Here are some of the exciting new features:

• New Design: We have completely redesigned the look and feel of our site. Over the past year we have received a lot of wonderful feedback from many of the 17,000 unique visitors that came to our site. We have taken that feedback to heart and redesigned the site to have a better look and feel. This redesign represents our commitment to listen to our users. We hope you like it, and if you don’t, let us know why.
• New Account Options: We have implemented two new account features that many users requested.
  • Outlook Support: You can now export sales to your Microsoft Outlook calendar. We are also looking to add other calendar support in the near future.
  • GPS Support: You can now export our database of sales to your GPS devise so you can find sales while on the road.
• New Sharing Options: Find a sale you want your friends to know about? Now you can easily share any sales with your friends on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. You can also easily tag sales with Digg, Delicious, and a host of other sites.
• Google Map and Directions: Every sale listed on our site will now be fully integrated with Google maps and directions. All listings will show the location of the sale via Google maps directly within the page. Also, below the address for each sale is the option to quickly and easily get step by step directions from any location.

During our first year of operation our site has seen tremendous growth. We listed over 11,000 sales and received over 17,000 unique visitors. With our new design, are building on this strong foundation. In the coming year, we plan to introduce even more exciting new features in our never ending quest to provide the preeminent booksale search experience on the internet.

Freddie Mac’s new Borrower Help Centers in Chicago, Phoenix, San Bernardino and Washington, DC provide free, confidential one-on-one “holistic” mortgage counseling to delinquent Freddie Mac borrowers. The company is also launching a
separate Borrower Help Network offering similar counseling over the phone to targeted Freddie Mac borrowers.

Both efforts rely on non-profit organizations with strong reputations to contact and work with Freddie Mac borrowers who may be eligible for a modification but never called their lender, or became uncertain of the process and gave up trying.

To view more about this program, please visit here.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of credit unions in U.S., one group in Georgia has put together a 5-minute online video featuring seniors who share financial and life advice from their experience over the generations, intermixed with children from the Boys & Girls Club who talk about the advice they receive from their elders about how to be smart with money and in life.

The video is here: http://www.georgiacreditunions.org/100/index.php.

We can all learn a thing or two from watching it, and each of these seniors has an interesting backstory as well if you are interested in finding out more about them on a Facebook page set up for the video.

Connected to the video, 1,000 Georgians were also polled on their current savings and spending habits, and financial advice. We thought these also might be good fodder for chat among your readers. Here are some of the poll highlights:

• 53% say that either their mother or father was the biggest influence in their lives about money; The breakdown of those who chose father vs. mother was almost even: 27% said father, 26% said mother.
• Regarding the best advice they received, 44% cited “Save a little each paycheck no matter how small”; 23% cited “Credit is good, but pay off cards in full each month”; while 12% cited “Never buy on credit.”
• Asked about a time in their life when they were not good savers, 68% listed their 20s; 50% listed their teens; 44% listed their 30s; and 21% listed their 40s. A stronger focus on savings started in their 50s, with only 8% saying they were not good savers in that decade of their lives and steadily dropping in following decades.
• 65% of those polled say that their personal spending habits will be changed forever because of the current recession.  While 61% think it will be difficult for our economy to come back as strong as it was before the recession, 27% optimistically think that the economy will come back stronger than ever.

The nonprofit organization, National Foundation for Credit Counseling, wants to remind you that National Protect Your Identity Week is fast approaching. And now more than ever it is so important to protect ourselves and our families from theft and invasion.

Did you know that last year alone, nearly 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft, making this the fastest growing crime in
America? Everyday we may be putting ourselves and our families at risk by simply writing a check, using a credit card or even our ATM cards. The best protection against such identity theft is education. By visiting www.ProtectYourIDNow.org, you can take a quiz and assess your risk of ID theft and learn helpful tips to keep you and your family safe. Since this crime is not going anywhere, it’s really time for us to fight back!

National Protect Your Identity Week, a program brought to you by NFCC and Council of Better Business Bureaus, is October 17-24.

Please join the fight by visiting www.ProtectYourIDNow.org today, where you can get involved in National Protect Your Identity Week events and learn important tips.

Also be sure to visit NFCC on Facebook and on Twitter for all the latest updates.