The nation is all a buzz with talk of the housing market, and chances are, you've seen foreclosures popping up all over the place--including your own neighborhood. It's not a short-term problem (foreclosure rates having been climbing for some time now), and people are beginning to investigate to determine who is really at fault. Who is really to blame--the mortgage industry, predatory lending schemes, the unsuspecting and uninformed homebuyer, or maybe a combination of the above? It's hard to say for certain, but fortunately there are ways to avoid becoming just another foreclosure statistic.

The tricky thing about New Year's resolutions is that there's no guarantee that they'll ever make it off the list. Most of us have a wish list that we bring out every year on January 1 in hopes that simply reviewing the items will lead us to magically drop 10 pounds and quit smoking--after all, it's still the holidays and magic is in the air. Below are some popular resolutions and some tried and true methods for taking your resolutions from reflection to reality.