Carnival of Personal Finance #127 - Wonders of the World

I found this great list on Wonders of the World so this week carnival will be based on wondrous things in the world. There are a lot of submissions this weekend but I did manage to read through them all, and could certify their high quality. I list these in the order in which they were submitted and according to the category; so late submissions appear toward the bottom of each category.

The Great Wall of China via morgueFile

Editor’s Top 10 Picks

Out of all the submissions, I thought these were some of the more creative, unique and informative posts.

1. Raising4Boys presents What’s the Right Age to Start an Allowance? — Dad offers an excellent framework on giving out allowance. This systems teaches savings, charity, match fund, and even “live within your mean” — awesome!
2. Cash Money Life presents A Penny Saved is Worth More Than a Penny Earned — Patrick offers a great build on the saying popularized by Benjamin Franklin: “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
3. My Dollar Plan presents Strategy to Contribute More Than Roth IRA Limit Allows — A well explained strategy on how to use 401k after-tax contribution as a mean to contribute more to the Roth IRA than the limit allows. Very interesting concept.
4. The Dough Roller presents Slow Motion Retirement (or Retire Early, Retire Often) — DR offers several techniques to retire part-time now, and discusses 4 common problems with these techniques.
5. Two Wise Acres presents How Much Money Do You Need to Start Investing in Real Estate? — Mike explains conventional mortgage for investment properties and goes on to explain how investors can accelerate their ability to grow through leveraged approach.
6. Mighty Bargain Hunter presents Year end checklists for flexible spending accounts — Some important deadlines for flexible spending accounts are just around the corner. MBH offers some really useful tips on what to do before the year ends.
7. Canadian Dream: Free at 45 presents The Magnification of Savings — I love this quote about saving: “It’s not a trick or a one time thing, but rather an attitude that you have.”
8. Journey to Financial Freedom presents Prepare Your Mindset to Achieve Financial Freedom — Mindset can make or break your plan and change your life. Harrison offers some powerful ideas about mindset to achieve financial success.
9. Gather Little by Little presents 5 Reasons You Should Buy a New Car — GLBL shares his philosophy on car ownership.
10. Broke Grad Student presents Why I Use Credit Cards — A good approach to using credit cards correctly.

The Great Pyramid of Giza via Wikipedia

Money Management

• 2million’s Financial Freedom presents Strangers Can Do Bank Transfers From Your Accounts? — This is quite a disturbing story. The author points out how easy it is for someone to perform electronic fund transfers on your account. According to him, “Apparently, anyone can take money from your checking account with your routing number and account number. “Single Guy Money presents Slipping back into bad habits….ALMOST! — Single Guy Money fought off his desire for a new gadget, a new Blackberry phone.
• Home Office Women presents What I Can’t Leave Home Without… — Personally, I would say the house keys, but that wasn’t the answer. I will just let you find out what it is.
• I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… presents My evolution from new to used… car, that is — Paidtwice tells us about her dad and why her first car was brand new. She then reveals why she is now a believer in buying used car. But as frugal as she is, not having a car is out of the question.
  
• Quest For A Million presents Car Lessons — Wow, Steve leased, bought, and sold so many cars that it’s mind boggling. At the end of his post, he shared some really great lessons learned from having all these cars over the years.
• Finding Financial Peace presents A Gas Pump Blunder — A gas pump blunder that costs Jennifer $819!
• Money Ning presents I Almost Burned Down My Apartment — A small moment of carelessness can cost you big, so always think before you act.
• The Financial Blogger presents 3 Reasons Why Personal Finance Should Not Be Personal — Why are we so afraid of discussing our personal finance? Here are three reasons why it shouldn’t be.

Stonehenge via Wikimedia Commons

Credit

• How I Save Money presents How I got my Discover rate dropped — LuLuGal shares a story about how she called Discover to get her rate lowered. If you owe high balance, even a meager 2% drop can make a big difference.
• Living Almost Large presents Do I need a FICO Score? — Offers an easy answer to this question: “If you do not want to finance a car, house, or purchase then a FICO score means nothing to you.” — for in depth answer, read the post.
• I AM the Chosen Lady presents Those who have ears, Listen: God’s warning about credit cards — Certainly one of the more unique post about credit cards.
• Finance Buff presents Opt Out of Credit Card Convenience Checks — Convenience checks are not only bad for the environment, they also open us up to misuse and possible identity theft.
• Ask Mr Credit Card presents Holiday Credit Card Tips For The Festive Season — Mr. Credit Card offers 8 timely credit card tips for the holiday season.
• Money Blue Book presents Takes Visa and So Should You - Why You Should Always Use Credit or Debit Cards — David (Raymond) takes on Goliath and counter his points with his own.
• Saving Advice presents Visualize Credit Card Use: That $8.50 Lunch Costs You $850 at Age 63 and
  $8,500 by Age 85 — I will stop eating lunch…just kidding. This is what you get when you don’t pay off your credit cards.
• GRACEful Retirement presents Holidays in GRACEland — Grace talks about the movie Maxed Out and offers her viewpoint.

Debt

• Reverse Mortgage Information presents HECM or HELOC? A Tool to Help You Decide — Tim puts HECM and HELOC through 7 rounds of fighting so that you can decide who is the champ for your situation.
• I Was Broke. Now I’m Not! presents Sangl Home Pay-Off Spectacular - November 2007, and says, “I am using a visual aid to help me understand the progress I am making toward paying off my house!” — A couple shares their quest to eliminate their mortgage debt. Nice graphic!
• Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents If I was in your situation, here’s what I would do… — MMND puts herself in Sleepless in Seattle’s shoes and shares how she would have dealt with the difficult financial situation.
• Green Panda Treehouse presents Family and Finances — I never like mixing family and finance; somehow, things always turn out worse. In my opinion, helping them to get a good financial start might be worthwhile, but helping them get into debt buying luxuries like a car is a definite no.
• Debt Prison presents How to settle your debts on your own — Barry discusses the pluses and minuses of debt settlement and explains the process of doing it on your own without paying someone else to do it for you.
• Payday Loan Cheapskate presents The Payday Loan Debt Cycle — James explains the anatomy of payday loan and how a victim can fall into a death spiral. Two words. Stay away.
• The Better Credit Score Blog presents My third mistake: I dealt with creditors over the phone — Ryan shares his hell on earth experience dealing with 3rd party collection agency and shows you how to avoid making the same mistake.

Moai Statues on Easter Island via Wikipedia

Real Estate

• Quest For Four Pillars presents Renting vs. Buying - Is there any difference?, and says, “Four Pillars has come up with some advice for renters and home owners to follow that will even out their respective financial paths” — The great rent versus buy debate continues, as Four Pillar offers his perspective.
• FIRE Finance presents Wild Fire Disaster Preparation - Part 2! — FIRE discusses the recent fire in California and present information about insurance and disaster preparation in a nice questions and answers format.
• Mortgage Blog presents Reducing Your Mortgage Interest Payments, and says, “Some tips on reducing your mortgage interest payments” — Four suggestions that might help you reduce your mortgage interest payments.
• Project One Million presents Real Estate Developer Grows in Flips and Bounds — Charles shares a story about Stephen Siegel, a real estate developer with the “passion and intensity” that inspires him.
• Searchlight Crusade presents Working with Multiple Agents for a Purchase — Dan offers his perspective on exclusive representation agreement: “I have heard every rationalization under the sun as to why exclusive agreements are desirable. The only person they’re desirable to is insecure or incompetent agents”
• A Penny Closer presents Our Home Financing Options — A couple in the process of buying a house shares their experience about mortgage and alternatives to avoid paying Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI).

Finance

• The Happy Rock presents Can’t Believe Everything You Read: 1953 Yale Goal Study — The Happy Rock shares the result of a research which debunk the 1953 Yale goals study that tied financial goals to a huge increase in wealth. In my opinion, a powerful story is worth a thousand words, and if it works constructively, then so be it.

Economy

• Me, My Kid and Life presents The Exchange Rate - The Euro vs The Dollar - The Declining Dollar — One woman’s experience with earning an income online via US dollars while living in France and paying in Euros.
• Money $ Liberty presents Can we really change the banking system? — I am not an economist, or a politician, but this some interesting ideas about how we can improve our banking system.
• Stock Trading To Go presents Why Gold and Oil are Hot and the Dollar and Financials are Not — Offers insight on the movement of the Dollar, Gold, Oil and the overall market.

The Grand Canyon via Wikipedia

Investing

• Million Dollar Journey presents How Call Options Work I - The Basics — The author did a great job of putting somewhat intimidating concept into easy to understand bits. I can’t wait to read the second part so that I can learn more about this investment vehicle.
• Home Finance Freedom presents Payoff Mortgage v. Invest Stocks: Housing Myths Part 12 — Intriguing, controversial, and probably true. This is one of those posts that leave you scratching your head the first time, bookmark it, go do some more research, and come back to it again. Note: interesting paragraph-level links.
• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity presents Is Zecco A Scam or Legitimate? — Interesting. How does a company that offer free service stays in business?
• FiveCentNickel presents How does Zecco make money? — Ha, here’s the answer from Nickel.
• Accumulating Money presents ETF Investing — Clint provides a good basic overview of ETFs versus mutual fund — the difference, the advantages, and the disadvantages.
• My 401k Annuity presents Introduction to 401k Annuities — Annuity might be right for some people. But my theory is these insurance companies got to make their money somehow, so that money you get from them is never as much as you would get on your own investing the same money. So why not take a little time to learn to invest properly, instead of using that time to talk to insurance agent and buy annuity?
• Fundmastery Blog presents Money Market Mutual Funds Try To Avoid Breaking the Buck — Believe it or not, the sub-prime meltdown even effect some of the most fundamental investment units such as money market mutual funds. “Breaking the Buck” essentially means that money market share (normally valued at $1) could potentially be worth less than $1.
• The Dividend Guy Blog presents My Dividend Investing Mistakes — Dividend Guy shares everything including his top three mistakes.
• StockWeb presents Go bearish with inverse funds — In light of the recent volatility, StockWeb points out a couple of inverse funds to help you through the bear market.
• Money Relations presents 6 Lessons learned in my brief stock portfolio history — A new investor offers some basic investing tips in the form of mistakes to avoid.
• Dividends4Life presents Is Your Portfolio Average? — Refreshing perspective. Unfortunately, we are not talking about 50-50 chance to beat the average, but we are in the world that only about 10% manages to beat the average.
• Personal Financier presents Stock recommendations from analysts or brokerage houses: How valuable are they? — These people that tell us stock A is a BUY and stock B is a SELL — can we trust their recommendations?
• Everyday Finance presents Can Unique Infrastructure Funds Bring Structure to your Portfolio? — Offers highlight of some infrastructure fund, a unique category that doesn’t get a lot of press, but is a great low correlation high return investment.
  
• The Skilled Investor presents Where?s Waldo? - The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance — Searching for superior professional mutual fund manager with consistent performance can be as elusive as finding the Loch Ness Monster.
  

Mount Everest via Wikipedia

Budgeting

• Mom Advice presents Going Without Prescription Coverage: A Self-Discovery — This is not about stop taking medication that you need, but about finding the right remedy for your ailment and the willingness to look beyond your prescriptions.
• InsureBlog presents And For Everything Else, There’s… — Bob has some nifty (and unusual) gift suggestions.
• TV Girl and Money presents How To Create a Budget That Actually Works — This is a “How To Budget” post intended for beginners. It is quite detailed and contains step-by-step instruction with suggestions on how to make it work.
• The Digerati Life presents The Minimum Budget: The Cost of Living For A Family of Four — SVB walks us through the basic, minimal budgets that are required to sustain a family of four.
• Prince of Thrift presents How to Become a Stress-Free Shopper — The Prince offers some useful ideas to avoid buying more than you intended while shopping.

Frugality

• Rather-Be-Shopping.com Blog presents Frugal Travel Tips From My Dad, and said, “Frugal travel tips that from the most frugal guy I know, my Dad” — Kyle shares how his dad took a 23 days trip traveling throughout the Northeast and only spent $56 a day!
• American Consumer News presents Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries? — An interesting exercise. If I have to live on $25 a week, I am thinking a bag of rice, a bag of beans, and whole chicken. I don’t think one week is that bad, but imagine this week, after week, after week.
• Free Money Finance presents How to Get a Free Cruise — FMF offers some practical ways to score free cruises. Cool.
• Debt Free presents Ways to Save Money — Need about a dozen ideas to save your money now? Then take a read.
• Queercents presents Never Buy Discount Gifts — The insanity of gift giving; $95 on-sale gift is not as good as $80 full-priced gift?
• Brip Blap presents High Quantity versus High Quality — Brip Blap shares his epiphany: “I suddenly realized the simplest way to define frugality and the various spend-less-than-you-earn philosophies. It is to live in a high-quality way rather than a high-quantity way.”
• Plonkee Money presents About my car — Plonkee shares her story about her rather peculiar looking car that requires no upkeep or maintenance, and the total cost was under $100.

Saving

• The Baglady presents 8 Holiday Shopping Tips from The Baglady — A timely advice for another holiday season.
• Financial Hack presents Screw Black Friday - Reasons to Support Buy Nothing Day — Offers great alternative to waking up at 5 in the morning to line up in front of a store, gritting your teeth in the bone chilling wind, trampling over other people (or getting trample over), and rushing over the grab that…oh damn, it’s all gone. How about stay home, relax, and do nothing?
• One Frugal Girl presents Saving Money When Shopping Online — OFG shows us how to navigate the world of online shopping and get the most saving.

The Nazca Line via Wikitravel

Insurance

• Philby’s Finance presents Top Tip: Check Your Insurance Coverage — Offers the following tip about insurance: “Check your policies regularly. Comparison shop once a year. The bottom end insurance policies and the top end insurance policies tend not to be cost effective.”
• Treasure From The Heart presents Health Insurance - HSA’s. Offers a a short review of Health Savings Accounts: how they work, the advantages, and how it’s worked for the author. I already opted for my normal insurance coverage. But with the introduction of HSA, this option may be worth considering.
• Me vs. Debt presents Health Insurance: My decision to go with HSA/HDHP — Another blogger that did the math and went with Health Savings Account/High Deductible Health Plan. If my company offers to add $1,500 to my HSA, I would have done the same.

Taxes

• Advanced Personal Finance presents The Most Misunderstood Tax - The Estate Tax — Some enlightening detail about how the estate tax really works. Unfortunately, I am don’t have to worry about this tax.
• No Credit Needed presents A Bit About Taxes - Understanding Effective Tax Rates For 2007 - Planning For 2008 — NCN offers a primer on tax bracket and effective tax rates.

Other

• Smart Investing & Money Management presents Open A Door — Mark shares his start into the world of blogging, and says, “Switch off the TV, get off the couch and do it.”
• My Retirement Blog presents Aging Brain More Tolerant To Risk — This confirms my dad’s behavior. But the benefit is that old people don’t automatically liquidate all their stocks the minute the market corrects; automatically making them prudent investors.
• Mad Kane’s Humor Blog presents Me Gamble? No Dice! — Another cool limerick by Madeleine Begun Kane.
• Credit Card Lowdown presents 50+ Online Tools to Research, Select, and Donate to Charities — Laura presents great resources to help you make the most of your charitable spirit.
• There But for the Grace of God Blog presents Why Paid Online Surveys Are Not Always a Good Choice — A couple recognizes that time is a precious commodity, and things link paid online surveys are not worth their time.
• My Wealth Builder presents Our Journey To Financial Freedom #7 - How Luck Played A Role — Super Saver reveals how luck played a role in his ability to retire in his forties.
• TechnoMoney presents Adding another money maker to your pocket: Contests — Ruchir offers some strategy on how to make contests work for you. There are plenty of contests in the Blogosphere, so you might as well make it work for you.
• Money Smart Life presents A Consumers Guide to Holiday Shopping on eBay — An eBay seller describes several ways you can take advantage of eBay as a buyer for cheap prices and personal customer service this holiday.