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Ed Andrews ought to have known better.

Andrews is a longtime economics reporter for The New York Times. He’s covered interest rates and housing markets and mortgage lending; the Fed and Wall Street, busts and bubbles. So he should have known.

But life is complicated. Dreams are not always sensible. And even Ed Andrews got in over his head in the housing bubble. A house he couldn’t afford. Mortgage payments that got away from him. Too much alimony. Too little income.

Now he is one of the ocean of Americans waiting for foreclosure. This hour, On Point: The story of Ed Andrews, busted.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Ed Andrews joins us from New York.  A veteran economics reporter for The New York Times, he tells his personal subprime mortgage story in his new book “Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown.”

Read an excerpt from the book that appeared in The New York Times Magazine this past Sunday.

The New Frugality (Time cover.)

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In the Great Depression, people lined up at soup kitchens, saved string, and gathered around the hearth.

Now, in our own “Great Recession,” Americans are clipping coupons, cancelling vacations, and also struggling to make ends meet.

These are indeed tough times. 57% of Americans now say the American Dream will be harder to achieve, according to a Time magazine poll and cover story. The magazine also found new attitudes about frugality, what we value, and what we expect – even after the economy recovers.

This Hour, On Point: the new American era of thrift.

You can join the conversation. What’s your story of thrift in an era of recession? How does it echo what this country has been through before? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Nancy Gibbs, editor-at-large at TIME Magazine, and a former professor of journalism at Princeton University. Her article, “The New Frugality,” is the cover story for this week’s issue of TIME Magazine. You can see the profiles of average people the magazine interviewed — from an organic gardener to a doggie day care owner — for the new issue.

Joining us from Berkeley, California is Martha Olney, professor of economics at University of California-Berkeley. She is author of “Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s” and co-author, with Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, of “Essentials of Economics.”

More links:

Some of the sound narratives used in today’s show come courtesy of Story Corps. You can listen to hundreds of other stories at the organization’s Web site.

The San Fransisco Chronicle recently spoke with people who lived through the Great Depression and posted some video of the interviews. Frugality and its many forms have become trendy, as The New York Times noted recently. And Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a long-time student of the Great Depression, spoke about the connection between then and now at a recent forum.

(Photo: Rambis, Flickr.com)

Call them what you will — tightwads, cheapskates, penny pinchers — they’re hot again. Back when more was more, and the Dow was dizzying, skinflints were as endangered as the expense account is today. Now, in an economy where excess is the new tacky, frugal fannies everywhere are having their day.

Neal Templin is a tightwad. Just ask him. He chronicles all the ways he doesn’t part with his money — and all the lessons he’s learned in the process — in a Wall Street Journal column called, appropriately, Cheapskate.

This hour, On Point: Impervious to the impulse buy — and not picking up the check. Confessions of a skinflint.

You can join the conversation. Are you a proud cheapskate? What about the flipside — when is spending the better choice? Tell us what you think.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation this week.

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Neal Templin, personal finance editor of The Wall Street Journal. He writes the Journal’s weekly Cheapskate column.

From Essex County, N.J., is Clarissa Templin, Neal Templin’s wife, the long-suffering spouse of a cheapskate.

And from Philadelphia, we’re joined by Scott Rick, a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He’s co-author of the paper “Tightwads and Spendthrifts,” examining the emotional and neural underpinnings of spending money.  See also, “Are You a Tightwad or a Spendthrift? And What Does This Mean for Retailers?,” an article from Wharton School Publishing on Rick’s work, and the spendthrift-tightwad scale he developed with colleagues to measure “individual differences in the pain of paying.”

Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan (Cover detail.)

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Personal finance guru Suze Orman is everywhere these days. Talking, talking, talking about personal finance challenges we’re all up against.

The economy’s in meltdown, jobs are vanishing, the stock market is deep in bear territory — and it’s hard to know what to do with savings, debt, retirement, investment.

Orman is famous as the longtime waitress who took the personal finance realm by storm — first as a guide to women, and now to the world. Love her advice or hate it, you know you’ll get it, blunt and unvarnished.

This hour, On Point: Suze Orman on what to do with your money now.

You can join the conversation. The personal finance doctor is in. What’s your question — on savings, debt, retirement, investment — for Suze Orman?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Suze Orman joins us from New York. She is host of “The Suze Orman Show” on CNBC and has won two Emmies for her PBS specials on personal finance. USA Today calls her a “one-woman financial powerhouse.” Last year, Time magazine named her one of “The World’s Most Influential People.” She worked for years as a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, California, before bursting into personal finance. Now she’s written seven consecutive New York Times bestsellers on how to deal with money. Her latest is “Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan: Keeping Your Money Safe & Sound.”

More:

Orman has been the subject of an online duel this week between financial writers James Spurlock of The Big Money and Felix Salmon of Portfolio. Read more here.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, left, SEC Chairman Chris Cox, right, and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson join President George W. Bush in the Rose Garden on Sept. 19, 2008. (Photo: Joyce N. Boghosian)

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Save yourself, Americans have been told for years now. Save for your own retirement. Save for your kids’ college. Save for a rainy day.

And then, last week — market panic, and a riptide of fear that those savings, such as they are, could all go away.

By week’s end, there was hope in the air. Bailout talk and some sharp up days on Wall Street and around the world. But a generation of “on your own” Americans have now looked into the abyss and wondered — many in stark fear — what on earth to do with their money.

This hour, On Point: Financial planners give financial advice on surviving the storm.

You can join the conversation. Have you dared to peek at your portfolio? How’s it look? Are you buying? Selling? Taking a deep breath? What’s your question for the experts?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Newton, Mass., is Alicia Munnell. She is a professor at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and director of the Center for Retirement Research. She was a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors from 1995-1997 and was assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy from 1993-1995. Prior to that, she spent 20 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Joining us from Denver, Colo., is Susie Johnston. She’s a certified financial planner and registered investment advisor and owns Cherry Hills Investment Advisors, an independent firm.

Joining us from Washington is Robert Frick, senior editor for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. He leads the magazine’s Rewards section and writes about investments.

More links:

“10 ways to protect your money now” — MSN Money and The Wall Street Journal offer a list of things you can do now, from “Check that your bank accounts are federally insured,” to “Don’t panic.”

“How to Cope With the Financial Crisis” — tips from Kiplinger’s on protecting your portfolio and safeguarding your accounts.

“Is It Safe To Get Back Into Stocks?” — CNBC on the outlook for stocks after a tumultuous week, and more uncertainty ahead.

It has been scary times for any American with two cents to invest and no idea where to put it. Stock markets — at home and abroad — way off their highs and who knows where the bottom is. Housing prices collapsing. Headlines full of crisis talk and emergency intervention.

The pros say don’t panic, but some days that’s hard for a nation nursing IRAs and 401K nest eggs into an uncertain future. We need advice, and this hour we’re going to get it.

This hour, On Point: financial advisers speak on how to ride out the economic storm.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Peter Coy, economics editor at BusinessWeek.

Kate Scott, certified financial planner and principal at Cherry Hill Investment Advisors in Littleton, CO.

Sheryl Garrett, certified financial planner and founder of the Garrett Planning Network in Shawnee Hills, KS.

Christopher Cordaro, certified financial planner and wealth manager at Regent Atlantic Capital in Chatham, NJ.