even with that limit, the Chase Freedom card is still the best cash back card I know of.

I just stumbled upon Wachovia’s new Way2Save program, which is another one of those savings programs designed to protect people from themselves. Basically, Wachovia takes an extra buck out of your checking account whenever you use your check card or pay a bill using their service. If you don’t want to rely on Wachovia to do the saving for you one dollar at a time, you can also set up automated deposits of $100 per month. (I’m not sure if you can contribute any more per month than that.) The best part is if you sign up before June, you’ll get a 16% interest rate for June, July, and August. After that, the rate should drop to 5% (or so they claim right now). Whether that remains their rate come September, it’s worth looking into if only for the 16% promo.

Interest rates on savings accounts have dropped dramatically in the last year or so, making it impossible to get much more than a 4% return on your balance. So, if you’re looking for a place to stash your extra cash that is guaranteed not to lose value, what should you do? One option worth considering is opening a high-yield checking account with one of the small banks or credit unions in your area. These accounts currently yield between 5 and 7% (roughly), but there’s a catch. Almost all of them require that you use the debit card they provide at least 10, 15, or sometimes even 20 times a month to get the high interest rate. In addition, you have to use the cards for what they call “signature transactions.” I think that means you have to select credit instead of debit for the transaction type. (Yes, you can do that on a debit card and yes, the money still comes out of your account immediately.) I assume the banks get some kind of kickback from businesses whenever you use your debit card this way, which is why they can afford to offer you a great rate on your account balance.

For a list of banks offering high-yield checking accounts, check out highyieldcheckingdeals.com and make sure to read the fine print. Note that the banks marked with an asterisk will allow accounts to be opened even if you don’t live nearby. However, keep in mind these banks are usually quite small, so you might have to jump through a few hoops or put up with a clunky online banking system to open the account and transfer funds.