Friday focus: Personal finance

Optimism. For months, it’s been in rather short supply.

Like a lingering cold you can’t shake off, the economy’s blues just hang on. It’s not just our bottom line that’s been battered, but our psyches, too.

And even if you haven’t lost your job or aren’t facing foreclosure, it’s often hard to feel good.

We can’t change the market’s ricocheting ride nor can we instantly Botox our bank accounts. But we can change how we take it all in.

Here’s how:

•Be grateful. If your paycheck’s been pinched or your job’s disappeared, it’s hard to feel thankful.

But look around: The market popped up again last week, the fifth week in a row.

U.S. jobless numbers were bad, but not worse than expected. California banking behemoth Wells Fargo reported – gasp – a profit. Mortgage rates have fallen to historic lows.

Maybe these aren’t reasons to rejoice, but hey, they’re hints that a recovery could be coming. Someday.

•Let it go. It’s easy to get mired in mourning what we’ve lost, whether it’s a job or retirement savings.

Maureen White, a human resources veteran who abruptly lost her job as a Sacramento-based vice president for a major nonprofit, advises,“Let go of the anger, the anxiety, the resentment, the baggage.”

•Get out the door. Fight the tendency to hunker down and burrow under the covers.

“Force yourself to take a break from thinking about the bad,” said professor Kimberly Elsbach, an organizational behavior expert at the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management.

Other ways to improve your mood, she said, are: “Exercise, don’t listen to (TV news). Treat yourself to a sandwich with a friend or take a coffee break to lift your spirits.”

•Reality check. Amid all the economic bad-news barometers, it’s challenging to keep perspective, especially for those immersed in it daily.

Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto notes that downturns have their upsides.

“A lot of the biggest and most promising companies started in recessions – Apple, Google and Microsoft,” he said.

•Take stock. And we don’t mean your shares of GE or Procter & Gamble. Instead, take note of bigger things in life than your 401(k) numbers.

“If we define our existence by money, it can be a fairly shallow existence,” Cavuto said.

McClatchy