Let’s just start by saying, Happy Mega Millions Day! With the lottery winnings well into the hundreds of millions, many people are thinking about what they’d do if they won the lottery.

If you end up interviewing for a job  – which can also feel like winning the lottery these days – you may be asked just that question.

Experts say even if your immediate thought is, “I’d run out of this interview screaming,” it pays to at least try to sound like you’re not interested in the position just for the paycheck.

In reality, about 70 percent of our readers said they’d quit their job if they won the lottery. We’d like to work with the reader who wrote:  “I'd pass out checks to my office co-workers and tell them each to take a month off.”

An island, a submarine, an $845,000 car -- what would be on your shopping list if you won the lottery? Most of our readers said they’d buy a few big-ticket items but save the rest of it.

One reader was thinking realistically:

“I would have to spend a bundle on medical bills - due to the heart attack and fractured skull I would get when I fainted upon hearing I won,” the reader wrote.

OK, back to the real world, where most of us are not going to win the lottery and instead are grappling with more mundane financial worries.

One growing issue: Student loan debt, which some government calculations say has swelled to a total of around $1 trillion.  

This week, we asked readers to provide some tips for managing, or avoiding, student loan debt.

Some readers suggested trying to find a job at a company that will reimburse your education expenses.

Others said they’d worked their way through, taking longer but finishing with the debt hanging over their heads.

Many readers said they’d gotten their initial courses out of the way at a community college, so they could spend less time – and money – at a four-year institution.

Readers also encouraged the crop of incoming students to look hard for any scholarships or grants available, and to make sure they only take out as much student loan debt as they absolutely need.

One great tip: Start planning for your kids’ college experience while they are still very young, saving money for college as well as preparing them academically to best take advantage of college and maybe even land some scholarships.

You also may be able to rely on a little help from Grandma and Grandpa. In another post this week, we reported on an AARP study showing that many grandparents are helping their grandchildren out with education and other expenses.

Most of our readers said that it was equally important for grandparents to give their grandchildren financial help as well as advice for the future.

Many grandparents said they were happy to provide support.

“I don't want my children to have to wait now until I die for them to reap some benefit from my life's work. I gladly and willingly help them in any way I can, making sure that they still are required to do their part and put the effort into their work, marriages and children. If this is what we need to do as families in the current rat-race world, so be it,” one reader wrote.

They say that wealth begets wealth. That sure rang true for many hedge fund managers in 2011.

The “Rich List” of Wall Street hedge fund managers, who took home a combined $14.4 billion last year, includes businessmen who culled their wealth in part through fees charged to pensions and to manage money for the wealthy.

The annual ranking by AR Magazine, an industry publication, also includes managers who made millions even though the returns on their funds didn’t do much better than the overall S&P 500’s performance last year.

And in a year when the Occupy Wall Street movement protested inequitable wealth distribution, top hedge fund managers handling investments for the super-rich still found ways to make big money.

Take for example Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, who earned almost $4 billion mostly by betting on U.S. Treasuries, according to a TODAY report Friday by NBC senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers.

“My customers are pension funds, teachers. I did well when others didn’t and I’m going to say that they are very grateful,” Dalio said in an interview with PBS.

Two years in a row, Dalio's firm earned more than Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay combined, Myers found. And Dalio’s earnings were just considered “pretty good” by industry standards.

“The industry’s fees and performance are so out of whack it’s unbelievable,” Bradley H. Alford, a former hedge fund investor who now oversees a mutual fund firm told the New York Times. "Fifteen years ago, you got double-digit performance for those returns, but last year, the S&P was positive and hedge funds were negative. There’s no alignment with fees.”

Number 2 on the list, shareholder activist Carl Icahn, raked in $2.5 billion.

Number 3, James Simons, who owns a stake in the Renaissance Fund, earned $2.1 billion. Citadel hedge fund head Ken Griffin got $700 million.

Griffin has a taste for the good life, Myers found.

His wedding reception was held at the palace of Versailles. He owns at least four homes in the U.S. including a $17 million home in an exclusive Hawaiian resort. He donated an eponymously named wing to the Art Institute in Chicago.

Then there’s the pauper of the top five: Steve Cohen.

Cohen, head of SAC Capital Advisers, earned a comparatively paltry $585 million. He’s also a big spender.

He has a 35,000 square foot mansion, owns a piece of the Mets and his world-class art collection is worth millions.

There were some losers in the group. Last year’s standout star, hedge fund manager John Paulson, founder of Paulson & Co., is believed to have personally lost about $3 billion — losses partly attributed to his investment in a Chinese timber company later accused of fraud, according to the New York Times.

All these billionaires either declined to comment or did not respond to NBC's calls. The managers argue that, unlike some corporate CEOs, they only do well if their investors do well.

Dalio has pledged to give away at least half of his wealth to charity.

TODAY.com contributor Halimah Abdullah often reports on the influence of money on politics and policy.

With so many business scandals lately, there’s often a damning e-mail exposing wrongdoing, often sent by high-level employees.

Just last week, government officials investigating the collapse of MF Global released an email from the firm’s assistant treasurer that could implicate the CEO, former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.

The e-mail states: “Per JC’s direct instructions” millions of dollars were transferred out of customer accounts to cover a shortfall at the defunct brokerage, an act that could spell legal problems for both Corzine and the treasurer.

E-mail evidence like this isn’t unusual. Last year, an investigation into phone-hacking charges at News Corp. unearthed damning e-mails that showed top managers were informed about widespread illegal activity. And even the Oracle-Google patent fight has a “damaging e-mail” that is part of the saga. According to a recent article in Computer World, Google has been trying to keep an e-mail written by one of its engineers out of the case.

So, the question is, why do people keep putting potentially harmful information in e-mails? Sure, it’s great for prosecutors who want to expose malfeasance at companies, but after so many public e-mail faux pas you’d think people would have wised up.

One of the top reasons they haven’t is “hubris,” maintained Dave Scher, an employment attorney with the Employment Law Group. “People think they’re above the law.”

Scher represents employees in cases of retaliation or discrimination at work, and with about half of his cases he’s able to find e-mails that corroborate or confirm retaliatory or discriminatory conduct.

One of the most blatant e-mails came from a boss who was pretending to be a licensed therapist. When his employees exposed him, the manager sent the worker an e-mail basically stating he was firing him because he revealed his lie. It was a retaliatory move that’s illegal under labor laws.

Indeed, about a quarter of companies have had an employee e-mail subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation; and 9 percent ended up in court because of an employee e-mail, according to the most recent report on business communications policies by the American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute. This is despite that about 80 percent of organizations have written e-mail policies, the study found.

Stephanie Weiland Knarr, a licensed psychotherapist from Laurel, Md., isn’t surprised that people who engage in shady acts have no qualms about letting it all hang out on e-mail. “The personality type of someone who is engaging in illegal behavior is often narcissistic,” she explained, adding that they think they’re invisible and above the law. “These types of people like to take risks and even if they’re caught and the writing is on the wall, so to speak, they still deny it.”

What may also be driving some of this is that many employees just don’t take e-mail seriously, surmised Nigel Cannings, technical director for Chase Information Technology Services, a London-based firm that does corporate compliance.

“What we have found is that people just don't think of e-mail as ‘real,’” he explained. “To them it's an ephemeral thing that is sent off into the ether, and which is a) private, and which b) can be deleted. Usually, both are untrue.”

Indeed, in most cases you can’t just scrub your e-mails away if you realize they could be career killers, or land you in legal hot water.

“Depending on industry and the size of an organization, e-mails are immediately written to an enterprise repository, which is accessible by legal and compliance functions. And which cannot be deleted, even if they are deleted from the e-mail client,” Canning noted.

And, he added, “Financial regulators insist that e-mails are maintained for potential later investigation. Increasingly this is the case for IM messages as well, and they are likely to be the next big area where people get caught out.”

It’s not just illegal deeds that are exposed via e-mail. Patti Johnson, a career expert and the CEO of PeopleResults, said the e-mail flubs she sees most include:

• The misinterpretation: “E-mails are often misinterpreted because you wrote it quickly, used the wrong tone or copied the world. A poorly worded or quickly written e-mail can send the relationship in a downward spiral because it is misinterpreted.”
• The misused CC: "This is often the equivalent of saying I need to let your boss know because I'm not sure you will get it done, or I need someone else to be involved. Use the CC with intent or you can end up with a trust issue on your hands unintentionally.”
• The address mixup: “E-mails sent to the wrong person. Yes, it happens and it isn't pretty. You type the person's name in you are complaining about.”
• The angry: “E-mails sent when you're mad. This is time to take a deep breath and make sure you have the facts and pause. A good rule of thumb is if you are going to send a flaming e-mail out, sleep on it first or at least walk around the block. Because once it goes - you can't get it back.”

In the end, e-mails are “permanent and very, very mobile,” stressed Margaret King, director of a consumer research think tank, The Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis.

“Never put anything in an e-mail that you would not want quoted in the New York Times,” she advised. “If the material is that sensitive, ask the recipient to give you a call, and transmit that way.”

Bill McDavid / Hall and Hall

Mill Creek Ranch property

Welcome to the 1 percent, hypothetical lottery winner.  Here’s what you can buy with your winnings.

The Mega Millions lottery jackpot hit a record $540 million Thursday and by Friday it had climbed to $640 million with a lump sum option of $462 million.

If you're lucky enough to beat the 1-in-176 million odds and win, the bad news is you won’t be able to take home that full amount. That's because lottery officials will withhold 25 percent for federal gaming taxes, according to Arlen Harris of the Washington's Lottery, which participates in the Mega Millions.

Still, you should be pretty well set for life.

While you still might be on the hook for state taxes, you would have the kind of money to afford multiple homes, travel by private jet and take up a fancy hobby like collecting fine wine or antique cars, said Bruce Wallin, editorial director of the luxury goods magazine Robb Report.

"That kind of money affords the ability to pursue your passions to the kind of extreme that a lot of us dream of," he said.

You could even follow in the underwater path of Hollywood director James Cameron and spend a few million on a personal submarine, one of the latest trends among the superrich.

Still, Wallin cautions that you might want to try before you buy. For example, a 220-foot luxury yacht, complete with a crew and all the toys you can imagine can be rented for about $300,000 a week. That's well within your new budget and a good way to test the waters, literally, before spending $10 million or $20 million on your own yacht.

If you are ready to buy, here are some items to consider for your shopping list.

Your own island

Windermere

Allan Island in Washington state

What’s the first thing that’s going to happen after you win the lottery? Inevitably, that guy who was a jerk to you in high school or that relative who’s been ridiculing you for years is going to find you on Facebook and start hitting you up for money.

Time to get away. Far away.

Private islands range in price from under $50,000 to $160 million. For just a small fraction of your winnings, you can be the owner of 292-acre Allan Island in Washington state, listed for $13.5 million.

Still, the upkeep alone can be daunting. Wallin recommends renting an island before you buy.

"One of the things you'd want to do in winning the lottery is take a great trip," he said.

Your own ranch 

Bill Mcdavid / Hall and Hall

Mill Creek Ranch

Maybe you get seasick easily or you fancy yourself more of a rugged Western type. Don’t despair, you can still find plenty of privacy on the mainland.

With less than one-tenth of your winnings -- or $29.5 million -- you could be the owner of Mill Creek Ranch, a nearly 26,000-acre ranch in Red Bluff, Calif., with a 7,388-square-foot Spanish Colonial home.

Of course, you’ll have to budget about $48,623 a year in taxes. For perspective, that’s a little less than the median annual household income in this country.

A jet

Mike Wintroath / AP

A Hawker 4000 jet airplane

The good news about the Red Bluff property – it’s just a few miles from a jet-capable airport.

Here’s where you might want to take some advice from the other 1 percenters. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns NetJets, which provides fractional ownership of jets and saves you the hassle of having to buy a whole jet all on your own.

The Marquis Jet Card gets you 25 hours of flight time for a mere $119,000 a year.

If you take the lottery's annual payment option, that would represent just a few days' worth of your yearly payout.

Your dream car

Porsche

Porsche 918 Spyder

Before you won the lottery, maybe your idea of a dream car was just something that didn’t leak too much oil and was less likely to break down on the freeway during the heavy commute hours.

Now, you can afford to have a lot more fun on the road.

The Porsche 918 Spyder may be a good option, if you can wait a while.

Porsche only plans to make 918 of these, so it will set you back $845,000. But on the bright side you’ll be saving money on gas. The plug-in gas-electric hybrid, due out in November 2013, has a V8 engine that generates 500 horsepower plus two electric motors that help it get an estimated 78 miles per gallon.

A great party

Frontiers Elegant Journeys

Orient Express Royal Scotsman

Look, you’ve just won the lottery: Beer and chips at your place is just not going to do.

When it comes to luxury party planning, the options are endless. If you want to keep the gathering intimate, and keep the paparazzi and unwanted guests out of your hair, it’s best to keep moving.

The Royal Scotsman will take you and up to 36 of your closest friends on a four-day excursion through the Scottish Highlands. Yes, you’ll be traveling on your own private train. The “rolling house party” starts at just $166,800, or less than 1 percent of those annual payments.

A sports team, or a few companies

If you do win the lottery, the most common bad joke/piece of advice you're likely to hear is, "Don't spend it all in one place." (Wow, is that going to get old.)

But if you do want to go big, CNBC notes that your winnings are enough to buy the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League or a medium-sized company like Rosetta Stone or Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Storify: What would you buy?

Courtesy of Tumbleweed Tiny House Co.

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company sells modest accommodations, from a cosy 99 square feet to a comfortable 874 square feet.

Here are five trends that are making retirement more fun — and accessible — for retirees of all kinds.

Senior co-housing: A Danish trend takes hold

The concept is that individuals and couples live in private homes but share ownership a central common house. Construction is well underway for Valverde Commons in Taos, N.M., which is in easy walking distance to the Taos Historic District. There will be 28 home sites on 10 acres, with a 4–acre grassy commons, a common house and a barn. Building lots sell for as little as $150,000, and each custom home will follow guidelines for sustainability and energy efficiency.

Related: See the world’s coolest rental homes

Belize: Cheap — and they speak English

Despite its Central American setting, Belize uses English as its national language, so visitors and retirees don't have to worry about understanding the lingo. The country is also popular with Americans because it’s possible to live here comfortably for less than $25,000 a year. A complete meal in a mid-price restaurant, for instance, will cost under $40 for two — and if you like fresh seafood, this is your culinary paradise. Belize also has big appeal as a retirement destination for active couples who love snorkeling, scuba diving and jungle trekking.

Retiring at sea — on a cruise ship

While there are condominium cruise ships, the entry price to purchase an apartment is usually more than $1 million. But there are alternatives that can provide an extended break without requiring an entire year aboard a ship. For instance, retirees can take advantage of their flexible schedules by booking whichever ship happens to be offering the best deal to destinations with the best weather. Or consider a round-the-world cruise, which generally lasts around 100 days. Fred. Olsen Cruises, a long-time British line that is very traditional in its service and style, offers one that calls on ports in Spain, India, Indonesia, among others; prices start at under $14,000 per person for the 106-day cruise.

Build a tiny home — in your adult children's backyard

Itsy-bitsy houses — some just 400-square-feet — are the newest trend in residential construction. With a tiny kitchenette, a very intimate sitting room and a loft bedroom, these houses are low-cost, low-maintenance and perfect for the retiring couple seriously looking to "down-size." A Virginia company aptly named Tumbleweed Tiny House Company sells a 400-sq.-ft. log cabin with a covered porch for $36,900. If you have grown children who want to look after you, but you still want your independence, this might be a perfect solution — because some retirees choose to build these mini-homes in their children's backyards.

Workamping: Semi-retirement in an R.V.

Imagine driving around the country in your camper van or R.V., picking a nice campsite, and then taking a temporary job to earn some extra cash. When the travel bug hits you, just unhook your RV from the camp facilities and head to someplace new. A growing band of people is embracing this trend, and there are even a number of devoted websites that offer advice to workampers and help them find jobs. The cost? It's true that gas prices are high right now, but that's not necessarily a permanent condition. Plus, your other costs are minimal (mainly food and campsite fees). Some people even work for three or four months as campground hosts, get their campsite for free, and earn a salary besides. Other job opportunities for workampers include amusement parks, hotels in national parks, the Army Corps of Engineers.

Financial expert Sharon Epperson and Mark Orwoll of Travel + Leisure magazine talk about new and different places to retire, such as a cruise ship, a recreational vehicle and co-housing on the Thursday TODAY show.

More from Travel + Leisure

• Best spring break getaways
• World's coolest staircases
• America's most beautiful neighborhoods
• Best affordable beach resorts

Lacking confidence in the housing market, most Americans are not moving this year. And since they’re stuck, most have some sort of home improvement project planned for 2012, according to a new survey.

The American Express Spending and Saving Tracker “Home Decision 2012” survey says that 10 percent of Americans – 23 million people – plan to move. Of these, 44 percent plan to buy a home and 42 percent say they will rent. As for the other 14 percent? Amex doesn’t say, but maybe mom and dad should clean out the basement.

The home improvers? Seventy percent say they have a project. They plan on spending an average of $3,500, or roughly what a contractor charges for 28 minutes of work plus lunch (we kid). Of those projects, 58 percent will be interior remodel and the top project in that category is paint, 37 percent.

Twenty-four percent must not have allergies; they plan on doing some sort of landscaping.

The survey report noted that Americans still don’t trust the housing market will get better. Fifty-two percent are “not very/not at all” confident they’d get their asking price if they listed their current residence.

Read the full American Express Spending and Saving Tracker “Home Decision 2012” report.

The material was first reported in the Wall Street Journal. 

Bryan Smith / Zuma Press

Sure, a $500 million jackpot is big, but after taxes ... better just tell the hiring manager you would have to think about your options.

The Mega Millions lottery jackpot has hit a record $500 million. Would you quit working if you won it?

If you have a job interview this week, that is hardly an idle question.

The lottery, to be drawn Friday, is on a lot of people’s minds this week, and as a result hiring managers may pull out a doozy of an interview question.

Joyce Lain Kennedy, author of “Job Interviews for Dummies,” calls the lottery question one of the top 10 “prime-time tricky probes” employers lay on workers these days.

When you answer the lottery question -- or any interview question -- you want to leave out any inkling you’re not excited about working hard, no matter what the circumstances.

“Recruiters report that high numbers of job seekers blab negative information without realizing they’re making a farewell address to a job opportunity,” Kennedy said.

Even if you would dump work in a heartbeat following such a windfall, it’s best to keep your feelings to yourself.

Kennedy advised responding along these lines: “While you’d be thrilled to win the lottery, you’d still seek out fulfilling work because working, meeting challenges and scoring accomplishments are what make most people happy, including you.” And don’t forget, she added, to “say it with a straight face.”

Many of you would have no problem with the question, based on an unscientific poll of my 13,000-plus Twitter followers.  When I asked, “Would you stay in your job if you won the lottery?” more than 90 percent offered a resounding “yes.”

Most comments were along the lines of @heatherecoleman’s tweet: "Yes - I love what I do!"

But a few tweeters were contemplating post-winnings career adjustments.  “There would be major course change," said @ed_mcfarland.

For some employers, the best answer to the lottery question is one that’s honest.

“I think it is worse for the candidate to say that they would stay, never leave, etc.,” said David Lewis, president of HR consulting firm OperationsInc. “I’m looking for honesty and real people vs. fakers who are trying to tell me what they think I want to hear.”

Others believe an answer that sounds like you’re looking for any reason to get away from the daily grind is troublesome.

Ken Wisnefski, CEO of Internet marketing firm WebiMax, often asks applicants a lottery-type question: “What would you do with $1 million?”

“I have had one gentleman say, ‘I wouldn’t be here right now,’ and that gentleman did not receive a second interview," he said. "I have, however, heard responsible answers including, ‘I would invest it and grow it to $2 million.’  That response earned a second interview and eventually a position at my company.”

Patricia Siderius, managing director of executive outplacement services at BPI group, offered a good suggestion for an answer to the lottery question: “I would need time to understand how this fortune will or will not change my life.”

A life change is exactly what Benjamin Flynn, 38, a New York City cab driver, is worried about and why he’s not sure he even wants to win millions.

“Money is the root of all evil,” he said. But, he added, if he did win he’d quit his job and go back to school to become a surgical nurse.

Before we all start planning our lives post lottery-winnings, it may be time for a reality check.

Your chances of winning the Mega Millions is 1 in 176 million, according to Jim Lackritz, professor of management information systems at the San Diego State University’s College of Business Administration. “Not a good chance, and not worth it,” he said.

An individual winner of Friday's jackpot could elect to take an immediate cash payout of $359 million before taxes.

Military.com

Rear Admiral T. McCreary (Ret.) and president of Military.com

Veterans face many challenges when they return home and start looking for work, everything from discrimination to a lack of training and skills for civilian jobs. But in the end, it’s up to vets themselves to leave the military behind and adapt to the nonmilitary work world.

That’s the message Rear Admiral T. McCreary (Ret.) who is president of Military.com sent during our live Web chat Wednesday. He took online questions from vets and their loved ones while attending the Hiring Our Heroes jobs fair event -- an initiative by NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- on the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier in New York. 

Here’s a sampling of the Q&A:

Jeremy asked:

“Why can't veterans find jobs?”

McCreary answered:

“Vets can find jobs. It's just hard work and requires a lot of learning and patience. There are jobs out there, it’s just finding them, translating skills and learning how to job hunt.”

And he defended efforts to focus on veteran’s unemployment flight, against readers who questioned why returning military deserved more help than those who never served.

April asked:

“Why do veterans deserve any more job placement assistance than folks who have not served?”

McCreary answered:

“I don't think it’s an issue of deserving more but leveling the playing field. Most vets join right out of school and have never had to job hunt. They've lived in a unique culture and speak a different language. As a result, they don't know enough to be competitive. I think all these programs are designed to bring veterans up to speed and help them compete in the broader job market.

"That said, many feel serving ones country should offer them a little leg up when job hunting as they are behind their piers in assimilating into the corporate world. Whether that is military service of some other type of national service, most think our vets do deserve some additional help to ensure they can ‘rejoin’ society in a more normal transition.”

For more of this enlightening discussion and targeted tips for vets struggling to find job, check out a replay of the Web chat here:

Gallup

The economy remains a key worry for most Americans.

It’s still the economy, people.

Despite signs the economy is improving, a new poll finds Americans are still most worried about – you guessed it – the economy.

And when that’s not keeping us up at night, there’s a host of other pocketbook issues to fill our worried minds, the Gallup poll released Wednesday finds.

The poll, conducted in early March, found that 71 percent of Americans worry a great deal about the economy. That’s the same percentage as a year ago and shows that even a dropping unemployment rate and other signs of economic improvement are doing little to ease our concerns about the country’s economic future.

Gas prices, which currently average around $3.90 a gallon, also topped the list of worries, with 65 percent of Americans saying they worry a great deal about pain at the pump.

In addition, 60 percent worry a great deal about the affordability and availability of health insurance, and 55 percent are worried about unemployment.

Other big picture economic issues also appear to be keeping us up at night, including federal spending, the budget deficit and Social Security.

Many more respondents said they worry a fair amount about these issues, leaving only a minority who said they weren’t concerned at all.

Economic issues appeared to be much more of a concern than other social and political issues such as environmental issues, illegal immigration, race relations or the possibility of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Related:

Magic number for gas prices: $5.30 a gallon, poll finds

For some consumers, coffee ranks right up there with the mortgage payment and the electric bill as a vital expense. Of course, the surest way to shrink that slice of your budget is to forgo any trips to the coffee shop. It’s the infamous “latte factor,” a term originated (and trademarked) by David Bach and perpetuated by other personal finance gurus to illustrate the big savings that can result from resisting small, repeated purchases.

If you’ve already bought into this idea and started brewing at home, as do 86 percent of Americans (although not necessarily exclusively), according to the National Coffee Association, you can still cut down on your coffee expenditures without sacrificing taste.

Below are Cheapism’s top picks for affordable coffee, ranging from about 11 to 22 cents a cup.

• Folgers Black Silk (starting at $7.64 for a 27.8-ounce canister) is the best-selling brand’s darkest roast. Coffee drinkers posting reviews online note the strong, bold flavor, which may be too much for consumers used to milder brews but stands up well to the addition of milk and sugar. (Where to buy)
• Eight O’Clock Original (starting at $4.98 for 12 ounces of whole beans) has been around for more than 150 years and continues to appeal to coffee drinkers with its mellow medium roast. It’s also available as ground coffee, but experts recommend grinding whole beans yourself just before brewing for optimal taste. (Where to buy)
• Café Bustelo (starting at $3.79 for a 10-ounce can) is Cuban-style coffee intended for coladas, café con leche, and other drinks that incorporate milk and sugar. Dark roast drinkers have embraced it as a way to get bold flavor on a budget. (Where to buy)
• Melitta coffee (starting at $5.99 for an 11-ounce can) is more expensive but requires less coffee per cup, because it’s finely ground for use in the company’s manual, pour-over coffee makers (but also can be made with an automatic-drip machine). Consumers posting reviews find the 100 percent Colombian medium roast a smooth, affordable approximation of a pricier premium blend. (Where to buy)

Americans traditionally favor lighter roasts, but Starbucks and other specialty coffeehouses have popularized darker coffee in recent decades. The longer roasting process yields a richer, more intense brew -- but not necessarily a better one. Plenty of consumers, particularly those who drink their coffee black, prefer the more nuanced flavor and aroma of a light or medium roast.

Both medium roasts on our list are made from 100 percent arabica beans, which are prized for their delicate flavor. They are typically expensive because they come from finicky plants that thrive only in particular conditions. Many cheap blends incorporate robusta beans, which don’t require as much care to cultivate. They also contain more caffeine.

If you’re wondering about the price difference between beans and ground coffee, Daily Finance did the math and found that whole beans are only marginally more expensive -- if you already own a coffee grinder. The question is whether you consider a superior brew worth the extra step of grinding the beans.

More from Cheapism:
Cheap coffee
Cheap coffee grinders
Cheap espresso machines
Cheap summer camps

AARP

Grandparents are splurging on gifts for their grandkids, but many also are helping out with necessities.

Everyone expects grandparents to splurge on gifts for their grandkids, but a new study finds that in many cases the older generation is also spending money to help their progeny with basic needs.

About half of all grandparents said they are helping out with their grandchildren’s education expenses, while 37 percent are helping out with everyday living expenses and 23 percent with medical or dental expenses, according to a survey released Wednesday by AARP.

The results were relatively similar to a 2002 survey on the same topic by AARP, which advocates for older Americans.

Forty percent of the grandparents surveyed had spent $500 or more on their grandkids in the past 12 months, although 44 percent said the economy had affected how much they spend on their grandkids. Many had cut back on gifts, while some said they had had cut back on buying necessities for their grandchildren.

Some grandparents are playing an even more substantial role in helping out Mom and Dad.

About 1 in 10 survey respondents said they have grandchildren living with them, and four in 10 of those said they are the primary caregiver for their grandkids.

Even if Grandma or Grandpa are not the primary caregivers, the survey found that 16 percent are providing some child care while Mom and Dad are at work or school. About half said they just wanted to spend more time with their grandkids, while two in 10 said it was because the parents couldn’t afford alternative child care.

The survey of about 1,900 grandparents age 50 and over was conducted last summer and fall.

John Wolfe, a career expert for Monster/Military.com, hosted TODAY's resume and interview workshops. Here are his 10 tips to crafting the perfect resume for Wednesday's virtual job fair.

Mistake 10: Including too much military jargon so a human resources professional cannot determine where you would best fit with the company.

Solution: Describe the skills that you gained in the military in a generally understandable manner. Don't focus on one aspect of your position but your responsibilities and accomplishments as a whole and that are not just specific to the military. The responsibility for translating your skills into English is yours! An effective tool is the Military.com Military Skills Translator.

Mistake 9: Including multiple phone numbers.

Solution: Include only your primary phone number and make sure you have an answering machine or voice mail on that number along with a courteous professional greeting.

Mistake 8: Leaving off your email address.

Solution: Always include your email address. This is the second most popular way, after the phone, the vast majority of employers and recruiters correspond.

Mistake 7: Including a picture on the resume.

Solution: Leave off all pictures. In the United States, this information could be considered discriminatory.

Mistake 6: Adding personal information about yourself, including marital status and kids.

Solution: Leave this off all together. You do not want to allow the hiring manager to make certain assumptions they are not allowed by law to make. The HR professional may feel that you will not travel, etc. because of your family.

Mistake 5: Including any information that would specifically lead a reasonable person to know from a resume the applicant's race, color or religious affiliation. 

Solution: Leave off all information of any group or award that specifically reveals your race, color or religious background. This background is a hot potato for an employer and could cause them to immediately eliminate the resume from consideration.

Mistake 4: Submitting resumes longer than three pages.

Solution: The longest any resume should be is two pages. Remember that a resume is to tell a brief career history — the emphasis on brief! Many people feel they will look better to an employer having a longer resume. The reality is, the reverse is true. A curriculum vitae that is used in countries outside the United States and Canada should be longer, but not a resume.

Mistake 3: Using the word "I" anywhere in the resume.

Solution: A resume should be written in third person.

Mistake 2: Using elaborate or non-standard fonts.

Solution: Use a very standard font, like one that is used in a book. Both people and optical character readers (OCR) can read the standard fonts such as Times New Roman or Courier. Remember: The purpose of sending a resume to an employer is to have it read.

Mistake 1: Having a resume that does not match the person.

Solution: People are brought in for interviews based on their resumes. If the person during the interview does not match the resume, the company feels they have been misled.

Find more of John Wolfe's career tips on Monster.com and Military.com.

More from Hiring our Heroes:
Young veterans share their skills, dreams
Capital One, Comcast pledge to hire vets
Comcast and NBC Universal will hire 1,000 veterans 
Hiring our Heroes 'unlocks the potential' of vets 
Jill Biden: Veterans will 'get the job done' 
Bloomberg: NYC is committed to hiring veterans 

For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.

Andy Kropa/Getty Images

Students attend commencement at Vassar College on May 23, 2010 in Poughkeepsie, New York.

You don’t need a degree in economics or statistics to see that the facts about student loan debt are sobering.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that Americans owe $867 billion in student loan debt, and a separate estimate from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the total could even have surpassed $1 trillion.

Part of the issue is that education is getting more expensive. Tuition rates at both public and private colleges have risen substantially in the past decade, even when you adjust for inflation.

But all hope is not lost. This week, Consumer Reports released a report on how to manage -- or better yet avoid --  student loan debt.

If you already have student loan debt, Consumer Reports recommends taking control of the situation. Figure out how much debt you have, to whom you owe it and what repayment options you have.

If you can’t afford your payments, you may be able to get a deferment or even take a job or do a volunteer program that would qualify you for loan forgiveness.

If you’ve exhausted all those options, let the lender know right away that you can’t make your payments. Avoiding the problem will definitely not make it go away.

The best course of action is to avoid taking on debt in the first place. With many people preparing for the coming academic year, now’s a good time to consider some of these tips.

One big piece of advice: Carefully consider going back to school to avoid unemployment. Although hiding out in grad school may seem like a good idea when you can’t find a job, consider whether the extra education will really pay off in terms of salary and career advancement, once you factor in the student loans.

Consumer Reports also recommends that you try to live as frugally as possible and don’t take on student loans for things like furniture for your dorm room. Look to federal loans before considering private loans, since the federal loans will have a fixed rate and the private loans may be variable.

Another tip: Try not to borrow more than you expect to make in your first year of employment.

Consumer Reports also recommends taking whatever courses you can at community college before transferring to the school where you will eventually earn your degree.

It’s also worth considering whether you can get the education you need at a state school rather than splurging for a private school.

A little more than half of public college students graduated with student loan debt in 2009, according to the College Board, and the average debt was $19,800. More than six in 10 graduates of private, nonprofit colleges took on debt with their degree that year, and on average those 2009 graduates owed $26,100.

What are your tips for getting an education without a lot of debt? Share them in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.

Related:

Mounting student loans a 'debt bomb' waiting to explode

Americans are now more educated than ever

Loving the job but hating the student loan debt

Tony Dejak / AP

Five of the century-old light bulbs were discovered in a time capsule buried 100 years ago at GE's Lighting's Nela Park world headquarters. One of them still worked.

Talk about illuminating the past. In preparation for the 100th anniversary of an industrial park in the Cleveland area next year, GE Lighting dug up a time capsule at one of Nela Park's original buildings. The capsule itself contained some artifacts like a local paper and photographs, according to Cleveland.com.

Tony Dejak / AP

President and CEO of GE Lighting Maryrose T. Sylvester holds up an historical brochure.

But the real find was buried in sand above the capsule: Five incandescent light bulbs, at least one of which still worked when plugged in.  

GE spokesman David Schuellerman said via email the company thought the bulbs were buried inside the capsule, making the fact that any of them survived even more remarkable. One bulb was full of water and the other had condensation on the inside, but the other three "appeared in working order,"  he said. One bulb plugged in at the site of the time capsule ceremony did, in fact, work. Schuellerman said a repeat test was done later in a lab on that bulb and it worked a second time. 

"We believe the bulb that we successfully tested was a 40-watt tungsten filament incandescent bulb," he said. Both tungsten and carbon filament bulbs were buried with the time capsule. Schuellerman said the company might test the other two bulbs once it determined what kind they were. 

Tony Dejak / AP

Bill Bogatay opens the time capsule buried 100 years ago.

For now, the bulbs are in a Nela Park lab. "We’re cleaning and examining them, using etchings on the glass and written records to determine 1912 performance metrics such as light output," Schuellerman said. Eventually, the bulbs will be put on display at the GE Lighting Institute at Nela Park.

Tony Dejak / AP

A copy of The Plain Dealer dated Thursday, March 21, 1912 was included in the time capsule.

Tony Dejak / AP

A photo of the GE board of directors included in the time capsule.

Salad is good for you. That’s why it’s the first item in the buffet line. Not.

Plantingmoneyseeds.com passes along a list of four tricks restaurants use to get more money out of each customer. And cheaping out is well represented, both by the salad and the size of straws they use for non-boozers.

Are you paying too much? Fight back!

Another category is "menu engineering." Although slapping “new” in front of an item hardly seems like bridge building.

Have you worked in the hospitality industry? What tricks did management have you employ? 

Bureau of Labor Statistics

The employment-to-population ratio for men ages 25 to 54 declined sharply during the recession and has yet to improve significantly. Nearly 83 percent of men in that age group were working in February.

The recent improvements in the job market have given us reason to hope the economy is finally on the mend.

But after five years of struggles, here’s a sobering reminder of how far we still have to go: Nearly two in 10 American men in the prime of their life still are not working.

Nearly 83 percent of men ages 25 to 54 – traditionally the core of the nation’s workforce – were working in February, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That sounds like a lot, and the employment to population ratio for prime-age men has been improving steadily in recent months. But it’s still significantly lower than five years ago, when about 88 percent of prime-age men were working.

It’s also a far cry from the 1940s through the 1970s, where more than 90 percent of men in that age group were usually employed.

“This is prime-age men, which is a group that, you know, should be working at very high levels,” noted Harry Holzer, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert in labor market data.

Of course, some of those men aren’t working because they are doing other things, such as going to school, or they are disabled or retired. Still, even among men of that age group who are actively seeking work, it’s tough out there.

The unemployment rate for 25- to 54-year-old men was 7.1 percent in February, which is an improvement of 3 percentage points from a high of 10.1 percent in the fall of 2009. Still, that’s about double what it was five years ago, before the recession began.

There’s also plenty of evidence that even as prime-age men are getting back to work, they aren’t necessarily getting a good job, or one they want.

There are currently about 45.9 million 25- to 54-year-old men with a full-time job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That’s actually lower than during the height of the recession, which ran from December 2007 to June of 2009.

SmartMoney compared that data to the entire population and noted that, by that measure, just 75 percent of prime-age men currently have a full time job.

Holzer noted that the data on full-time workers is a less reliable indicator of long-term trends since it isn’t adjusted for seasonal work variations. Still, he said that while some men may choose to work part-time so they can go back to school or take on more childcare duties, it’s clear some men are not able to find enough work.

 “Relatively few prime age men choose to work part-time,” he said.

Holzer said there has been some real progress for working men in recent months, but a look at long-term trends shows that we still have far to go. He’s particularly concerned about working-age men who do not have a higher education and have been hit hard by cuts in fields such as manufacturing and construction.

“They were having a hard time even before the recession hit, and they really got slammed by the recession,” he said. “That’s a problematic group that we need to think about more seriously.”

Related:

Younger veterans want to work but face roadblocks

Mike Blake / Reuters

Overview of a subdivision of single family homes in San Marcos, Calif. The nation's banks own more than 600,000 single-family homes, according to RealtyTrac.

If anything is certain about the foreclosure crisis, it's that it isn't over. That fact has important implications, not only for people losing their homes, but also for those planning to sell or buy a home this year.

As of January, about 3 million properties were in foreclosure, headed that way or already owned by banks, according to CoreLogic, an information, analytics and business services company in Santa Ana, Calif.

Approximately 1.6 million of those homes were believed to be within the so-called shadow inventory, a supply of foreclosure properties not yet listed for sale. It's a major stumbling block to a housing recovery, says Mark Fleming, chief economist of CoreLogic.

"It puts downward pressure on home prices, which hurts home sales and building activity," Fleming said in a statement.

Given that prelude, here's what sellers and buyers can expect.

Price

Foreclosures and short sales have widened the gap between sellers' and buyers' perceptions of prices. Sellers "think their home is worth more than it really is" and buyers "think the prices are too high," says Louis Cammarosano, general manager at HomeGain, a real estate information website in Emeryville, Calif.

One cause of that gap is realty brokers' tendency to scrub foreclosures and short sales from comparable sales data used to set sellers' asking prices. While sellers might feel a moral justification for that approach, Cammarosano says it's "disingenuous" because the status of the seller's mortgage isn't important to buyers.

"(Just because) you happen to be paying your mortgage, that doesn't mean the buyer has to step into your shoes and pay your inflated price," he says.

Interest rates

Traditionally, mortgage rates have been something of a wild card for homebuyers. But that's not the case today because the Federal Reserve has announced its intention to keep rates low at least through late 2014. That's not a guarantee, but it has taken some of the urgency out of homebuying and put more buyers into a wait-and-see pattern.

"The perception that prices could go lower, a lot of foreclosures in the pipeline and (the expectation) that rates will remain low -- that's certainly keeping some people on the sidelines," Cammarosano says.

Location

Buyers might be reluctant to purchase a home in a neighborhood plagued by foreclosures and short sales. But Stephen Israel, president of Buyer's Edge Co., a real estate brokerage in Bethesda, Md., says buyers can take a clue from real estate investors who are looking at areas that have been hard hit, yet might be prime for a turnaround.

"Investors are interested in neighborhoods that were beat up by foreclosures and that have other redeeming features that they then believe will be the first to bounce back," he says.

Those redeeming features might include easy access to public transportation, well-regarded schools, attractive shopping centers and other positive infrastructure elements. Neighborhoods that have such amenities can be "really interesting pockets, where there could be some very good values," Israel says.

Condition  

Foreclosure and short sale homes are often, though not always, in worse shape than other homes on the market. That's especially problematic for buyers if a home has been vacant a long time because neglect can result in problems in plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical and other systems.

"There is a big difference," Israel says, "between a property that has been vacant a few weeks and one that has been vacant a year or more."

A home that's in poor shape might not be a bad buy if the buyer understands the risks, he adds.

Sometimes, though, those risks can be difficult to assess if the term of vacancy isn't known or the water, sewer, electricity and gas have been shut off. The utilities not being in service is "an interesting part of this equation that people miss all the time," Israel says.

Buy or sell

The bottom line for buyers is that they need to "buy smart," to use Israel's term, researching neighborhoods and being aware of a home's actual condition beyond its cosmetic appearance.

The bottom line for sellers, Cammarosano says, is that they need to get serious about pricing, cleaning, decluttering, staging and improving the value and desirability of their home.

"That's getting real," he says. "And if that's not what you want, don't sell it."

More from Bankrate.com

• Strategic default: business, not personal
• A second chance with HARP
• How to do house walk-through before closing
• Emotions of buying a home
• What buyers want

Odd Andersen / AFP-Getty Images file

According to the NHTSA, 26,000 crashes a year involve "a device/control integral to the vehicle.

As federal regulators move forward on plans to put new distracted driving regulations in place, it’s quite possible that future rules would bar the use of in-car navigation systems – at least as we know them today.

In fact, many of the basic features that buyers are coming to expect – and that manufacturers are pushing, much to the delight of their accounting departments – could be severely restricted or even barred entirely.

Research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contends that of nearly 900,000 crashes reported to police, 17 percent involved some form of distracted driving.  Of that figure, 3 percent, or 26,000 crashes, involved “a device/control integral to the vehicle,” according to NHTSA.  That could cover anything from a poorly placed switch for an SUV’s rear windshield to the controls for a 14-way power seat.

BMW Recalling 1.3 Million Vehicles

But much of the focus is on infotainment technology, including such systems as onboard navigation and SMS text messaging.

 In particular, proposed NHTSA guidelines suggest that the agency will target “Systems providing non-safety-related dynamic visual information.”  In more simple terms, said the agency, “Dynamic, continuously-moving maps are not recommended.”

According to the proposal, alternative means of displaying map information might be acceptable.  That could be a fixed map or one that updates occasionally, rather than continuously.

The proposals might also permit a navigation system to use voice alerts, perhaps dispensing with the video screen entirely when the vehicle is in motion.  That would be a potential plus for systems, such as OnStar, that primarily rely on verbal cues rather than on-screen maps.

Battery Recall Latest Setback for Fisker Karma

While manufacturers have been adding voice alerts – as well as the ability to program navi systems by voice – for a number of years, they’re likely to resist such severe restrictions on navigation technology, and are already questioning whether motorists might actually become more confused – and thus distracted – if they can’t actually see in real time when they approach a turn or intersection.

The proposed NHTSA guidelines, notes CNET.com, cite several studies to suggest that motorists are less likely to become distracted by voice alerts.  But those studies actually focus on hands-free cellphone usage, not navigation systems.

Nonetheless, the data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration seems to counter concerns about the use of Bluetooth technology, indicating that the use of a hands-free phone is no more dangerous than talking with a passenger in the vehicle itself.

Road Congestion Wasting Time – and 1.9 Bil Gallons of Gas

Among other things, the proposed distracted driving rules might also mean a lot less detail on your screen when you display information from a radio station or your iPhone.  It would allow no more than 30 characters per screen – and bar scrolling messages.  To put that into perspective, that would be equal to barely a quarter of a single line of text on the average computer screen, or about four to six words.

Federal regulators are holding a series of meetings to discuss the distracted driving guidelines and it’s far from certain the proposal now on the table will become law.  While most manufacturers have acknowledged there’s a need to address distractions they’re reluctant to take draconian steps that might limit the growing demand for – extremely profitable –onboard electronics.

But barring a significant shift in position by NHTSA or the Department of Transportation, it’s highly likely that some tightening of the rules will take place in the coming year, observers anticipate.

Facebook came out swinging last week over reports that employers are asking employees and job seekers to turn over their passwords to access individual profiles and their activities on the site.

The company said in a statement it would “take action to protect the privacy and security of our users,” including potentially taking legal action.

Public opinion is clearly with Facebook on this, and many took to social media to condemn such password shakedowns. But it’s time to tone down the hysteria. It turns out, few hiring managers choose to put on their Sherlock Holmes cyber snooping hats.

Yes, it's disturbing to hear that some hiring managers are asking for Facebook passwords from job candidates. And in this tough economy, saying no to such a request may mean you don’t end up landing the gig because there are still so many people out there looking for work.

But in reality, Big Brother has not taken over the workplace.

“It’s overblown,” said Jason Morris, president of EmployeeScreenIQ, an employee-screening company, about the recent uproar over social media prowling. “I’ve never come across an employer that asked for passwords or anything as invasive as that.”

A recent study by his company found that many companies are not rushing to the Web or any place else to look you up.

The study, which polled 650 HR professionals nationwide, found:

• 52 percent say they never consult these sites as part of their screening process.
• 48 percent of respondents said they did use such sites, but of those only 9 percent say they always do.

“Despite the potential they might hold,” the report stated, “social networking websites are not yet widely accepted as trusted background-checking resource.”

Of those hiring managers using the Web to screen candidates, Morris said, they’re mainly just Googling applicants. “They don’t really even know what they’re looking for,” he added, “they’re just doing it.”

Mining a job applicant’s social networking sites can pose a legal liability for employers, especially when it comes to bias in hiring. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the rest, often provide a picture of a job seeker, including race, religion, disability, etc., and if a hiring manager decides not to offer someone a job after perusing such sites they could face charges of discrimination.

Workers aren't out of the woods yet, however. The researchers said, "We anticipate that the trend of those who utilize these sites as a screening tool will only increase in the coming years."

In the end, Facebook may not have to fight to hard even if this practice becomes widespread because there are movements afoot on the federal and state level to introduce new laws to curb such behavior.

“Maryland and Illinois are already well along in considering proposed bills to regulate this practice,” said Daniel Prywes, an employment attorney for Bryan Cave.  “The proposed bills would broadly prohibit employers from seeking access to private areas of social media accounts, with no exceptions for law enforcement or similar sensitive types of employment.”

So let’s all take a deep breath and realize not every job will hinge on your cyber persona.  

Worsening road congestion is wasting plenty of time and money – especially when you consider the rising cost of gas.

A new study by the U.S. Treasury Department finds that traffic snarls wasted 1.9 billion gallons of fuel last year — about 5% of the gas American motorists used.  At the current price, that would work out to more than $7 billion nationwide.  Other recent studies have indicated that Americans collectively waste about 5 billion hours in traffic, meanwhile, which works out to billions of dollars more in lost productivity.

In all, the study – prepared in support of the White House effort to upgrade the nation’s highway infrastructure – suggests the total cost in time and money works out to about $100 billion a year.

The cost of poor quality roads, meanwhile, results in about $400 in added yearly maintenance costs for the typical urban driver.  That runs as high as $756 annually for a motorist in the metropolitan San Jose areas, according to the report.

A123 Recalling Faulty Electric Vehicle Batteries 

The Obama Administration is hoping that the report will hope get members of the House of Representatives to finally act on a federal highway bill that has been stalled on Capitol Hill.  The Senate has already passed a two-year measure that will fund infrastructure and transportation programs – and allow the government to continue collecting federal fuel taxes.

House Republicans, however, have been pressing for a five-year, $260 billion measure – but it has so far failed to win enough support.  If the House fails to act – or if the two sides of the Hill fail to come up with a compromise – before the end of the month all federal highway and transportation programs could come to a halt.  Even fuel tax collection would be stopped.  By some estimates, the impact could be as much as 2 million jobs.

House Speaker John Boehner has shifted his position to support the Senate measure but it is unclear whether he can sway enough of his fellow GOP lawmakers.

Ford Lays Cornerstone of $1 Bil New Indian Plant

But there is growing pressure to reach that compromise.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says the Treasury Department report is “the latest reminder that it’s time to stop the partisan bickering in Washington and invest in our nation’s infrastructure.”

The study reveals that:

• Nine out of 10 Americans spend $1 out of every $7 they earn on transportation;
• Simply to repair the crumbling U.S. bridge and roadway infrastructure will require an annual $85 billion in spending over the next 20 years;
• Yet the U.S. spends less on transportation infrastructure than the majority of other major economies, such as Britain and Germany.  For the U.S., it is just 2% of GDP compared to 5% in Europe.  Fast-growing China is currently investing 9%, though that includes a push to create a roadway infrastructure.

The study also reports that the use of highway ridership soared to 10.4 billion paid trips last year, up from about 8 billion in 1996.  The vast majority of that growth has come on light and heavy rail systems.

March Sales Hold Strong Despite Fuel Price Worries

Ironically, the impact of traffic congestion might have been worse had it not been for the recession, which has seen millions of Americans thrown out of work.  A separate study by Texas A&M University found that the number of hours Americans lost to traffic snarls slipped from a record 5.2 billion hours in 2007 – before the wholesale collapse of the economy – to just 4.6 billion the year after.  The figure has only slowly been rising again as the economy recovers.

On a personal level, the study found the average American losing more than 30 hours annually to traffic congestion, with the figure rising to more than 70 hours in cities like L.A., Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

Rachel Mummey / for msnbc.com

Tyson Akers was turned down for a security job with the Iowa National Guard in the midst of a 13-month job search. The veteran juggles going to school full time at Iowa State University while raising two young sons with his wife, Amanda.

Tyson Akers joined the Marines straight out of high school and spent more than eight years in the infantry, including four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When he left the military in February 2011 because he wanted more time at home with his young children, he knew any civilian job would be different than what he’d done in the Marines.

“Your job was to go out and be on the front line and pray to God nothing happened to you,” he said. “It’s hard to translate that over to the civilian world.”

But Akers, 29, didn’t count on a job search that has lasted more than a year, leaving him demoralized and even questioning his decision to leave the Marines.

“You start thinking to yourself if it’s even possible to get a job once you’re out,” he said.

While older veterans generally have a relatively low jobless rate, the unemployment rate for veterans who have served in the post-9/11 era averaged more than 12 percent last year, compared with under 9 percent for the general population, according to government data out last week. 

The problem of veteran unemployment is widely recognized. President Barack Obama has referred to it frequently and just last month pledged to get more veterans back to work.

"They've already risked their lives defending America,” he said. “They should have the opportunity to rebuild America."

With the U.S. making plans to withdraw from Afghanistan and possibly shrink the military, thousands more young veterans like Akers are likely to be looking for work in the coming months and years.

Yet there are plenty of roadblocks preventing veterans from getting civilian jobs, including a lack of job-seeking skills and a mismatch between military experience and civilian requirements.

‘Hard to translate’
Younger veterans especially may lack the experience crafting a resume or handling a job interview. And after emerging from years in the jargon-filled military culture, they may have a hard time explaining how their military experience would benefit a civilian employer.

“They have a difficult time translating their military cultural language into civilian cultural language,” said Randy Plunkett, director of community and government outreach for military.com, a website aimed at the military community. “They undersell themselves. They don’t see and have a good handle on how to self-promote (and) how to articulate the skills they bring to the table.”

Akers, who lives in State Center, Iowa, thought that it wouldn’t be too hard to get a job as a security guard while he attended Iowa State University full time with support from the GI Bill.

Instead, over the past 13 months he’s endured rejection after rejection as employers told him that they had more qualified candidates. His wife, Amanda, said one prospective employer even told him his deployments didn’t count as security experience.

Recently, he got a break: A job interview with another former Marine at a security company run by other veterans.

He found out this week that he had gotten a security position, starting at 20 hours a week and paying $9.50 an hour. Although he had hoped to secure a supervisor position, at least it's a start.

Even companies that actively seek out veterans say it can be tough to get them hired.

Jim Barr, vice president of government relations with Ryder, said the trucking company has made a point of trying to hire veterans who drove or worked on trucks in the military. But to drive for Ryder, veterans need a civilian commercial driving license, and requirements vary by state.

Some require hundreds of hours of training, and military experience may not count. In other cases, Barr said, the veterans may be able to waive the training but have trouble getting a truck for the test.

“They sound like kind of minor barriers, but if you don’t have the truck to take the test with, you can’t take the test,” Barr said.

States including Washington, Utah, Colorado and Texas have been working to remove some of the licensing barriers.

Eddie Crosby, 36, served in the military from 1996 to 2000 and then re-enlisted from 2004 until 2010. He worked as a military truck mechanic and driver and trained for dealing with chemical spills. He has been surprised he has been unable to translate his experience into a civilian job.

He used the GI Bill to go to civilian truck driving school. But even after he got his commercial license, he said many companies were looking for someone with more experience on the road.

To save money, he moved to Hermiston, Ore., where he’s living with his fiancé in a 26-foot camp trailer on his family’s property. He is about to start a part-time, minimum-wage job at a potato chip factory.

“I loved my military service, I really did,” Crosby said.

But it’s hard to find himself, at age 36, scrounging for entry-level jobs.

“Everybody that I graduated high school with, they’re 10 years on a job, and here I am struggling to pump gas, you know?” he said.

Slipping through the cracks
Experts are seeing some of the biggest disconnects for veterans with medical experience and training.

One issue is that a military medic may end up doing advanced work that may not translate directly to a credential in civilian life, said Steve Gonzalez, assistant director of the American Legion Economic Division. It can then be tough to figure out how to apply that experience toward a civilian medical license or credential.

There also are legitimate differences between medical work you do in the military and in civilian life, said veteran Ben Chlapek, deputy chief at the Central Jackson County Fire Protection District in Missouri. A medic who served in combat may not have experience with common civilian issues such as drug abuse, domestic abuse and pediatric patients.

“Soldiers rarely deliver babies,” Chlapek said.

He said some potentially good candidates slip through the cracks when they realize they can’t get a job right away, or one that pays as well as their military job did.

“A lot of times they’ll call us or come in, and then they’ll disappear,” he said.

Even when the skills transfer directly, it can be tough to juggle military and civilian careers.

Todd Fredricks, 46, of Athens, Ohio, always dreamed of having his own rural medical practice, but he also wanted to serve in the military. As an Army flight surgeon in the reserves, he deployed to the Balkans once and to Iraq three times, most recently in 2011.

The transitions made it impossible to keep up a medical practice, and he now works full-time in a hospital in West Virginia.

“I practice the medicine that I do now because it’s the easiest way I can enter and leave service,” he said.

Peter Leon, an administrative nursing supervisor with Panorama City Medical Center in California, also considers himself lucky: As an RN, he was able to easily transition back and forth between his job stateside and his military deployments as a reservist.

Leon, 44, last deployed to Iraq in 2008, and now that he has a young daughter he no longer volunteers to go overseas. But he misses his military duty.

“I wish I could go back and deploy again,” he said. “I feel more useful out there than I do here.”

There are other success stories. J.P. Morgan, 36, served in the military as an aircraft electrician from 1994 to 1998.

In 2004, he rejoined the military as a reservist, partly because he would get additional training he could never afford as a civilian. That has allowed him to get the certification he needed to become an aircraft maintenance technician for Southwest Airlines.

Morgan, who lives in Dallas, left the reserves in 2010.

“The military – it was wonderful to me in that respect,” he said.

(This story has been updated from an earlier version to reflect new information that Tyson Akers has landed a job.)

What do you think is keeping recent veterans from finding jobs? Discuss it on our Facebook page.

For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here. 

Wear an orange shirt, get a pink slip?

Many Life Inc. readers were outraged by a post this week about 14 employees at a Florida law firm who said they were terminated because they were wearing orange shirts.

Some employees told the Sun-Sentinel that management saw the shirts as a sign of protest, but that they really wore the shirts because they wanted to match at a happy hour gathering. The law firm declined comment.

“This whole thing is ridiculous.  Another thought - how many men showed up wearing white button down shirts and a blue tie? Hm? Fire them! It's a conspiracy!” one reader wrote.

Still, some argued that, like it or not, employers can control who they pay.

“Although I think getting rid of all of them was wrong, employers have rights too. They have the right to like or dislike what their employees say, think, and what they do on the job … and yes... they don't have to like everyone wearing orange,” one reader wrote.

It’s tax season, which for some people means refunds -- and for others means the nightmare of dealing with identity theft tax fraud.

The IRS commissioner said this week that the average refund being handed out so far this tax season is about $3,000. About one-quarter of our readers said they expected to receive that much, or more, back from the government.

But most were expecting to see less, if they were getting a refund at all.

Still, many readers said they’d rather give then receive, when it comes to the IRS anyway.

“I would much rather pay than let the IRS keep my money interest free for a year,” one reader wrote.

Doing your taxes is always a pain, but it can be a nightmare for people who were victims of identity theft tax fraud. That's when someone files a bogus return using your information and collects a fake refund.

A story this week on the months of frustrations some people have gone through to get their identity theft problems resolved prompted a lot of outrage, and a lot of sympathy.

“The more I read, the worst I felt for the victims. It's like a nightmare that goes on and on!” one reader wrote.