Credit cards get a bad rap – one that is not entirely deserved. I’ve got this working theory that it has to do with their name – the term ‘credit’ may mean ‘ability to obtain resources based on a future payoff’, but the card is named entirely wrong: If the only purpose of your credit cards is to purchase things on credit you are doing things completely wrong. The true beauty of credit cards is that they are a liquidity tool; credit cards allow you constant access to funding… whenever you need it.  So, let’s look at the perfect strategy for turning your credit cards into liquidity cards!

Last time I angered all of you by asking if certain majors should pay higher rates for their student loans. Now I ask you a subtly different question: Should some majors pay more in tuition? I ask you this question on the weekend, as it is lighter on math (for reasons that will be explained), and the fact that I’m likely highly biased, being a Software Engineer and all. Let’s not let that affect the daily editions of DQYDJ, okay?

From Occupy Wall Street to Bank Transfer Day it seems like every time I turn on the TV there is another protest. Occupy Wall Street began in New York City and has gone viral around the globe.

A guest post from Paul at The Frugal Toad, the newest featured link on DQYDJ!

As we occasionally point out here at Don’t Quit Your Day Job, inflation expectations are an interesting indicator that can be calculated from market data. They become even more interesting when we combine them with other measures. It becomes yet more interesting if you are in the market to refinance a mortgage or purchase a home. Read on for an interactive chart on the 30 year mortgage and the market’s 10-year inflation expectations.

Welcoming The Frugal Toad to our blogroll, linking great stuff, adding a Facebook page, an eBook from MD at Studenomics and so much more!

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” Wise words from a man who died with the equivalent of $1,000,000 in today’s dollars worth of debt – but his words still ring true today. I wrote this article on a whim when I tried to find data on the amount of hours worked per week broken down by individual income. Let me save you some time; that data is nowhere to be found. I can tell you this… the average American private sector worker works 34.3 hours in an week. I can also tell you that the average American worker making an income from $100,000 to $149,999 puts in 45.09 hours in a usual week, 34.3% more than the average worker making between $10,000 and $19,999. So I ask you, dear reader, how many hours a week do you work?

Jason’s cheap, but that doesn’t mean he compromises when it comes to his meals… read this epic guest post about avoiding food that tastes like rat, comment, and check him out at his site, Live Real, Now.

Greece – let’s call it what it is: a beautiful country with some horrible systemic problems. If you’ve been living under or behind a human-sized rock for the last few years, Greece is in the midst of a huge, solidarity-threatening fiscal crisis related to the fact that they have a debt much larger than their GDP- in 2011 those numbers are estimated at 354.7 Billion Euros of debt, or 161.8% of their GDP. Those are some hefty ratios for a sovereign entity to be carrying around – the equivalent of $161,800 of debt for someone making $100,000.

Greek has worked itself into a situation which is quickly coming to a conclusion. Greece pretty much has two options: either (when I say Greece, I mean the people of Greece – the aforementioned referendum was canceled) accept austerity measures handed down from the rest of the European Union nations, or leave the Eurozone, default on their debt, and bring back the drachma. Neither is very enticing: the first isn’t guaranteed to work (think: it might just keep Greece on life support until the next crisis), and the second, defaulting on debt, is never a fun situation since foreign investment will quickly run dry.

Let’s call this post PKamp3′s financial confessions!

In response to a Dollar Challenge by fellow Personal Finance writer Corey at 20′s Finances, we’ve decided to give all of you curious folks out there in the Internet a view of your humble host’s finances. As a condition of the challenge, all numbers included in this post are post-tax (For the record, more goes to tax than savings. Thanks California!). Without further ado, here are our non-GAAP 1st quarter finances, audited by the firm of DQYDJ.net.

Carnivals submitted to, featured links, guest posts, oh my. Updates for the week of 10/31/2011.