Until recently, Jon and Kate Gosselin were this decade's answer to "The Brady Bunch." Now, they are considered more like the "Addams Family," The Bundys from "Married with Children" or The Osbournes.

America's least favorite married couple, and stars of TLC's hit program "Jon and Kate Plus 8: now face accusations that they violated child labor laws in their home state of Pennsylvania.

"We're not saying that there was or was not a violation, just that we're conducting an investigation," a spokesman told usmagazine.com, which broke the story.

Whether or not some disgruntled viewer or angry family member turned in the Gosselins remains unclear. Government agencies are required to act on complaints brought to their attention. What government can not do is fine the Gosselins for lacking common sense.

Family members are quoted in the celebrity magazine as saying the children hate having the cameras around. I can't say I blame them. But exploiting their 8-year-old twins and five-year-old sextuplets on basic cable is lucrative for Jon and Kate who earn as much as $75,000 per episode.

America can't enough of this dysfunctional clan. Almost 10 million viewers tuned into the recent season premiere curious about whether the program would address Jon's reported infidelity with a college student and Kate's with her bodyguard. It's like watching a train wreck.

If the Gosselins split up, they better save their money to pay for the therapy they and their kids will need once America grows tired of their antics, which by my calculations will take about a year.

Richard Overton never sought to become one of the many poster children for tort reform, but he felt he had little choice but to start his Quixotic fight against beer giants Anheuser-Busch and Coors. Walletpop heard from him recently when we referred to his case in a quiz on infamous lawsuits and he called to set the record straight, according to him.

The 58-year-old government employee from the Detroit area was outraged when he found his young children watching a commercial for beer that glamorized the beverage without discussing the risks from alcohol abuse, which he knew first-hand from his time as a police officer and the struggles he and his father faced with substance abuse.

He insisted he wasn't on an moral crusade against intoxicating beverages.

"When I quit drinking, I didn't say you should too," Overton, a Vietnam veteran, said in an interview.

At the ripe old age of 41, I have seen trends come and go. None was annoying as the Cabbage Patch Kids.

Back in 1977 an artist named Xavier Roberts stumbled upon the idea of having people "adopt" cute squishy faced dolls. Roberts' toys grew in popularity until they became a must-have toy in the early 1980s. Cabbage Patch Kids even spawned a satirical counterpart named Garbage Pale Kids.

My older sister Laura had one of the dolls. Being a bratty younger brother, I took it upon myself to "kidnap" her Cabbage Patch Kid from time to time. I think I even held the doll for "ransom." Luckily, Laura forgave me for my misbehavior.

Unlike other relics of the 1980s such as David Hasselhoff, the Cabbage Patch Kids still are going strong. I remember they had talc smell. Maybe that makes people think they are holding a "real baby." To be realistic, they would need to smell like poop.

One of my fondest childhood memories was our 1978 road trip from our home outside of Philadelphia to meet some friends of my parents in Taos, New Mexico. It was made all the more memorable by the CB radio that we kids insisted my dad purchase for the trip.

This was the height of the CB craze. Two years earlier, the song "Convoy" had been a number one hit on both the pop and country charts. If you are old enough, you may remember when trucker slang like "breaker, breaker 1-9" and "rubber duck" was considered the height of coolness. The song was later made into a movie of the same name. Remember the 1970s were a funny (peculiar, not ha-ha) time.

Anyway, the trip was wonderful. We traveled through the south and hit New Orleans, where my dad told me to say "Hi" to the nice lady dancing in an open-door bar on Bourbon Street that I was way too young to enter. All the while we spoke with our "good buddies" who gave us recommendations of where to eat and offered use advice on how to avoid speed traps from the "smokies."

They say New York is the city that never sleeps, but that's because no one can afford to.

People who live outside the five boroughs are probably aware that New York is expensive. What would probably shock them along with some residents of the "town so nice they named it twice" is just how much cheaper it is to live elsewhere.

According to the New York Daily News, someone making $123,322 a year in New York would have the same standard as someone making $50,000 a year in Houston. A $60,000 Manhattan salary equals $26,092 in Atlanta. New York rents average $2,801, 53% higher than the second-highest market San Francisco, the paper said.

New Yorkers also pay the most for phone service, home heating and childcare. The Daily News pegs those costs at $25,000 a year for one child depending on the neighborhood. Of course, some of the more selective daycare centers are tougher to get into than an Ivy League college.

Increasingly, people are moving farther and farther from the city because of its costs. New York commuters have discovered the Poconos in Pennsylvania. They are even traveling far south down the New Jersey Turnpike to the suburbs of Philadelphia where I live. Buses to New York are always full. I used to make that trip every day and it sucked.

So, my hat is off to you New Yorkers. Between the cramped apartments, crowded trains and the guys passing out newspapers on the subway, I don't know how you cope with the stresses of city living. I, for one, am glad to be hold up in my fortress of solitude in the suburbs.

For me, New York is a nice place to visit. If you are wealthy, it's a great place to live. It's a struggle for everyone else.

It turns out that F. Scott Fitzgerald may have been wrong when he famously opined that "the rich are different than you and me." These days, celebrities are being forced to pinch pennies just like us common people because of the recession. Well, not exactly like regular folks, but they are experiencing their share of hardships.

According to MSNBC.com, Ugly Betty star America Ferrera has decided that she only needs one house and is putting her $1.5 million place in the Hollywood Hills up for sale.

Think that's tragic? There are even more heartwarming examples of celebrity frugality on the Web site.

Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives was seen -- get this -- wearing elements of the same outfit twice. Teen queen Miley Cyrus shopped off the rack for t-shirts and a pair of jeans. Former spendaholic Britney Spears has turned over a new leaf and drives a Mitsubishi. What has the world come to?

You can hardly blame the celebrities. They read the newspapers like everyone else. Britney probably watches the TV news. They know that fewer people are buying movie tickets, CDs and books. Studios and record companies are feeling pinched too, so they are clamping down on salaries paid to the talent. That applies to Britney as well.

Gone are the days when actors and entertainment personalities can spend with reckless abandon and expect someone else to pick up the tab. MC Hammer and Ed McMahon even exploited their dire financial straights in those pathetic commercials for Cash 4 Gold.

Like all fads in Hollywood, this one will end unless Wal-Mart opens a store in Beverly Hills. Then, all bets are off.

For more on cheap stars, see our gallery on the Most Frugal Celebrities.

Whenever I hear stories about multiple generations living under one roof, I wonder how people don't wind up killing one another. My worries are heightened because of the recession.

According to USA Today, increasing numbers of people are living together out of economic necessity.

"Nearly 3.5 million brothers or sisters are living in a sibling's house, according to 2007 Census Data, up from 3 million in 2000," the paper said. " And 3.6 million parents live with their adult children, up from 2.3 million. About 6.7 million householders live with other relatives, such as aunts or cousins, compared with 4.8 million in 2000."

Of course, given the state of the economy, those figures have no doubt increased over the past year as the real estate market continues to plummet and foreclosures continue to soar. It's the hidden cost of the economic downturn, and it's scary.

After nearly 25 years, the nightmare of "New Coke" may finally be over.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Coca-Cola "has quietly removed the word (classic) from the label of a new 16-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola that is being sold in some southeastern U.S. markets, as part of a broader plan to refresh the brand's image, according to a report in industry publication Beverage Digest."

Taking the "Classic" out of "Classic Coke" is supposed to make the sugary water more appealing to young people. Exactly why and how that is supposed to happen is anybody's guess. The truth is that people of all ages drink soda, but their numbers are dwindling. That's why companies such as Coke are making a big push into non-carbonated beverages.

Can you imagine the meetings that occurred at Coke's Atlanta headquarters before this momentous decision was made? I am sure there were many sleepless nights in the marketing department. They had to ask themselves, do they want people to remember how Coke changed its formula in 1985 and was forced by outraged consumers to change it back? The new "old" Coke was given the name "Classic" to distinguish itself from the attempted change no one liked.

About the only thing "classic" about the soda was the lesson it taught business school students that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Anyone who regularly travels for business knows how much it sucks. Cost-cutting by major hotel chains is making the experience even more unpleasant.

According to the Wall Street Journal, (subscription required) guests of the Courtyard and other Marriott chains now have to ask at the front desk for those little bottles of hand lotions because they are no longer being provided in the rooms. Wyndham Hotels and Resorts are providing fewer towels, and Ritz-Carltons are cutting back on the operating hours of restaurants, spas and retail shops, the paper said.

Before you get into a tizzy about not having a cucumber-scented hand cream or two dozen fluffy towels, the chains are also are taking the axe to one of the quintessential elements of the hotel experience. Yes, I am talking about the breakfast buffet.

"Marriott International Inc., the country's largest hotel company, recently began telling some chains they can cut back on breakfast offerings," the Journal reports. "The company's Courtyard, SpringHill Suites and Residence Inn brands are all reducing the variety of fruits they are offering in breakfast buffets."

It's not clear whether this means that the hotels will only offer one type of melon or only provide berries in season. Perhaps they will only offer one type of bread next or curtail the omelette station entirely.

Hotels better be careful with these cost cuts or they risk annoying the dwindling numbers of people who can afford their services.

During the housing boom, my wife and I probably got at least a dozen solicitations a month from banks wanting us to refinance our mortgage or borrow against the equity in our house. Fees were being waved left and right as financial institutions looked to find ways to get borrowers deep in debt. But now that the real estate market is in the tank, banks are singing a different tune.

As the scads of people trying to refinance know, banks are not giving anything away any longer. Those mortgage interest rates of under 5% often come with a catch called points, which are pre-paid fees. In other words, whatever savings you get off your monthly payment will be negated. The fees are tax deductible and may be worth it if they can be paid off relatively quickly.

"So, if you're going to stay in your house for a long time and can afford to do so, paying more points in the beginning may get you a better interest rate and save you more money in the long run," according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

For us, the issue is not clear cut. Though we have no plans to move, we are not sure how long we will stay in our house. The interest rate we have on our existing mortgage also is pretty good, 5.625%. Several banks told us that their rates were not much better. That surprised me but I guess given the current economic climate, they are being cautious.

Best we can tell, refinancing could save us about $150-$200, depending on whether we take the points or not. I am not convinced it is worth the bother.