We’re all screwed, the dollar is worth nothing and our savings are wiped out. Right?

Not necessarily. In fact, I’d imagine a lot of us won’t even notice the effects of the recession on a day-to-day basis. But it is definitely going to affect us in one way or another.

Still, you can take simple steps to ensure your survival:

Avoid buying on credit (read: no more debt!)

Try to pay off all your debts right away and put off big purchases.

Be (or appear) valuable at work

When layoffs come, make sure that you are valued at your company. You’ll need a stable income during the times when new jobs are scarce.

Trim the fat (from your expenses)

This should also be filed under Save more, waste less. American personal savings rates are disgustingly low. We all waste money, but recession isn’t the time when you can do so comfortably.

Do you really need that wireless internet card? New magazine subscriptions? Premium gas for your car? Think, don’t just abuse your credit card.

Don’t be jumpy

Don’t sell your investments! Stock markets are affected by downward turns in the economy. If your favorite company is tanking, do some research. If the decline is aligned with the rest of the market or sector, then calm yourself and wait it out. If not, dump the sucker.

Remember, you’re in the market for the long term (in most cases). Keep an eye out on your positions, but don’t get obsessed.

That’s all I can think of right now.

Numbers to chew on:

Savings rate

In summary: Horrible!

via U.S. Department of Commerce

Employment situation

In summary: In March, we lost approximately another 80,000 jobs, a downward trend that started in January 2008. To this day, Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting that “Over the past 3 months, payroll employment has declined by 232,000.” (linky) A lot of this is due to decline in construction, which is directly related to the housing slump.

via U.S. Department of Labor

Prime rates

The Fed has been trying to prevent a recession for a while by lowering the rates. They’re expected to slash another half percentage point very soon. As of March 2008, prime borrowing rate is at 5.25%.

Important takeaway: Low rates are attractive, but don’t get suckered into buying expensive things like a house, if a slight change in your life can make it hard to afford the payments.

Uneducated borrowing is what got us in this whole mess in the first place.

That’s right! Youtilize I am Dimitry blog is back =)

I couldn’t live even two months without you guys, so I brought the blog back up under a new name.

I’ve been pretty busy last few months, so I can’t wait to update all of you. There are some pretty exciting things in the works.

This is me, saying hi

While I have you here, check out some recent pics on my Flickr page. I got a new toy and have been trigger happy lately. Go nuts.

See you all around

Bear with me as I update the logo.

In the coming days, you’ll notice that Youtilize will stop loading for you. No, the world didn’t stop turning. I’m closing down the site and moving on.

My current lifestyle doesn’t leave me with much free time and it has definitely taken a toll on my blogging.

I’ve met a lot of talented individuals and have definitely reaped the benefits of this once semi-popular blog.

But alas, it’s time to move on to bigger and better things. I’ll leave the tech and business blogging to the wonderful minds behind PaulStamatiou.com and OkDork.com.

Thanks for your dedicated readership, your insightful conversations and your useful criticism.

Ta ta, so long, and as those awkward Germans would say, tschüss!

One more thing…

If you want to keep in touch, you can follow me on Twitter, add me to your buddy list (AIM: BigDimitry, Y!: dimitry.bents, GTalk: dimitryb@gmail.com), connect via LinkedIn or simply email me.

Unfortunately for Youtilize and fortunately for us, my girlfriend and I are in the process of relocating to a new city.

Last Friday we flew 2200+ miles away from home to San Francisco, CA. Last few days have been filled with an exhausting apartment hunt, a few trips to a dealership, meeting and catching up with old but good friends and exploring our new city.

Because of this, all online projects have been currently put on hold. If all goes well, we should have a place in a couple of days and will finally get back to a stress-free life (right…)

So please excuse the abrupt slowdown and expect a recovery in the coming days/weeks. I miss blogging, but being in the middle of it all in San Francisco should be a great source of ideas and inspirations.

First and foremost, please stay! According to Reinvigorate about 90% of you come and leave without going deeper than the frontpage. That’s too bad.

I would love to hear your feedback about the design. Because I’m a design freak, every pixel must make sense, so your feedback will go a long way.

A bit about this site

Youtilize.com is a blog currently written only by Dimitry, a 21 year old Front-End Engineer by profession and entrepreneur by heart. He’s a recent graduate with a Finance degree under his belt and enjoys sharing his knowledge with the public.

Youtilize theme for WordPress

As planned in the past, this look before your eyes will be ported from this custom-coded blog to a more popular WordPress blogging engine for public use.

I’ve gotten some requests to create a theme based on the Youtilize design and think it’s a great idea.

So if you’re interested, please check back periodically or pick up the RSS feed.

We’re featured on the following awesome galleries:

• CSS Mania
• Screenalicio.us
• Screenfluent
• Design By Grid
• Update: CSS Remix

Thanks to all the kind words and mentions!