Weekend Reading: May 11, 2008

Happy Mother’s Day everyone. This special day makes it an auspicious start to a new week and I hope everyone has a chance to do something special for their wife and mom. The past few days were definitely interesting, and here are the highlights.

A couple of media mentions

Moolanomy received a couple of media mentions. Although most of these don’t make a huge difference in term of readership, it feels great to be noticed:

• AZCentral.com 12 News mentions 10 Ways New Parents Overspend On Their Newborns in their Money saving secrets article.
• The Morning Mix also mentioned the baby article on May 5th.

But sometimes, these mentions could bring huge wave of visitors. Karen Datko of MSN Smart Spending mentioned my frugal or cheap test in her blog post: Frugal or just downright cheap: Take the test. Her story was pushed to the front of MSN and suddenly over 5,000 visitors came to Moolanomy within minutes. Unfortunately, my blog wasn’t equipped to take that kind of volume and crashed — lesson learned. In any case, it was a great opportunity and I’d like to say thank you to Karen and the team at MSN.

The event also led me to discover a few interesting discussion forums:

• [the nest] — A general topics forums that touches important life topics such as money, marriage, parenting, relationship, etc. Here’s the link to a discussion about my frugal or cheap test.
• Pinching Your Pennies — A community that shares how to save money on every aspects of life. Here’s the link to a discussion about my frugal or cheap test.

A World of Personal Finance Bloggers - Map Tool

My friend Prime Time Money launched a world map based on Google Map technology to show where participating personal finance bloggers are located. It’s aptly called A World of Personal Finance Blogger. If you are a personal finance blogger, please visit the map and add your location. Here’s what the map looks like:

Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs

Lynnae at Being Frugal published a list of top 10 emerging influential blogs and I made her list! I was invited to do the same thing by Influential Blogger, but I haven’t got to it yet. Here are some of the blogs on Lynnae’s list that would be on my list:

• Gather Little by Little
• Frugal Dad
• The Wisdom Journal
• Skelliwag
• Mrs. Micah

I’ll share my list later this week, and probably mention a few that I wish could be on the list but didn’t make the cut-off date.

Interesting Finds Of The Week

Here are some interesting articles I found this week.

• Eight Things to do in College to be Successful in Your Career at Ask Student — I am not sure if I agree with everything on the list, but it’s an interesting list.
• 10 Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire at No Debt Plan — Excellent list of how to put yourself out of the race. If you want to achieve financial freedom, DO avoid these things.
• (Video) Method for Toddlers to Save Themselves from Drowning at Divine Caroline — This is an incredible video…must watch for all parents
• The $100-A-Day-Rule Prevents Impulse Buying at No Credit Needed — Nice, simple, practical rule to save you a lot of money.
• The Economic Stimulus Check Means Higher Taxes To Come at My Two Dollars — A good argument and explanation as to why taxes will be higher in the coming years.
• Everyman’s Guide to Decreasing Expenses at Quest For Four Pillars — Mr. Cheap shares how you can become a Canadian hermit in eight steps.

Carnivals This Week

Here are some carnivals I participated in this week.

• Practical Investing Guide For Beginners was featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance #151 hosted by Alpha Consumer.
• Why Lending Club Has Stopped Taking New Lenders was featured in the Carnival of Peer-to-Peer Lending #9 hosted by Lazy Man and Money.
• Why I Am Glad The Economic Stimulus Check Is Coming Early was featured on the Carnival of Money Stories #58 hosted by Free From Broke. By the way, I got my $1,500 check on May 9th — precisely on time!

Here Is The Stimulus Payment Schedule

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!