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Welcome to the Best of Money Carnival, a weekly listing of the top 10 personal finance posts. The carnival gathers submissions from some of the best personal finance and investing bloggers on the web, and permits the hosting blogger the privilege of choosing his or her top ten favorite articles. Below are the ones I [...]

When purchasing stocks, you are essentially buying the right to receive a share of a company’s income. But the income of some companies sells in the stock market for much less than it does for others. The measure used to compare companies by how much investors must pay for each dollar of income is called [...]

Defining a good goal is hard enough in itself, but people still fail even with well thought out SMART goals. Why? The answer is simple: they fail to turn these goals into actions. Generally, a goal is broad and hard to identify practical ways to achieve it. To transform your goals into practical actions is [...]

These past weeks, my family and I have been shopping for a minivan to accommodate our extended family of 7 — and finally replacing our 11 years old Ford Contour. The experience left me wondering if the auto industry really needs the bail out money at all. If I have to judge by how some [...]

Inverse ETFs are a class of ETFs that rises in value when their underlying asset falls. For example, the ProShares Short QQQ ETF (whose underlying asset is the NASDAQ) will rise, if the NASDAQ falls. So, if you expect companies in the NASDAQ to perform poorly, you could buy the ProShares Short QQQ. Recently, Inverse [...]

With the current credit crunch, raising capital to start or expand a small business can be a real challenge. The bitter irony is that while interest rates are at historic lows, access to funding sources has all but dried up. As a result, many small companies have turned to business credit cards. While credit cards [...]

I have been lending in peer-to-peer lending networks like Lending Club and Prosper for a year now.  I believe that peer-to-peer lending networks are gaining credibility; especially with the successful Lending Club SEC registration in 2008.  Last year, I made +8.73% with Lending Club and + 7.58% with Prosper, which is decent returns considering the [...]

This article is part of an M-Network group writing project, the 12 Days of Christmas – Personal Finance Style. As the project moves through its days, I will be adding each article at the bottom of this post. We’ll be posting from December 1st to December 12th.
I know it’s tough to think about giving when [...]

Looks like another another miscue in the Carnival Land.  Sorry the carnival didn’t go out as planned this morning at the host site, so here’s an emergency edition of the Money Hacks Carnival #39.  Before I begin, just want to say thank you to everyone for your participation.

Photo by Meagen via Flickr
Credit and Debt

Five Ways [...]

The DOW is down at 8,000 level from its peak at 14,000 level.  The daily ups and downs is so extreme that the index can move over 100 points in just a few minutes.  This can make any investor — new or experienced — nervous and doubtful.

Should I get out of the stock market?
Should I [...]