If you lost your job tomorrow, how many months could you survive? A typical worker might make ends meet for a median of 120 days before they couldn’t pay their basic living expenses, according to a survey by Henrico County-based SnagAJob, a Web site connecting employers with part-time and hourly workers.

The nation’s biggest credit-counseling association, seeking to avert a rash of personal bankruptcy filings, has asked credit-card issuers to make deeper debt concessions to financially distressed consumers. Susan Keating, president of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, said many of the 2.8 million consumers who sought credit counseling from its 108 members in 2008 wanted to enroll in a debt-management plan.

If the word Twitter makes you giggle, but you don’t know what it is, or if LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and Jigsaw are making you lose control of your time, mark your calendar. On Friday at 8:45 a.m. at the Westwood Club in Richmond, Atlanta author David Nour will discuss how to use social networking to your business or professional advantage, yet manage it so it won’t rule your time.

Foreclosure scheme has many lessons The criminal indictment of a Virginia man accused of running a Ponzi scheme based on buying up people’s foreclosed homes and letting them stay and pay rent is filled with lessons for consumers. The case was filed in December in the U.S. District Court in Richmond. The matter goes to trial in June. According to the indictment, a man convinced people to invest in his Chesterfield County-based company which “saved” financially distressed peoples’ homes from foreclosure by buying them from the lenders.

If your business does not have a presence online, better get with it. Every business should have a Web presence, experts say. Increasingly that’s where shoppers, competitors and prospective business partners can be found.

Did you overspend yet again? Better sit down and start a family budget before you go broke. Follow these tips: Take a free budget class. Circle Feb. 5 on your calendar. That’s the next “Money Management & Credit Recovery Class” presented by Housing Opportunities Made Equal. Developing a budget is one part of the seminar.

Shopping the Internet is fast, fun and convenient. Every day is bargain day. But down every dark cyber alley is a crook waiting to defraud you.

Giver beware with presents of gift cards Do you have a gift card from a bankrupt retailer such as Linens’n Things? Better spend it quick. The chain, which filed for bankruptcy in May, is liquidating its 371 stores nationwide, including two in the Richmond area and seven others in Virginia. Consumers can still redeem their gift cards. But they will be left holding a piece of worthless plastic if they don’t do it before the stores close.

The need to store documents—paper documents, that is—and then easily retrieve them is as important at home as it is at the office. If your records are stashed in bulging shoeboxes, it's time to buy a file cabinet or two. Need to know: What you're filing, and what kind of space you have. File cabinets come in a variety of heights, widths and depths, so you'll want to head to the store or Web site armed with the appropriate dimensions. Remember, you'll need enough clearance in front of the cabinet to open and close the drawers easily.