As America’s wobbly economy begins to stabilize, many people with money saved up and good credit should consider buying a home now. Home prices have come down a lot, and interest rates are at historic lows.

Not that the danger signs aren’t still out there: job losses, distressed home sales and foreclosure filings are likely to continue. In fact, a new forecast of real estate prices predicts home values could go down further in 342 out of 381 markets by next summer.

Overall, the national median home price could drop another 11percent by June of 2010, says Fiserv, a financial information and analysis firm. Nevertheless, both home prices and mortgage rates have dropped more than any other time in history.

While you can safely bet that prices still have more room to come down, that bet may not be such a sure thing when it comes to interest rates. Right now a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is hovering around 5 percent, the lowest in half a century. They are low in part due to a flush of cash from the Federal Reserve since last year’s financial meltdown that has kept interest rates low. The problem is the longer we have low rates, the more we risk fueling inflation.

Although we don’t have any hard evidence that consumer prices are going up right now, you can bet the policy makers at the Fed are closely monitoring the situation. Just the fear of inflation may prompt the Fed to start pushing rates up again - and sooner than you think.

What that means for procrastinating home buyers is this: putting off a purchase now could cost you more in the long run. For the sake of illustration, let’s say you close on a single-family home next month at the latest national median home price of $177,500, and you’re able to secure a mortgage rate of 5 percent. Over the lifetime of the loan, you could pay out a total of $378,500 for your home.

Let’s say you put off your purchase to September of next year, but you’re able to get the same home at a lower price of $160,000. That’s a savings of $17,500, right? But, what if the loans on offer have inched up two percentage points higher than what you can get right now? Your total home purchase over the lifetime of the loan could cost you as high as $414,600. That lower priced home at the higher rate of 7 percent will end up costing you some $36,000 more in the long run.

That’s why if you have credit and cash right now, it could be an excellent opportunity to buy a house. Tell us what you think. Call in with your thoughts to the Ali Velshi Show on CNN Radio at 1-877-266-4189, Wednesday starting 11 a.m. EDT.

HELP ME CLARK!
From HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

BRENDA:

We own a small Mom & Pop store and this economy is killing us. We have been searching online for a grant that will help us keep our business open. Is there anything out there as far as free money that we can get? We see a lot of grant offers online but they want money for the packages. Is there any government grant money for us without purchasing a package?

CLARK:

Well, the grant offers you're seeing promoted on the web are scams.

There's not even a grey area about that. The truth is that a lot of business owners are struggling right now and they're looking for funds.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) was out of money, but now has a new allocation and it would be a good idea to go to your local score office at score.org, the Service Corps of Retired Executives.

Make an appointment and go sit down with someone. They are experts on the SBA loan program, if there is an SBA loan you would qualify for, or any ideas they might have for how to survive these tough times.

Consumer Reports surveyed more than 1,000 consumers and found they learned big lessons from the Great Recession this year and vowed to permanently scale back their spending.

A whopping 71 percent of Americans purchased only what they absolutely needed this year, 53 percent used credit cards less and 39 percent said they put more money into savings.

Consumer Reports calls this "intelligent thrift." They say it is replacing credit-driven spending and this new fiscal conservatism will last once the recession is long gone.

Survey after survey show Americans are scarred and scared after two years of recession. Even when it ends, it is bound to lurk in our spending psyche, much as the Great Depression was never far from our grandparents' and great grandparents' minds. It's the way boom and bust cycles work, and it's a necessary response to a generation of profligate spending with other people's money.

And that's what it was - spending with OTHER PEOPLE'S money. Middle class living standards of the last 20 years turn out to be a mirage. Now that the jobs are disappearing and the home values have plummeted, the picture is getting clearer. There is no doubt that American families are just beginning to feel the changes that are coming as the middle class undergoes these wrenching changes.

And the upheaval is sparking some interesting trends. As the banks reel in the bubble of credit they offered with abandon (who could open the mailbox without getting a credit card offer?!) it's making credit card customers very angry.

The very banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer are now jacking up interest rates for good-paying customers, denying credit, and slapping overdraft charges on debt cards. But is it right to refuse to pay your credit card balance because you think the bailed out bank that issued it is unfairly raising your rates?

Ann Minch went viral on YouTube with her September 8 rant against Bank of America. She said she was staging a debtor's revolt because her interest rate on a $5,900 credit card balance was raised from 12.99 percent to 30 percent. Her rant resonated and was viewed more than 350,000 times. Bank of America relented and lowered her rate, but there is more here. She may have been late with a couple payments. There was nothing illegal about the bank's raising her rate. And she could have paid off the balance at the old rate and closed the account.

We want to know what you think about credit card fees, the "intelligent thrift" consumer, and whether it’s wise for consumers to take matters in their own hands and refuse to pay their bills.

Call or email us with any questions about your money, and your thoughts on how the Great Recession has changed your life. Call 877-266-4189.

Join Ali Velshi on CNN Radio, back from traveling the country where he talked to Americans on the ground about their concerns on the economy and health care reform.

One year ago this week, America's sub-prime crisis became a global financial crisis. What had been a downturn fueled by falling home prices and mortgage defaults became, in a matter of days, something much bigger.

Now the credit freeze has eased up, the stock market has recovered 40 percent from its low, and the housing market is beginning to stabilize. But, during the same time some 5.5 million workers have lost their jobs.

Despite that, many economists now think the recession is over. Call in to CNN Radio’s Ali Velshi Show and let us what you think.

The labor market is actually shrinking before our eyes. Of the American population aged 16 and older, 59.2 percent has a job, according to the Labor Department, down 3.5 percentage points since the recession began in December 2007.

Face it: It's a job market unlike any you've probably seen in your lifetime - especially if you are generation X or later. The jobless rate has not been this high since 1983. (The Police had the top single, "Every Breath You Take") It's taking longer to get a new job, you're taking a pay cut to keep the old one or you're doing the work of two others who have been laid off.

Where there is good news in the labor market, it is that mass layoffs are slowing. But many think the jobless rate will certainly touch 10 percent.

There are millions of people not even counted in the 9.7 percent jobless figures who are having a very difficult time trying to re-enter, competing with the throngs of newly laid-off. Not even counted in the official jobless statistics are stay-at-home moms who need to go back to work to feed their families. And there are discouraged workers who have struggled to find employment since the last recession ended in 2003.

There are hundreds of thousands of uncounted older workers, people who have already retired and have not worked in several years but now must go back to work because their home values have dropped and their savings plans have taken a hit.

You are not going to "hope" yourself to a new job. Advice to "stay positive" is pretty much meaningless when there are almost six qualified applicants for every job opening in this country. So we're going beyond the cliches and the official statistics and help you survive this grueling jobs market.

Which areas offer the best chance for getting a job? How to get a job in health care that is not low-paid but offers opportunity for growth? How to position within your shrinking company for a better job once the economy turns around? CNN's Christine Romans is in for Ali Velshi to answer all these questions and take your calls about the job market on CNN Radio Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET. E-mail us all your questions and concerns about the jobs market. It is, after all, the backbone of your economy.

Call us at 877-266-4189 or email at Ali@CNN.com on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET.

HLN Money Expert Clark Howard

For more tips, visit CNN.com/ClarkHoward

STEPHEN:

The heating system and air conditioning in my house is 21 years old. A contractor has told me that I can spend $5,700 on a new gas furnace that will be 90% efficient and a heat pump that will be 15 seer. This will qualify me for the $1,500 tax credit for energy savings. Is it worthwhile for me to make this investment?

CLARK:

If you plan to stay in your house for a lengthy period of time, it will pay off for you right now with the bonus of the tax credit. And it will definitely pay off for you over the long haul in what you'll save on energy in winter and summer. But you have to patient, because it is "eventually". You're not going to make this money back in two or three years. Depending on the climate where you live and the relative cost versus the energy bills you're paying now, it could be a 10-year payback. If you want to get a feel for that, go to energystar.gov and look at their calculators to see if the payback is a reasonable period for the length you plan to own your home.

Are the best days of this country behind it? By the looks of the projected budget deficit numbers, your government is spending like crazy to make sure that is not the case. The White House projects a budget deficit totaling more than $9 trillion dollars (that's 12 zeros) over the next ten years.

The math is pretty simple. Government spending is skyrocketing and government tax revenue is plummeting. That equals red ink. The calculus here is that investments and spending in the economy today will nurture an economic recovery that will grow tax receipts in the future.

Fiscal conservatives fear mountains of debt on our children, an unhealthy reliance of foreign governments to buy our debt and finance our spending, a growing portion of the nation's wealth going toward interest payments rather than investment, a weak dollar and hyperinflation down the road.

The president's supporters say a whole series of crises was foisted on him, and he has no choice but to spend big to make sure American living standards grow in the future. (Think energy, health care, banking regulation, consumer protection...) In his announcement of his re-appointment of Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, he hailed a strategy of "bold, persistent, experimentation." It's a phrase first used by FDR in 1932, when he promised to try, and abandon, and try again, whatever it took to rescue the American economy. It shows how high the stakes remain today.

At what price? You can see for yourself on a telling chart provided on homepage of the Congressional Budget Office. A chart there shows the size of the budget deficit in relation to the overall economy. (It's approaching 12 percent of GDP, the largest since World War II.)

The CBO says the deficits reflect all the measures to rescue the economy, including bailouts of banks and lenders and automakers. So where's YOUR bailout? Cash For Clunkers is over, so no more free money for you there. (And, might I add, you had to take on a new car payment and probably extra insurance, so it's not so free after all.)

Plans are under way for a sort of Cash for Appliances stimulus program. You might not have noticed, but there is a tax break in your paycheck, if you don't already make too much money. And if you didn't have a clunker to junk, you can still write off the state, local and excise taxes for a new car (up to $49,500) on your 2009 tax return. and don't forget the piece de la resistance - the $8,000 credit for first-time homebuyers (under a certain income limit, of course) is good until the end of the year.

Which brings me back to the original question: Are the best days of this country behind it? I want to hear your thoughts, and answer your questions about America's great financial experiment. Do you think American living standards will continue to rise? Why or why not? In what ways are you benefiting from all the bailouts and stimulus?

Tell us what you think. Email me at CNNRadio@CNN.com. Then call in on Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET at 877-266-4189. I'll answer your questions on health care when I fill in for Ali Velshi this week and next week on the Ali Velshi show on CNN Radio and CNN.com.

HLN Money Expert Clark Howard

Redbox is something that I think is such a brilliant business. It's a dollar a day per movie and you rent them at kiosks. Most of them are stocked with new releases. If you're looking for a deep library of older movies, forget it - that's what Netflix is for. But if you're just looking for the latest stuff - and to be able to watch it and watch it cheap - the sales of Redbox are just going up because the price is so good.

Redbox was started inside McDonald's by employees and, for a time, a division of the fast food giant held a minority stake. The pioneering employees were looking for ways outside the core restaurants to generate new revenue sources and they discovered they didn't need to be involved in owning or operating Redbox. They just wanted Redbox inside McDonald's so people would come in more often.

Well, we were in McDonald's last week with my nine-year-old daughter and three-year-old son, and we're sitting there watching this line of people who are waiting for their turn at the Redbox machine. I was explaining the economics to my kids as they're watching these people in line and they were asking questions.

My son said, "Is that a lot of money?" I said, “No, that's actually a real deal to get a movie." My daughter is asking me, “That versus Blockbuster… poor Blockbuster people.” I explained to her that Blockbuster has to pay all this rent for a big store, they have to have employees, and they have to deal with customer theft, so they have all these expenses. And Redbox has how many employees? My three-year-old answered that for me:  none. And how much square footage does it take? I explained that it takes this little tiny space. So you compare that to all the rent that Blockbuster is having to pay. And we are in an era where the consumer is not going to spend money on entertainment without thinking about it.

Because their business model works, all they do at Redbox is print money. Maybe you have an idea like that that could work for you.

Tune in to Clark Howard Saturdays and Sundays at noon and 4 p.m. ET on HLN.

There are signs that the economy may be starting to recover.

Last fall, Congress passed TARP —- the massive bailout of the nation’s big banks—- while the Fed lowered interest rates to practically zero and flooded money into the system. Those actions restored the business cycle and pulled the economy back from the brink. By the spring, all those extraordinary efforts were starting to show dividends in the economy.

While all that government intervention could be paying off, how will we pay for it all? The government needs to pay down that debt by raising revenue—- and that means raising taxes.

President Obama painted himself into a pickle when promised not to raise taxes on the “middle class”—- households making less than $250,000. But, economists warn that he can’t keep his promise. Now certain Administration officials refuse to rule that option out.

But, could all this talk about taxes right now dampen the chances of recovery right just when things appear to be getting better?

Call 1-877-266-4189 during CNN Radio's Ali Velshi show from 11 a.m.to noon each Wednesday with your questions and comments on taxes and the ballooning debt.

Having trouble managing money?

Do your money goals seem impossible?

Clark Howard wants to help you! We're looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN. Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.

This week's question comes from Brian and Mercy Hahne in Statesboro, GA.

Mercy: We're going to be in the position to buy a home and we're looking at short sales and foreclosures. And we want to know what the best method is to purchase that home.

Brian: Right now we're in a great financial position. We have zero debt. We're both pulling down, I think, a very decent amount of money every month and we want to invest that money into a property very soon. We just need some guidance ... we just want to find the best deal for our money and make sure that right now, we're capitalizing on whatever deal we can find.

Mercy and Brian: We need a money coach!

Hear Clark’s advice for Brian and Mercy this weekend at noon on HLN.

Do you need a Money Coach? Send us an iReport video with your money questions and tell us why you need the Money Coach.