More from The Takeaway

The Takeaway's sports contributor Jeff Beresford-Howe looks into his crystal (foot)ball to try and help us figure out what we can expect from the new year in sports.

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Listen to Meaghan O'Neill's suggestions for greening up your holiday cleanup.

Nationwide, there was a lot of focus this year on how to green up your holiday season, and with good reason: Half the country is broke, the atmosphere is falling apart, and many of us are plain done with the stress of running ourselves ragged to buy gifts that nobody really wants just so we can fulfill the tradition of giving and receiving. At TreeHugger and Planet Green, we offered dozens of solutions to Christmas-as-usual, hundreds of green holiday gifts, and even recipes to make your holiday a little brighter and lighter.

One of the main things we talk about is dematerializing the holidays; that is, choosing gifts that are small, experiential, or consumable, such as tickets to a ballet, a spa gift certificate, or donations in your giftee's name. Still, there's much to be said for the cheeriness of holiday décor and thoughtful gift-giving, but when the gifts are unwrapped and the tree comes down, the question remains: What to do with all the stuff that's literally littering our homes?

In the United States, our waste stream increases by about 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year's, bringing the total amount of stuff we toss out to more than 25 million tons. With landfills being one of the top sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, it pays to pay attention to how to we dispose of the extraneous stuff we gather at this time of year. With that in mind, here are 10 solutions for dealing with post-holiday clutter...

1. Mulch that tree. If you've chosen to use a live tree this year, make sure it's disposed of properly. If your city doesn't have a curbside pickup program, find out where you can deliver it so it can be mulched or used for landscaping, not landfill. For info about your area, check out Earth 911.

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Listen to Jeff Beresford-Howe discuss the eventful NFL Sunday on The Takeaway.

Yesterday may have been the single most interesting day in the modern history of the NFL, and it was certainly the most amazing final day of the season in any sport in a long time. Any one of the following would be a big story, but all of them in the span of about 12 hours?

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"Giving All My Money to the Man" by Steven Zelin, the Singing CPA
Trouble viewing this video? Check out the YouTube version (click "watch in high quality" for best quality).

Across the country, state governments are trying to cope with severe budgetary shortages. The solution: taxes! Whether you call them fee hikes or revenue enhancements, we are seeing ideas that range from a real bummer to downright odd. Everything is on the table to increase tax revenues including sugary drinks and iTunes downloads. The Takeaway invited Steven Zelin, a certified public accountant in New York City who calls himself "The Singing CPA," to write a holiday-themed song about the current state of affairs.

Listen to Steven Zelin on The Takeaway.

To download an mp3 of the soon-to-be hit "Giving All My Money to the Man" click here.

Still want more from the Singing CPA? Check out his music on Amazon.com and on his Web site, thesingingcpa.com.

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The Takeaway’s news anchor Femi Oke remembers the five top stories that made the team smile in 2008.

The Singing Ambassador: Producer Kent DePinto talks about booking the U.S. ambassador for Paraguay for his newly discovered singing talent.

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Why would Gov. Blagojevich try to extort the Chicago Cubs?

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Marci Alboher is a freelance writer/journalist/author/blogger/speaker who focuses on career and workplace trends. She talks about how to diversify your career portfolio in these tough times.

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Viva la Huelga! (No, not a placekicker for the Houston Texans)

The NFL has reached an uncomfortable point in its struggle to stay on the vanguard of socialism, i.e., to have every team in the league make the exact same amount of money and finish at or near 8-8.

If the playoff races ended today, marquee names around the league like New England, Dallas, Philadelphia and Green Bay would all miss the playoffs. (more...)

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Financial educator and author Alvin Hall took your questions on personal finance and debt on Friday, November 21, 2008.

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I like to think of the oil market as an opera, where big dramas get played out by colorful outsized characters ranging from OPEC, China and Russia to currency hedgers, militias in Nigeria and choruses of American commuters, among others. The opera metaphor also works to explain how the market gets carried away on symphonic swirls of emotion that lead to a price of $145 a barrel in July before falling to below $50 a barrel. (continued ...)

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I talk and write frequently about things that can be done, both in the public and private sectors, to increase household savings in the United States. But a more primitive question is, "Why such the mess?" Are we just the prodigal sons and daughters of the world, caught in some kind of moral decay that is uniquely American?

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Leave a message for our 'debt' series online or call our SpinVox voicemail at 1-877-8-MY-TAKE (1-877-869-8253). You'll have one minute to tell your story: how you got into debt, how debt is affecting you, whether you're in danger of losing your job or your house, or what debt is preventing you from doing. Or maybe you have questions about getting out of debt. We'll play a selection of your messages on our show this week.

Or, join any of the other conversations going on now...

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