Families With Kids Go Homeless as U.S. Rents Exceed Pay: Economy

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When Montoria Freeland separated from her husband of 15 years in 2008, she left a four-bedroom house and economic security. Before long, her pay and hours as a pharmacy technician were cut and she found herself and her son facing homelessness.

Freeland lived with family for a time, she said, and four months ago moved into transitional housing funded by the city government in Washington, D.C., while searching for work that pays more than her $8.25-an-hour retail job. Having lost her oldest son in a 2000 homicide, Freeland said she insists on looking for housing in a safe neighborhood for her surviving one, now 17. She found that’s available only at an increasingly steep price.

“You’re trying to pay car insurance, rent, electric, cable and if you’re using public transit, putting money on your card, groceries,” said Freeland, who was accepted into a program that provides temporary housing, financial planning and job-placement counseling. “It’s hard to survive out here.”

For households with children, rising housing costs, elevated unemployment and stagnantearnings are increasingly placing rent beyond reach. The housing slump made matters worse as former homeowners turned into renters, increasing competition for available apartments.

“There is just a mismatch between what people earn and what it takes to pay for housing,” saidSheila Crowley, chief executive officer of the Washington-based National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Unemployment continues to be persistently high, and wage stagnation at the low end seems to go out as far as the eye can see.”

Homeless Families

The number of homeless people who are part of a family climbed 1.4 percent in January 2012 from the prior year, even as total homeless numbers declined, based on a National Alliance to End Homelessness analysis of the most recent nationwide statistics available. The number of children without a home increased by an estimated 2 percent, according to NAEH, a Washington-based non-profit focused on policy and research on the needs of homeless people.

More recent local data from places such as Seattle and Portland, Oregon, suggest that in some markets where rent is rising, homelessness has followed suit. What’s more, federal budget cuts to government housing programs threaten to trim aid.

Nationally, the average hourly wage among renters is $14.32 this year compared with the $18.79 needed to afford an apartment at a fair-market rent, as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, without spending more than 30 percent of income on housing, a National Low Income Housing Coalition report found in March. The $4.47 gap this year is wider than the $4.10 differential in 2012.

Not Affordable

The report found that extremely low-income households could afford to spend no more than $495 a month on an apartment this year, while the national two-bedroom fair-market rent was $977.

The number of full-time jobs at the prevailing state minimum wage that people in a household need in order to afford the average two-bedroom fair-market rent ranges from 1.4 jobs in Puerto Rico to 4.4 jobs in Hawaii, the report showed.

As incomes for the impoverished stagnate, rents rose 3.5 percent nationally through Aug. 31, from a year earlier, based on data from Trulia.com, a real-estate website.

“Units with more bedrooms are getting harder to find, and if you have kids, when you don’t have childcare, adequate employment is hard to find,” said Nan Roman, chief executive officer of the NAEH.

Seattle, Portland

Seattle and Portland are among the top 10 metropolitan areas with the biggest rent gains in 2012, according to a Trulia analysis of the 25 largest rental markets. At the same time, homelessness is on the rise.

A one-night tally taken in January of unsheltered homeless people in parts of King County, which includes Seattle, found a 2 percent increase compared to the same areas a year earlier. In the Portland region, 5 percent more people were living on the streets or in shelters on a night in January 2013 than in 2011.

The nationwide increase in homeless family members in 2012 contrasted with other populations: about 1.4 percent fewer single people were homeless that year compared with 2011, the NAEH report shows.

That’s partly because the government has focused programs on veterans and chronically homeless populations, Crowley said. Also, homelessness among families has failed to abate because it is tied more closely to the economy, said Douglas Rice, who works on housing issues at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which focuses on public programs for low-to moderate-income Americans. Homelessness among single people is more likely to be related to substance abuse and mental health issues, he said.

Doubling Up

Also, “single people maybe can double up more, they can find smaller places,” Roman said.

Median household income has fallen every year for the past five after adjusting for inflation, with Americans earning no more than they did in 1996, according to data from the Census Bureau. The share of people making less than $15,000 climbed to 13 percent of the population in 2012, from 10.9 percent in 2000, and the share making less than $35,000 expanded to 35.4 percent from 31.4 percent.

The share of Americans experiencing “deep poverty,” living at less than 50 percent of the $23,492 poverty line for a family of four, climbed to 6.6 percent in 2012 from 4.5 percent in 2000, based on Census Bureau data released last month.

In Pipeline

That may increase the pipeline of Americans heading toward homelessness. There was a 9.4 percent increase in the number of poor people “doubled up,” or living with friends or family due to economic need, between 2010 and 2011, based on the NAEH 2013 report. Crowley said 2011 is the latest year for which usable data on doubling up is available.

“If we see an increase in doubling up, that means there are people who cannot find affordable housing” and it indicates those people are at increased risk for homelessness, Crowley said.

According to the NAEH report, living doubled up is the most frequently cited previous living situation for people who enter the homeless system.

The across-the-board federal budget cuts, known as sequestration, that began in March could worsen the situation, particularly if Congress leaves them in place. Lawmakers this week passed legislation extending current funding levels through Jan. 15, entrenching sequestration at least until a new budget agreement is reached.

Budget Cuts

The cuts resulted in reductions to many programs within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers.

The vouchers are the federal government’s main program for helping very low-income families, seniors and the disabled afford private housing and are administered by local agencies. They subsidize rents, and can reduce payments to 30 percent of earned income.

The number of households receiving the subsidies will drop by an estimated 125,000 to 155,000 by mid-2014, between 6 and 7 percent below pre-sequestration levels, said Rice from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The rise in family homelessness is a function of a weak job market, and thus isn’t something government programs can fix, said Mark Calabria, director of financial-regulation studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute, which supports limited government.

Labor Market

“The biggest driver now of increase in family homelessness is the labor market,” Calabria said in an e-mail. “The most effective thing we can do is create jobs, which federal programs don’t have a good record at.”

Regaining independence can be difficult, said Freeland, who has found her lack of a higher education poses a barrier.

“The higher-paying jobs are sometimes unattainable” without a college degree, said Freeland.

She said she’s lucky to have help in the meantime, something she remembers each time she sees homeless people standing outside a shelter.

“Thank God that’s not my situation,” she said. “It very well could have been.”

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Congress Vote Ends Impasse to Be Revisited in January

Congress Vote Ends Impasse to Be Revisited in January

After the partisan passions and heated rhetoric, the disruptions of a government shutdown and displays of dysfunction, Congress did what it could have done weeks ago: voted to fund the government and lift the debt limit.

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President Barack Obama makes a statement to reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, on Oct. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

5:05

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University professor known for his studies of recessions, talks about the U.S. Senate's vote to reopen the government and raise the nation’s debt limit. He speaks from Boston with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television's "First Up." (Source: Bloomberg)

6:45

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Alexander Friedman, global chief investment officer at UBS AG's wealth-management unit, discusses U.S. Congress's vote last night to fund the government, the investment appeal of U.S. high-yield bonds and "challenges" remaining in Europe. He speaks from Zurich with Anna Edwards and Mark Barton on Bloomberg Television's "Countdown." (Source: Bloomberg)

16:10

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, speaks about the Senate’s passage of legislation that would halt a government shutdown and raise the U.S. debt limit. Democratic U.S. Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York, and Patty Murray of Washington, also speak at the news conference in Washington. (Source: Bloomberg)

3:39

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about a Senate vote approving a deal that would end the shutdown of the federal government and raise the U.S. debt limit. Obama, speaking at the White House, urged Congress to move forward with a new immigration law, a farm bill and "sensible budget." (Source: Bloomberg)

8:07

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Scott Key, chief executive officer of IHS Inc., talks about the potential impact of the U.S. government shutdown on gross domestic product, growth in Europe and investment opportunities in Latin America and Asia. He speaks with Anna Edwards and Mark Barton on Bloomberg Television's "Countdown." (Source: Bloomberg)

The passage last night by wide margins -- an 81-18 vote in the Democratic-led Senate, followed by a 285-144 vote in the Republican-controlled House -- allows the U.S. to avoid default and ends the shutdown that began Oct. 1 and has taken $24 billion out of the economy.

President Barack Obama signed the bill just after midnight, according to a White House statement. The measure puts government workers back on the job as soon as today and permits the U.S. to continue paying its debts, benefits and salaries.

“We’ll begin reopening our government immediately and we can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty and unease from our businesses and from the American people,” Obama said last night at the White House after the Senate voted.

Lawmakers didn’t show they’re any closer to resolving the underlying issues of spending priorities and deficit-reduction measures, particularly in the House where a shrinking political middle makes compromise elusive as the latest events show.

The focus now shifts to a new series of deadlines -- the first for budget negotiations with a Dec. 13 target -- that set up more rounds of political combat over taxes and spending on programs including Social Security and Medicare. The deal funds the government at Republican-backed spending levels through Jan. 15, 2014, and suspends the debt limit through Feb. 7.

Health Law

Tea Party-allied Republicans, such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz, said they would find ways to keep up the fight against Obama’s health-care law.

The votes conclude a four-week fiscal standoff that began with Republicans demanding defunding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and objecting to raising the debt limit and funding the government without policy conditions.

They achieved almost none of those goals. Obama and the uncharacteristically unified congressional Democrats stared down Republicans, particularly those allied with the Tea Party movement, who had sought to use the shutdown and debt ceiling as leverage even as more experienced lawmakers realized they didn’t have the votes.

Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire Republican senator and veteran of Obama’s first-term fiscal commission, said members of his party took on the wrong fight when they made it about Obama’s health-care law. Gregg is now chief executive officer of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

‘Dysfunctional Government’

“It was an exercise in dysfunctional government,” Gregg said in an interview. “It was a loser position from the beginning because there was no way in divided government you’re ever going to repeal Obamacare. We should have been debating as Republicans how we fix our fiscal house.”

Understanding the Debt Ceiling

The practice of governing by crisis has become so established in Washington that financial markets weren’t disturbed by the impasse, correctly anticipating a deal would come at the last moment as happened in a similar standoff two years ago.

U.S. stocks rallied yesterday on news of the agreement, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index toward a record. The benchmark index rose 1.4 percent to 1,721.54 yesterday in New York after sliding 0.7 percent when the deal looked uncertain the previous day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 205.82 points, or 1.4 percent, to 15,373.83.

Shutdown’s Toll

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.4 percent to 314.42 at 8:44 a.m. in London. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures slipped 0.2 percent, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.9 percent.

In China, Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. downgraded its local and foreign-currency assessments of the U.S. to A- from A. Dagong is based in Beijing and one of the nation’s four biggest credit-rating companies. China has the largest foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries, and the latest monthly U.S. government figures showed it increased its total in July.

Federal agencies were instructed to begin opening offices today in a “prompt and orderly manner” and furloughed employees were allowed to return to work, according to a memo from White House budget office Director Sylvia Burwell.

“We will work closely with departments and agencies to make the transition back to full operating status as smooth as possible,” Burwell said in the memo released early today.

Still, the 16-day shutdown hasn’t been cost-free. It has taken a toll on workers who lost paychecks -- furloughed employees will receive back pay -- and on the U.S. economy. Standard & Poor’s said yesterday the shutdown has shaved at least 0.6 percent from fourth-quarter 2013 gross domestic product growth, or taken $24 billion out of the economy.

Confidence ‘Shaken’

“Millions suffered,” said Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat. “Millions didn’t get paychecks. The economy was dragged down and confidence and faith in United States credit and in the United States around the world was shaken.”

Macroeconomic Advisers LLC said in a report prepared this week for the Peter G. Peterson Foundation that the budget fights in Washington have lowered U.S. economic growth by about 0.3 percentage points a year since 2009. The fiscal standoff added more than a half-point to this year’s unemployment rate, or the equivalent of about 900,000 jobs, the report said.

It may be weeks or even months before the government resumes issuing loans, payments and contracts at a normal pace. The budget impasse also raised doubts that will linger about U.S. reliability among major creditor nations such as China and frustrated many Americans.

Provide ‘Stability’

“The compromise we reached will provide our economy with the stability it desperately needs,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Nevada Democrat negotiated the agreement with his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, after House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, was unable to come to terms within his caucus.

“It would appear as though we’re kicking the can down the road one more time,” RepresentativeJim Bridenstine, an Oklahoma Republican, said in an interview.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business group, supported the agreement, as did the Business Roundtable, an association of large-company chief executives. Several small-government groups, including the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, urged lawmakers to vote against the accord.

The votes were held just hours before the nation was set to exhaust its borrowing authority, which the Obama administration had warned would have dire consequences within days given global reliance on U.S. Treasuries.

Credit Rating

The Senate accord was unveiled a day after Fitch Ratings put the U.S. AAA credit grade on ratings watch negative, citing the government’s inability to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner. After a 2011 debt-ceiling fight, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating to AA+ from AAA, criticizing the nation’s political process and lawmakers for failing to cut spending or raise revenue enough to reduce the budget deficit.

Boehner, acceding to the demands of the White House and Democratic-led Senate, said in a statement that blocking the bipartisan deal would only create a “risk of default” on U.S. debt, which he previously said would not happen.

Republicans say Boehner’s willingness to heed their concerns will leave his position as speaker unchallenged in the year ahead.

“We fought the good fight,” Boehner said yesterday on WLW, a radio station in his home state of Ohio. “We just didn’t win.”

At the end of a weeks-long stalemate, Obama managed to stave off a frontal assault on his health-care law by House Republicans and forced them to surrender on raising the U.S. debt ceiling without conditions.

‘Next Battle’

“It’s clearly a win for the president,” said Patrick Griffin, a congressional lobbyist in the administration of President Bill Clinton, who faced two government shutdowns and a combative Republican Congress. “Whether it’s a battle win or a war win for the president we don’t know. The next battle will come soon.”

The reaction of independents may determine whether Republicans have a chance to make inroads in the Senate in the 2014 election. Republicans need a net gain of six seats to win the majority in the 100-member chamber. Democrats are defending seven seats in states Republican Mitt Romney won in the 2012 presidential election.

“For now, the default debate, coupled with the shutdown of the government, has been to the detriment of Senate Republicans,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Washington-based Cook Political Report, which tracks congressional contests. The Republicans’ “path to the majority was narrow before the shutdown and has gotten considerably more narrow since.”

Senate Leaders Resume Fiscal Talks as House Scraps Vote

Senate Leaders Resume Fiscal Talks as House Scraps Vote

U.S. Senate leaders are rushing to lock up an agreement to end the fiscal impasse, stepping in after House Republicans’ last-minute plan to avert a U.S. government default collapsed.

The emerging Senate accord may be announced as early as this morning, though passage in the Republican-led House is far from assured and one ratings company yesterday placed the U.S.’s AAA credit rating on a negative watch.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid arrives at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 15. Photographer: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg

4:39

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Andrew Bosomworth, managing director at Pacific Investment Management Co., talks about the U.S. government shutdown, debt ceiling debate and its impact on Treasuries. He speaks from Munich with Anna Edwards and Mark Barton on Bloomberg Television's "Countdown." (Source: Bloomberg)

2:49

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, talks about the outlook for an agreement avoiding a U.S. debt default and ending the partial government shutdown, following a meeting between House Democrats and President Barack Obama. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

9:17

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, speaks on the Senate floor about the plan put forward by Republicans in the House of Representatives that would end the partial government shutdown and raise the U.S. debt limit. Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

3:16

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor speak about the partial government shutdown and negotiations over the debt ceiling. Republican Representatives Kevin McCarthy of California and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington also speak at a news conference in Washington. (Source: Bloomberg)

4:00

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Carnell, chief international economist at ING Bank NV, talks about the failure of U.S. government to raise its debt limit as the Treasury's deadline looms. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse." (Source: Bloomberg)

3:12

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate leaders are rushing to lock up an agreement to end the fiscal impasse, stepping in after House Republicans’ last-minute plan to avert a U.S. government default collapsed. Peter Cook reports on Bloomberg Television's "In The Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, left, arrives at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 15. Photographer: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg

The framework being negotiated by Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell presents the clearest path to ending the 16-day-old government shutdown and extending U.S. borrowing authority, which lapses tomorrow. It would fund the government through Jan. 15, 2014, and suspend the debt limit until Feb. 7.

“Senator Reid and Senator McConnell have re-engaged in negotiations and are optimistic that an agreement is within reach,” Adam Jentleson, Reid’s spokesman, said in a statement last night.

Whether the U.S. misses promised payments, including benefits, salaries or interest, may depend on two Republican lawmakers.

In the Senate, Texas Republican Ted Cruz, who has led a campaign against President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, has left open the possibility of delaying the debt-ceiling measure. If any of the 100 senators chose to delay it, a vote could be pushed to as late as next week.

Boehner Decision

In the House, Representative John Boehner of Ohio will face one of the most important decisions of his tenure as speaker: whether to allow a Senate agreement to come to the House floor unimpeded, or try to amend it. Democrats say they could pass a Senate deal in the House, with a handful of Republicans, if Boehner would allow a vote.

A Senate accord on government funding and the debt ceiling will probably be presented for a House vote by Boehner and likely win passage with a majority of Democrats and minority of Republicans, Representative Charles Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, said last night in an interview on CNN.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, temporarily suspended talks yesterday while Boehner tried and failed to marshal House Republicans behind a plan that was significantly scaled-down from demands for health-law changes that led to the U.S. government shutdown last month.

The partial shutdown has closed national parks, slowed clinical drug trials and led to the furloughs of thousands of federal workers.

Fitch Statement

Fitch Ratings yesterday put the U.S. AAA credit grade on ratings watch negative, citing the government’s inability to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner, according to a statement after markets in New York closed.

U.S. one-month bill rates rose to the highest level since 2008 as investors prepared to bid for $68 billion of short-term debt today after three- and six-month auctions yesterday drew the weakest demand in four years.

Rates on bills maturing on Oct. 24 climbed to the highest since they were issued in April on concern the Treasury Department will have to delay repaying some of its maturing securities as lawmakers battle over raising the federal borrowing limit. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, one-month rates were 0.33 percent at 7:07 a.m. in New York after touching 0.37 percent, the most since October 2008. The benchmark 10-year yield was little changed at 2.73 percent, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader data.

Futures Contracts

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring in December rose 0.4 percent to 1,698.7 at 7:27 a.m. in New York. The benchmark gauge slid 0.7 percent yesterday after rallying 3.3 percent over the previous four days. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 65 points, or 0.4 percent, to 15,160.

“If the market truly believed the U.S. will default on its obligations, we would see a more dramatic reaction from equity and bond markets,” Henk Potts, who helps oversee about $310 billion as a strategist at Barclays Wealth & Investment Management in London, said by phone today. “The great expectation is the deal will be done. If the deal is not done, however minuscule that chance that may be, it would have a devastating impact on sentiment.”

Interviewed today on “CBS This Morning,” John Chambers, a managing director of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor’s, said he estimated that every week of the shutdown would cut 0.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product from the fourth-quarter output.

“If we go past the point where the government can’t borrow any more, one of two things could happen,” he said -- cutting spending other than debt service, which “would certainly put the U.S. economy in a recession,” or not paying interest or debt service, “which would probably be an event that would be much worse” than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

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Digital Scrapbooking Programs

Digital Scrapbooking Programs

Most of us have been so used with the idea of scrapbooking as a combination of paper cutting, photo gluing and sticking bits of nice materials together. All these would be laid on a piece of cardboard, paper or any foundation the scrapper would like to use as a medium.

But there's nothing that computers can't infiltrate. They influenced literally everything from our works to our personal lives and even the crafts that were supposed to be made by hands. Well, some people may have viewed these changes negatively. Nonetheless, so long as a person does his art on whatever technique he prefers, he still is able to fulfill many of life's pleasures.

Computer scrapbooking or betterly known as digital scrapbooking is done by means of laying out pages with the aid of computer softwares. This basically entails the manipulation of photos, graphics, borders, texts and add-ons using digital devices.

Like with conventional scrapbooking, the pages may be printed on high-resolution color printers that the scrapper will then paste on traditional scrapbooks. If you would not want to get bothered with pasting or the bulk of storing albums, you always have the space saving option of strong these in your computer or on a CD or DVD as tokens of memories you would want to share with others.

There are a number of computer programs that you can make use of when doing digital scrapbooking. The three most popular are Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2.0 and CS, Microsoft Picture It!, Lumapix, and JASC's Paint Shop Pro.

All these programs are so effective in helping their users manipulate the designs. The basic features include photo cutting, background replacements, change of colors, text adding, border placing and over-all graphic designing.

The common problem though with many computer softwares for digital scrapbooking is that users tend not to get the full controls. All have their learning curves and would require some mastery. Often, it is difficult for the user to make the program do things as they wish. Now, if you are more experienced with a single program, try to master it first before you choose to switch softwares. After all, if it worked great for you then it might help you better with your other projects.

Aside from the softwares we have already mentioned, it would be good to point out some other choices that you would find interesting. Some of the easiest programs that you can manipulate are the Hallmark, CK, Scrapbook Studio, and Scrapbook Assistants.

All these are designed specifically for digital scrapbooking. S compared with high-end softwares such as those we have mentioned above, these lower-end choices are quite less expensive and easier to use. However, they offer less flexibility in creating layouts.

Digital scrapbooking softwares that have higher learning curves have the tendency to require you to bring out the best of your creativity especially when you're done figuring out how the whole thing works. on the other hand, there are programs that are so versatile that they would allow good use other than scrapbooking purposes.

If you would want t meet the balance and stay in the middle of the road, you might want to choose Microsoft Digital Image Pro. It is less expensive than PhotoShop and will offer lots of advantages over scrapbooking programs. It is not also as hard to master as compared to other programs.

Well, if you are having doubts on what computer program to buy or you are still more comfortable with traditional scrapbooking, the option of downloading free digital scrapbooking programs in the net is always available for you.

Be forewarned though that many free digital scrapbooking downloadable are not as efficient as those you can buy from online and local retailers. They serve more like samples from which you can base your judgement of the products. Well, that expected. The web is a large pool of business propaganda and advertisements. We mean nothing wrong with this, only you have to lower your expectations. After all, websites are not giving you the products, they're only showing you how a specific product works.

If you are wondering how to make things work, be assured that most free digital scrapbooking programs are equipped with tutorial lessons that will lead you to simplified step by step instructions.

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