Walmart is selling the Xbox 360 Arcade console for $199 this Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, but the package includes a $100 gift card -- shazam!

"If you were thinking about purchasing an Xbox 360 this holiday season, this is the absolute best deal we've ever seen on the Xbox 360," BFAds.net reports.

Only problem is you'll have to wait for hours in line. Each store is only guaranteed to have 10 Xbox's at this price. It's almost as if Walmart is trying to create a pre-Black Friday hype. (That's Internet sarcasm for ya.)

The sales includes six other items, like an 15.6″ HP Laptop for $298, a Panasonic plasma HDTV for $788, a Sony Blu-Ray disc player for $148, a Magnavox DVD player with 1080p upconverter for $29, and a 42" Sharp LCD HDTV for $498.

Quantities are limited. (Walmart definitely wants you to remember that part.) Will the shoppers also be?

My task each week on SOAPnet's Bank of Mom and Dad is to provide young women with solid advice that will improve their messy financial lives. In return I've received quite the education on some of the reasons we, as a society and particularly women, overspend and compile debt.

The best technique for selling life insurance is known in the trade as "driving the hearse up to the door."

When the salesperson drives the hearse up to the door, he describes at length all the horrible things that can happen if the family hasn't bought enough life insurance and leaves widows and orphans to starve.

The headlines for various projects and challenges to eat on a small food budget always slurp me in with their titillation, the gauntlet-throwing, and immediately I ask myself: could I do it? The answer always disappoints, because I'm either doing it already or find the challenge so impossible it's meaningless. Eating on $1 a day per person?

Some new numbers have come out that serve as a reminder that the country is in a recession, regardless of what economists say. Last month, personal bankruptcies increased by 9 percent,according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

That translates into 135,914 people who last month decided that their lives would be better off post-bankruptcy, than continuing to slog on and sink into a morass of financial despair. Hopefully, the fresh start will help, though you can just imagine that plenty of those people are still unemployed, and while now debt-free, or relatively debt free, aren't yet bringing in a serious income to fund their personal recoveries.

With just a few weeks until the turkey hits the table, more ads are leaking out for Black Friday, including rumored deals from Old Navy and Lowes. In addition to Black Friday-only deals, Old Navy is celebrating with "Gobble Palooza" with deals starting on Thanksgiving Day at noon and continuing on Friday, when they open at 3:00 a.m.!

All your life you wanted to do something outlandish for a living. But that cushy corporate gig and the frills attached to it stopped you from turning your passion into a profession.

Enter recession, pink slips and voila your ticket to be your own boss.

Unemployed folks are taking the leap of faith and investing their time, energy and resources into entrepreneurial ventures. Yes, believe it or not, new entrepreneurs are on the upswing in this downward spiraling economy. While some took that layoff as an excuse, many are jump starting new ventures out of necessity.

Last year, the hemorrhaging economy cost 2.6 -million jobs, the highest tally in more than six decades. The bloodletting hasn't stopped yet. But laid off employees are moving on. They are providing that silver lining to an otherwise gloomy environment.

Michael Moloney, the prolific Extreme Makeover: Home Edition designer, recently contacted WalletPop by Skype to divulge a few choice tips for renovating your home on a budget. One of his essential suggestions: When you've got no money to transform your surroundings, you can achieve a dramatic effect by simply painting them.

Moloney's ideas were so good that this week, in advance of Sunday's episode on ABC featuring country music ditz Kellie Pickler, WalletPop's Jason Cochran wanted to talk with Moloney again to get more. Today, Moloney has a few words for all the people who pester him on the street to ask him to work his magic on their own houses.

For people with peanut allergies, beware these innocent-looking jelly beans. Jelly Belly is recalling 7.5-ounce cylinders of 49 Flavors Jelly Belly jelly beans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

The label does not mention that the ingredients include peanut butter and peanut flour.

"People who have an allergy to peanuts or a severe sensitivity to peanuts run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these ingredients," the FDA said in its recall announcement.

This morning I braved the frosty morning to join 5-10 other shoppers in line at Verizon for the new Google-powered Motorola Droid. Sure, the Droid didn't come with nearly as much fanfare as Verizon would have hoped, and no professional line-sitters showed up like they did for the iPhone, but the release of the Droid will have a big affect on the cell phone business.