by Andrea Warroch

With one last, long weekend to say farewell to summer, there's not much time to plan your Labor Day getaway. Though spontaneous trips are full of excitement, little planning leaves a lot of room for expensive travel hiccups. This is especially true when 34.1 million Americans are expected to travel during Labor Day, according to AAA Travel.

This means busy roads, crowded airports, overbooked hotels and high prices on everything from entertainment to accommodations. If you want to plan a last-minute getaway for the three-day weekend, follow these thrifty travel tips.

1. Hit the Road
Since airlines are notorious for raising prices during holiday weekends, your best bet is to travel by car. Research vacation spots within driving distance and take in the sites along the road. Use the helpful planning tool Roadtrippers.com to find fun and interesting stops along your route like hiking trails, historical landmarks and amusement parks.

2. Get Cheaper Gas
Though fuel prices typically surge before a popular holiday, there's been a noticeable drop in gas costs recently. However, just because you saw cheaper gas in town, prices can still spike along popular freeways and interstates. Research where to find the least expensive price-per-gallon by using GasBuddy.com. They also offer a smartphone app to help you find the cheapest fuel prices based on your current location.

3. Find Free Things to Do

4. Go Camping
A great way to celebrate the last warm days of summer is to take your clan camping. All you need is a tent, some sleeping bags and a flashlight to enjoy a really cheap night under the stars. Some campsites require reservations while some are first-come- first-serve, so do you research before hitting the road. Go to ReserveAmerica.com for information on sites, pricing and reservation policies.

5. Look for Hotel Steals
If camping is out of the question, there are other ways to save on accommodations. Check vacation rentals online to find less expensive places to rest your head. Bed and Breakfast-type accommodations are usually cheaper than hotels and offer complimentary breakfast to help you save on food costs. Otherwise, download the HotelTonight app to find last-minute savings on unsold rooms with discounts of up to 70-percent off.

6. Dig Up a Daily Deal

7. Tap into Food Savings
Check in to various dining establishments with Foursquare to discover discounts on entrees, or even score free appetizers or drinks. Check the Coupon Sherpa mobile app for popular restaurant coupons like 50-percent of a deep-dish pizza from BJ's Restaurants or $8 off two entrees from Outback Steakhouse.

Andrea Woroch is a nationally-recognized consumer and money-saving expert. Follow her on Twitter.

Do you have to be a Renaissance Person in today's economy? 

Brushes with poverty, extended periods of joblessness and a reliance on welfare is part of the "new normal" for the average American worker, according to new data reported from The Associated Press. 

Economic security isn't what it used to be before the economic crash of 2008; survey data points to the loss of manufacturing jobs, the globalized economy and a widening gap between rich and poor as reasons for why 4 in 5 workers in the United States will experience economic hardship in their lifetime. 

"I certainly don't envy what the average worker will likely endure throughout his or her career, but as an ambitious woman coming up through the ranks of corporate culture - the boy's club - many decades ago, I know the hardship of sustaining the career of your dreams," says 75-year-old Darlene Quinn, author of Unpredictable Webs, (www.darlenequinn.net), the newest in her stand-alone series of suspense-filled dramatic novels which are now in development for a major TV series.

Quinn is a former senior executive with the Bullocks Wilshire department store chain who went on to pursue an award-winning career in fiction writing. She started by earning a bachelor's at San Jose State University and she became a schoolteacher, later climbing her way up the corporate retail ladder during a time of tremendous upheaval in the fashion industry.

"Change is natural; change is life, and you don't have to be afraid of it," she says.

Quinn, a family woman who has also been proactive in managing beauty pageants, volunteering for charity and corporate training, offers the following career advice to struggling professionals:

* Parlay your strengths; experience and education isn't everything.

As a professional, you may not be perfect in every aspect of your career, but there are activities in a job that you probably do regardless of work. Perhaps that's managing groups of people, writing or designing websites. What is your strength, and how does that translate to a more promising field?

* Shoot for the top! Of course, you don't have to be in a state of economic hardship to consider switching fields. The Internet is allowing us to be more connected than ever and permanently altering the employment landscape. Perhaps you see an opportunity in online education and, as an administrator on a college campus you know the weaknesses of today's traditional university system. If you take well to new software, are available beyond the usual 9-to-5 hours and have a stable work history, then why not make more than a lateral move?

* Is it time to trade in that necktie or pantsuit for your passion? After having accomplished so much in the corporate world, Quinn decided it was time for a new direction, so she pursued her passion for writing and has done very well, winning multiple awards. Perhaps it's time to take what you already love doing so well at home and apply it to a career. If you love cooking, for example, and others love what you create, you may want to consider a new career.

Darlene Quinn is an author and journalist from Long Beach, Calif.

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Writing!  

"Age 85 is a bad time to go broke," says expert retirement planner Jeff Gorton.  Personal savings, various investments and, yes, Social Security may prove to be short of what you'd expected.

"Budgeting how you spend money before retirement can often be a misleading measurement of how you'll actually spend it during retirement," says Gorton, a veteran Certified Public Accountant and Certified Financial Planner™, and head of Gorton Financial Group (www.gortonfinancialgroup.com).

"Spending 40 hours a week at work not only earns you a paycheck, it also keeps you from spending money on more vacations, matinee screenings at the movie theater, extra trips to the mall or shopping online. You need to be exceedingly realistic in your planning, and the five years before retirement are actually the most crucial in solidifying post-employment stability."

To prevent a rude awakening during retirement, Gorton makes certain his clients start with a written income plan (WIP). He reviews the benefits and importance of this "living document":

* A comprehensive list of life expenses paints a clearer picture. For a 65-year-old married couple today, there is a 72 percent chance that at least one spouse will live to age 85; a 45 percent chance that one will live to age 90, and an 18 percent chance that one will reach age 95, according a recent study from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics. You may not think of listing things like pet care, yard maintenance, and regular visits to salons or spas. But if you enjoy those services now, you may want them during retirement, and you might find that you underestimated the real cost of maintaining your desired lifestyle. And, that's not including gifts to children and grandchildren!

* The forecast of a two-legged stool. A WIP helps you appreciate the reliability of retirement income. What sources of income do you anticipate having? Traditionally, retirement funding has been viewed as a "three-legged stool," implying a balance between Social Security, retirement plans and savings/investments. As the baby boom generation ages, Social Security benefits may decrease - and the age at which an individual can collect benefits may increase. Changes in employment may affect retirement plans. As a result, the third leg of the stool, savings/investments, may become even more important.

* Who is authoring your WIP? As with all written documents, you must always consider the source. What you may not realize is that a financial planner is liable to have a stake in selling you a financial product. Just like a retailer may have an incentive to move certain brands of products, many planners are incentivized to have you invest in specific financial vehicles from major institutions. What plan works best for you? Seek advice from an expert who isn't trying to sell you something, such as an independent firm.

"If you don't have a written income plan, then you're just hoping things will work out," Gorton says.

Jeff Gorton is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Financial Planner™ specializing in individual tax and retirement planning.

Countdown to Health Care Reform

Quick Facts about Healthcare Reform
the Whitehouse website provides the following facts: 

 

*More than 105 million Americans no longer have lifetime dollar limits on their coverage:

Under the new health care law, insurers can no longer impose lifetime dollar limits on care and annual limits are being phased out by 2014.

*More Americans have access to free preventive services:

In 2011, approximately 54 million Americans had their prevention coverage improve in their private health insurance plans. And an estimated 32.5 million people with Medicare have received one or more free preventive service.

*Seniors with Medicare are paying less for prescription drugs:

More than 5.1 million people on Medicare have saved over $3.1 billion on prescription drugs, including a one-time $250 rebate check to seniors who fell into the prescription coverage gap or "donut hole" in 2010, and a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs worth an average of $604 per person in 2011.