Carnival of Money Stories #33 - Autumn Beauty

Welcome to the 33rd Edition of the Carnival of Money Stories; a carnival that shares stories about personal experiences or the experiences of others on saving, investing, finance, money management, money generating, business ventures, success and tales of struggle. There were many great submissions from PF Bloggers around the world, so let’s begin

Photo by Pinyo

Editor’s picks

• The Dough Roller presents What A Financially Painful Childhood Can Teach You about Money posted at The Dough Roller — DR recounts his childhood stories of broken family and financial hardship that helped make him better with money as an adult — A truly touching story. DR also shares a great quote: “We are the sum of our circumstances multiplied by our choices.“
• Glblguy presents To Whomever Stole My Debit Card posted at Gather Little By Little — One family’s vacation ruined when their only debit card was lost.
• Melissa presents Don’t Get Me Anything = You Better Get Me A Gift? posted at A Penny Closer — A story about a young couple that is really in tune with each other. I think they will have the best “paper” (1st anniversary) gift ever.
• Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents Irrational Housing Prices Steal Early Retirement Plans Away From My Friends posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door — Sad story about a couple who bet the farm on real estate and is losing out because of the real estate bubble. The idea of selling one’s home to invest for exponential growth is intriguing, but is that just a different kind of risk?
• Super Saver presents Our Journey To Financial Freedom #5 - Setting Goals, Developing Plans and Tracking Progress posted at My Wealth Builder — One family shares their secret to achieving financial freedom at their early forties.
• Madeleine Begun Kane presents Charge! posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog — Madeleine shares a light, humorous poem about her, her dad, and credit card.

Business Stories

• Silicon Valley Blogger presents Getting Rich The Easy Way, When Your Company Cheats posted at The Digerati Life — SVB reveals a story about the dot com era millionaires, and how they (their company) cheated their way to millions via options backdating.
• Wilson Ng presents SME #3 - Think Small, Act Small posted at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife — Is bigger always better? Wilson shares his view on this subject, and quotes Herb Kelleher, the famous CEO of Southwest Airlines, “Think Small and act small, and we’ll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we’ll get smaller.”

Frugal Stories

• Paidtwice presents Frugal Fall Fun - Raking Leaves posted at I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…. — Paidtwice shares happy story about how her family enjoyed a frugal day cleaning up the yard and playing in the pile of leaves.
• Steve Faber presents Hire a Lawyer for Your Real Estate Transactions — or Pay the Price posted at Debt Free — Sometimes being too frugal (or cheap depending on how you look at it) can really hurt you — take Steve’s neighbor for instance.
• Stephanie presents Aldi vs Sams - Who has the best price? posted at Stop the Ride! — Stephanie shares her price book so that you can see where she shops for the lowest price. This is like getting the black book from your cool cousin.
• Raymond presents Is There Anything Wrong With Taking Full Advantage of a Generous Return Policy? posted at Money Blue Book — Raymond pushes return policy to the limit and shares what he did — frugal or cheap?

Debt Stories

• TV Girl presents How Did I Get Here? — Part VI: Student Loan Consolidation Is a Pain in the…yeah, that posted at TV Girl and Money — A compelling story about a young girl fighting her way out of debt.

Investing Stories

• David presents Money Mistake Monday - The Oh Crap I Waited Too Long To Save For Retirement Syndrome. posted at My Two Dollars — David offers one piece of advice: “I know retirement seems a long way off, but trust me on this - you want to start investing NOW. Immediately. As in, TODAY.“
• TheWild1 presents Over 40% in under 6 months! posted at TheWild1 — I thought I was doing great beating the market by 1-2%. Check out TheWild1’s story and see how he goes from 0 to 40 in under 6 months.
• Kurt Brouwer presents The Stock Market Crash of 1987 posted at Fundmastery Blog — Kurt recounts the early days of his company, which was launched a month before the Crash of 1987. There was also a good story within the story about two investors with strategies and philosophies that were worlds apart
• Logan Flatt, CFA presents “Growth Investing” Nothing More Than Rank Speculation posted at PowerWealth.com — Logan states his viewpoint about John Authers’ comment regarding growth investing.

Lifestyle Stories

• FIRE Finance presents Car Pool, Ride Share, Hitch Hike your way to Fun & Dollars! posted at FIRE Finance — FIRE offers various ways to have fun and save money through various means of transportation. Digital hitchhiking…interesting!
• Mark presents How NOT to go to a Bar or a Club posted at TheLocoMono Website — We all love a grand ole time with our friends, but how many of us really love seeing an empty wallet the next morning? Here is another way to go out without spending a fortune. Mark used to spend $150 a night going out!
• Nina presents Sleeping With Money: How Much Should You Invest on a First Date? posted at Queercents — Interesting post about how one person deals with first dates with time and expense in mind.
• Betsy Teutsch presents Great Gifts with Really Bad Unintended Consequences posted at Money Changes Things — Betsy shares some gift ideas that are not so great after all.

Other Money Stories

• Eric D. Wills presents What’s a Dollar? posted at One Away — Two friends, Sherman and Herman, discuss what a dollar bill truly represents.
• Ashley presents How Much Work is Too Much? posted at College of Cash — A college woman ponders if getting a third job so she can pay off debt faster, as well as make sure she have a job through January. Will it work?
• Michael Fowke presents Felix Dennis posted at Money is the way — His special mind power leads to a chance meeting with Felix Dennis, the author of How To Get Rich. Hmm, what would I say if I meet someone famous?

About Money, But Not Stories

• Ryan Russell presents Planning your budget for the future posted at Care on Credit — Learn to balance your income statement and understand how your future cash flow will be 6 months, 12 months and 3 years from now.
• Matthew presents Notorious Practices of Payday Loan Companies posted at ZooLaw Legal Blog — A great explanation as to why Payday loans are evil.
• James presents The Victims of Payday Loans posted at Payday Loan Blog — James profiles the typical victims of the evil Payday Loans operations.
• Noric Dilanchian presents Debt recovery DOs and DON’Ts posted at Lightbulb — “Prevention is better than cure. Prevent the cost, time, and hassle of chasing debtors by perfecting in-house procedures and legal documentation. This post contains a practical checklist based on experience by a law firm.”