Staying around hometown and waiting for the economy to pick up is one option for the June 2009 graduates.   How long is the wait going to be though? How long will it take to find jobs? Young people have a tough choice: stay put or move to a new location. You can't just sit around and wait for things to start happening, you've got to go where the opportunities are. 

Employers are either reducing work force around the country or, at the best case scenario, they are simply not hiring. Under these circumstances graduates will need to improvise, adapt and overcome obstacles. The question is: should they stay where they are or should they go. Unemployment rates vary by city, state and country. Moving to a new location could be the best solution. For many, however, moving to a new location is not going to be an option simply because it is way too expensive to rent a place in a new city. The cost of getting there is nothing comparing to the price of apartment rental, security deposit, utility bills and the overall cost of living. 

A very innovative solution to this problem is finding a free place to stay while looking for a job. There are many seniors living alone in their family homes and trying to stay there rather for as long as possible. Moving into nursing homes is the last resort. Most elderly don't need full time care. They just need someone to take care of things around the house for them.   12 - 16 hours a week is probably plenty of time to do that. Unfortunately, with their retirement plans and 401K savings depleted by the recession, hiring someone to work 16 hours a week could be a very pricy proposition. Here is where the youth steps in - exchange part time work for free accommodations. At current day and age, a background check and reference check can be run quickly and easily.  

A good place for the young and the old to meet is Host & Care global community that connects students looking for free accommodations with families and elderly looking for care.   Elderly, disabled or families in need of care create their profiles and offer free room or free room and board to a student willing to help out on part time basis. It is a win-win for all: homeowners can finally utilize their spare bedroom that they were heating and cooling for years anyway and get the much needed care for their home, themselves, their kids or their pets. Young people can move to a new area and have the luxury of stress free job search. They don't have bills to pay so they can take time looking for a job. Once they find one, they can save up almost all they earn since they are living rent free. Instead of starting out in debt, they start saving what they earn. 

Is Hiring a Butler Reserved for the Rich and Famous?

Most of us are not financially capable of hiring a butler, a housekeeper, a gardener, a maid or a chauffeur.  That is not to say that most of us could not use one. 

We are all so busy working and running households that we are constantly under stress to get everything done within the limited amount of time we have at our disposal.   

Cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, running errands, laundry, cutting grass, the list just goes on and on.  We could all use a butler.   Your employer expects you to work longer hours since some of your co-workers were let go.  During the recession, you don't want to be the first one out of the office and the last one in.  Plus, you have so much more work to do these days.  Your employer is not hiring anyone to replace your co-worker who is on maternity leave.   Don't you ever wish you were high earner and could hire someone to take care of all the mundane chores for you?  

Well, now you can thanks to Host & Care.  Http://hostandcare.com is a free social network application and a meeting place for students looking for free accommodations in exchange for care services. 

If you have a spare bedroom in your house that you have been cooling and heating all this time and never really using it, you now have a chance to go green and benefit in the process.  Enjoy the summer or the year and let a student or a graduate do the work for you.  College graduates will have really hard time finding jobs and might need a place to live while looking for work. Even when they find a job they would still need time to save up some money or get out of debt.  Working part-time in exchange for rent free living is a win-win situation for all.  You get your chores done for free and a student gets free accommodation in their desired destination.  Whether you are seeking home care assistance or home care employment host & care is a site for you.  Student volunteers are available to help you out with all your home care needs.

The same principle applies to childcare, elderly care, disabled care, pet care or tutoring.  One on one tutoring dramatically improves kids' performance at school but hiring a tutor is extremely expensive.  On top of that, you need to do driving to and from the lessons.  Having a college or graduate student on the premises takes care of homework battles, tutoring and childcare all in one. 

Hosting a foreign student would give your kid an extra opportunity to learn or improve a foreign language.  Knowledge of foreign languages will give your child a competitive advantage in the flat world we live in today.  At this day and age running a background and reference check is a very small expense and there are numerous companies offering services in that area.   When you take advantage of this opportunity you help yourself, you help another person and you help the world, two people at a time.    

Undoubtedly the best way to spend the senior years is to live at your very own home.  There is no nursing home or assisted living facility that can replace the comfort of your own house. 

If your elderly parent or parents are still staying in their own house, you may be concerned about their safety and their well-being, you don't know if they are taking their medications properly and if they are eating. You have no idea about their diet and how they get the food to the house.  You might need to hire live in care.  Live-in caregiver can help your parents with basic chores, make sure they take their medication, provide them with transportation, cook and even do light housekeeping. If need be, the caregiver can also help them with bathing and dressing. This can be a very expensive proposition.  On average, you have to expect to pay at a minimum $15.00 an hour.  However, chances are, your elderly parent lives in a family home with plenty of room to offer housing to care provider in exchange for care.  Conducting a background and reference check is easy, reliable and inexpensive. 

Host & Care is a community that connects students and travelers looking for free accommodations with families and seniors looking for care. You offer free room and board in exchange for getting live-in personal or home care.  The benefit of this type of exchange is tremendous.  You have no out of pocket expense and save a lot of money while at the same time you get the peace of mind.  If you are looking for options for taking care of your elderly parents, consider at home caregiver services. This enables older people to stay at home and gives caregivers an opportunity to work or study outside of the house. If you have siblings who also take care of mom or dad, you should discuss the possibility of getting a caregiver in to help out with caring for your parents.  Elderly neglect their health care: The effort of arranging transportation to and from the doctor's office, having prescriptions filled and picked up at the pharmacy, and understanding what the doctor tells her and who won't take the time to insure she understands, is enough to make anyone avoid the health care system altogether.  A live-in caregiver would take care of all these steps for you.  Elder caregiver will stay with your senior parent at the doctor's office to hear everything the doctor explains to mom. Although elderly won't admit it, she likely will never remember most of what she is told by the doctors and nurses. If the care provider weren't there with her, you can't explain anything to her and she is left to struggle with the prescription medications and forgotten advice. 

Senior caregiver also works as a confidant and adviser: elderly often won't admit to being hard of hearing, incompetent in buttoning her blouse, or forgetful of many normal daily chores that need to be done. Live-in care giver gently makes it obvious you are there for her anytime 24/7, and are more than happy to talk with her about troublesome issues. Just the promise of this availability is reassuring enough to her self-esteem.  Many times, just knowing that someone is there and available will prevent depression, anxiety, and the feeling of helplessness.

Nutrition issues: Seniors typically give up cooking foods like they used to do. It's a lot easier to pop a microwave dinner into the microwave now and then. Appetite is decreased as a result of less demand from a body that has little activity, less exercise, and less caloric requirements. Often a senior will pick one or two foods they like and only eat those daily. It results in lack of balanced nutrients, vitamins, and required proteins such as certain amino acids.

When mom does not live with you, you really don't know what her nutrition is lacking. A live-in caregiver will make sure that elderly has a bottle of good multivitamins, enough food ready to eat and drink in the fridge, and some red wine to sip on daily to supplement her nutrition.

Safety issues: Elderly tend to fall down as a result of poor depth perception, fading vision, weakened leg muscles, and lack of attention to their surroundings. It's a great help in prevention of falls if you eliminate rugs they can trip over, furniture that becomes unstable with use, moving items to lower shelves where older ladies can easily reach them, give away her shoes with leather soles, install bath and shower bars as well as hand rails at any place she must go up and down steps, make latches on doors easy to open, and remove any items that can fall on her from high up storage spots.  Having student volunteer live in the house with an elderly person will alleviate the danger. 

Money worries: For seniors money is a constant worry. When their bank account gets low, then they start skipping doctor appointments and eat less. Make sure their money is readily available to them while mom is still alert, clear minded, and oriented to time and place.

Hidden trauma problems: Seniors do not want others to think they are deteriorating to a point where they are unable to take care of themselves. They hide the bruises, cuts, and abrasions that occur and others might perceive as incompetence. Pain, stomach aches, bad headaches, arthritis of joints with decreased range of motion, and they'll also keep you from noticing.

The mental side of aging: The most traumatic problem mom's face is the thought that their mind is no longer clear or stable. One of the first symptoms to show up is losing track of recent memory, people's names, and dates. Forgetting to take medications or to take them at proper intervals can be very serious-under-dosing, and bad health problems return-over-dosing, and suffer bad side effects seems somewhat common in elderly folks.

Care provider will organize mom's medicines for her is a great help to her as well as being a smart way to avoid overdosing problems. Or, just checking how she organizes her meds and takes them. Nursing homes are well known for medication errors, missed doses, and patient care neglect. So, when possible, check out these things thoroughly.

Emotional connections: When senior is well established in her residence, way of life, friends she sees daily, fun events she enjoys locally, and has a well established comfort zone, it is unwise to yank her out of there and force her to live with you or near you.

It does is destroy all her relationships, disrupts all her familiar surroundings which have given her mental comfort, and exposes her to all the insecurity she has been trying to avoid at this time in her life.