Feeling the economic pinch? We offer help

Each day, week or month, the financial choices facing us grow more difficult.

The recession has led many of us to question how we can best feed our families on a tight household budget, or whether we can still afford to go out to a restaurant. We may have put off buying new clothes for ourselves, but when facing a definite need for new shoes for our kids, we want to find value.

That cell phone plan that seems like a sieve every month? Maybe there's something more affordable out there.

We're here to help.

Starting Monday, the Yakima Herald-Republic kicks off a weekly section, Your Money. This consumer-oriented section will have stories and columns aimed at helping our readers save money and otherwise get by during these tough economic times.

Each week we'll have stories that focus on a particular topic. Among them: finding work in today's difficult job market, refinancing your home mortgage, dining out on the cheap, saving on electric and other utility bills, stocking up on back-to-school supplies, repairing your car or truck on a budget, looking for good deals on gym memberships, and finding reasonably priced medical care.

Monday's featured topic is credit cards, a timely choice given the credit-card reform legislation President Barack Obama just signed into law.

The credit-card package by Herald-Republic reporter Melissa Sánchez offers advice from Dave Gillbreath, the CEO of Consumer Credit Counseling Services in Yakima. There also will be a short story on a Zillah man and his strategy for keeping out of debt, plus an Associated Press graphic quiz on credit cards.

We'll also select the best stories and columns from our wire services and syndicates to match Your Money's mission.

The impetus for Your Money goes back to January, when Publisher Michael Shepard began discussing ways for the Herald-Republic to help consumers during the recession.

Managing Editor Barbara Serrano and News Editor Jeff Garretson spearheaded the newsroom's effort leading to Your Money's development -- including the types of stories that will be done, who on our staff will do them, what wire service and syndicated material we will use and how the section is designed. Jamie Stickel, vice president of sales, headed the effort to sell local advertising to businesses offering money-saving deals, including coupons and other advertising that will run on Pages 2 and 3 of the new section.

In addition to new content, Your Money includes fixtures you've seen before in Monday Business.

Unlike Monday Business, which consisted of one or two pages in the back of another section, Your Money gives us a more prominent location to display consumer-oriented news. Here you'll find business reporter Mai Hoang's weekly "Shop Talk" column and the occasional "Face Time" Q&A that Assistant City Editor and section coordinator Scott Mayes conducts with local business owners.

The section also will have room for In Basket, Business Snapshot graphics and business facts and records. And we'll continue to publish Bruce Williams' popular column, "Smart Money," along with a reintroduction of Sara Noel's "Frugal Living" syndicated column.

The first "Frugal Living" column goes hand-in-hand with one of Your Money's themes: People won't stop spending, but out of necessity are looking for smart ways to shop and handle their finances.

"Frugality isn't cheap living or voluntary poverty," she writes in Monday's column. "Whether you're frugal by choice or necessity, you make the most of your hard-earned money and waste less, too."

The creation of Your Money means Monday's Home Front section will disappear, but in name only. Other local stories on Monday will appear in the paper's A section, as well as in the back pages of Your Money. This content includes breaking news and event coverage from Sundays, senior lunch menus, the daily calendar, government meeting agendas, death notices and obituaries.

Meanwhile, starting today we have moved the alternating Monday columns -- "Safe Kids" and Donna Scofield's "The Family Chuckle," into Sunday's Life in the Northwest section.

As some of you are aware, this is my second tour of duty at the Herald-Republic. I was managing editor here from January 1997 to August 2006, when I left for Maine to become managing editor of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. I returned to Yakima last month to take the editor's position at the Herald-Republic.

I've heard from a number of readers since returning, and I encourage anyone who wants to chat about Your Money or any other topic to give me a call at 509-577-7703, shoot me an e-mail at bcrider@yakimaherald.com, or drop me a line at 114 N. Fourth St., Yakima, WA 98901.

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