Carnival of Personal Finance #37

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. The MoneyBlogNetwork is proud to be hosting today.

As a summary of each piece, we are listing each author’s reason for submitting the post to the carnival (for those that submitted one) and/or a bit of the post itself as a summary — so you readers know what to expect before you get to the post.

With that said, here we go:

How do you think about money? Knowing your own personal attitude towards money and investment can help you overcome some of your fears and make better financial decisions in your life. (Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge)

What Drives Loan Rates? Supply and Demand. Now that I’ve given the short answer, it’s time to explain the macro factors behind interest rate variations. But I’m going to keep referring to those first three words. It is a tradeoff between the supply of money and demand for it. (Searchlight Crusade)

Tip For Saving On Insurance Premiums. Group insurance policies aren’t always the least expensive, especially if you are part of a low risk group. (Sound Money Tips)

Home Ownership only to U.S. Citizens? Rep. Dix from Iowa has introduced a bill that would only allow US Citizens to obtain a mortgage in America? Should we lock everyone else out? (Pacesetter Mortgage Blog)

Income Tax Questions. Fairmark has several tax guides that may be useful at this time of the year. (Fat Pitch Financials)

New car concern. Is it worth it for us to replace one of our cars now just so that we don’t get caught paying 2 new car payments at one time? Some great reader comments give us some ideas on what to do. (Young Professionals Financial Blog)

Understanding Capital Gains Tax Rates. An attempt to increase the understanding of capital gains tax rates. (Million Dollar Goal)

Kids are cheap. Really, $15,000 for each year, for each child, to age 17? Do they really eat that much? (Life in a Shoe)

Debit Cards: What’s the Point? Debit cards are now the fastest growing payment method. This post asks why anyone would choose a debit card over a credit card. (Financial Revolution)

Reverse Mortgage Payment Options - Are You Prepared to Self-Insure Life Expectancy? Reverse mortgages were founded largely on the notion of providing a lifetime income stream for “house rich-cash poor” seniors. Yet the most popular payment option under HUD’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program isn’t the federally-guaranteed “tenure” (fixed for life) option. (Reverse Mortgage Information)

Will the Alternative Minimum Tax Affect You? This year, it’s estimated that millions of Americans will pay the Alternative Minimum Tax, also known as AMT. The AMT requires some people to pay more than regular income tax. (Small Business Buzz)

Weekend homework: where do you stand? Dreams of dollar signs flash in our eyes. Before you start dreaming money, money, money, evaluate your current financial situation. Last night, I updated my net worth and jumped for joy. I’m hoping you can do the same. (Aridni)

College Savings Series Part I: Options This is the first part of a series on college savings options. (Chief Family Officer)

A Weekend Conversation “Ugh, my financial advisor called, it’s time for my yearly ‘check-up’.” (Investimist)

Someone from prosper.com read my blog! This post contains a cautionary note from an employee at prosper.com as well as my response to that initial note. (Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist)

Emergency Fund. Get one. I am always suprised by how few people have one. (Personal Finance is Fun)

Retirement Savings For Low Income Earners. We all want to have an IRA. But what if we can only put $50 a month into it? The options are limited, but they exist. (Money and Investing)

The Cost of Care. Beware of hidden (or at least obscured) limitations in your health care plan. (InsureBlog)

Exit Strategy. In America, the promise that financial success will eliminate whatever ails us is not completely true… as noted in a few urban work myths. (Sitting Pretty Financially)

You Don’t Really Want to Be Rich. Why do you want to be rich? Or if you won’t admit to wanting to be rich, why do you want to have money? Or why did you buy that lottery ticket? Or why did you enter that draw for the new Benz, like I just did? (Art of Money)

Looking at Lifecycle Funds, Part 5, Fidelity 2040 Freedom Fund. Part 5 of a multi-part series. (IRAte Investor)

Helpful Tips. These are from the books “Tightwad Gazette 2,” by Amy Dacyczyn And “Escape from the Kitchen,” by Deniece Schofield. (The Common Room)

Sorting through the SOX drawer. After four years, Sarbanes-Oxley’s impact is not exactly all positive. Boards complain it stifles growth, companies pay through the nose, and investors have no more confidence in the transparency of corporate financial information. (Scatterbox)

Allocate Investments for Optimal Tax Treatment. By shifting your allocation of bonds and stocks between retirement and non-retirement accounts, you can lower your tax burden. (The Paranoid Brain)

Goodbye, Irwin. Ignoring an insanity defense, a federal judge has sentenced tax protest figure Irwin Schiff to 13 years in prison. While Irwin may not be insane, taking his advice is. (Roth & Company)

Save Money, Trade your Books and DVD’s. Money saving ideas on books and DVDs. (A Penny Saved…)

I Could’ve Told You So. Today comes news of a new study that reinforces the conclusion that those filing for bankruptcy are in fact bankrupt and makes one wonder why Congress needed to reform a system that wasn’t nearly as broken as MBNA and its allies would have had us believe. (Below the Beltway)

Paul is dead. The Ben Franklin school of finance: A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned, applied to cars. (Ask Uncle Bill)

My Personal Time: $15 An Hour. If I were charging someone for my time, I think I’d make them shell out $15 an hour. (Our Balance Sheet)

Dot Com vs. Dot Org — It’s On, Baby! NCN takes a look at two similar but different financial blog aggregators, pfblogs.com and pfblogs.org. (No Credit Needed)

Value Investing Made Easy Book Review. Loi Tran review’s Janet Lowe’s book, which looks at Benjamin Graham’s investing strategy. (Investing Guide)

Are Credit Cards Worth the Annual Fee? Some credit cards charge an annual fee and provide more generous rewards in return. Unless a cardholder spends a lot of money, these credit cards are not worth the fees. (Canadian Capitalist)

On Keeping Up With The Jones. This blog entry looks into some of the reasons we desire the latest and greatest. (My Personal Finance Blog)

Thanks for visiting the Carnival of Personal Finance! That’s it for this week. Next week, the Carnival will be hosted by Canadian Capitalist. If you’re interested in participating in or hosting the Carnival of Personal Finance, information is here.

February 26, 2006 | Filed Under Carnivals | 12 Comments 

Welcome Newark Star-Ledger Readers!

Just a quick note to welcome those that surfed in from Allan Hoffman’s article in the Newark Star-Ledger (if you haven’t seen it yet, look under TECHscan, near the bottom). Feel free to poke around the site and see what we have to offer. You might be interested in subscribing to the network newsletter (see the right sidebar — it’s free!). The newsletter is a great way to stay abreast of what’s new around the Network, and subscribers are automatically entered into all MBN giveaways. And we’ll never share your address or use it for anything other sending you the newsletter. Also be sure to check out the Network RSS feed, which aggregates content from all five member sites.

You might also want to drop by our separate sites and/or subscribe to our individual RSS feeds:

AllThingFinancial (RSS Feed)
Blueprint for Financial Prosperity (RSS Feed)
ConsumerismCommentary (RSS Feed)
FiveCentNickel (RSS Feed)
FreeMoneyFinance (RSS Feed)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thanks for stopping by!

–nickel

February 26, 2006 | Filed Under Media | Comments Off 

Money Blogs in Business Week

Just a quick note to welcome those that surfed in from Business Week’s article on money blogs. Feel free to poke around the site and see what we have to offer. You might be interested in subscribing to the network newsletter (see the right sidebar — it’s free!). The newsletter is a great way to stay abreast of what’s new around the Network, and subscribers are automatically entered into all MBN giveaways. And we’ll never share your address or use it for anything other sending you the newsletter. Also be sure to check out the Network RSS feed, which aggregates content from all five member sites.

You might also want to drop by our separate sites:

AllThingFinancial (RSS Feed)
Blueprint for Financial Prosperity (RSS Feed)
ConsumerismCommentary (RSS Feed)
FiveCentNickel (RSS Feed)
FreeMoneyFinance (RSS Feed)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

And in case you missed it… Top billing in the Business Week article went to Jonathan of MyMoneyBlog, although a number of other sites were mentioned in either the article itself, or in the accompanying graphic. More specifically, Madame X of My Open Wallet, Jane Dough of Boston Gal’s Open Wallet, 2million, Net Worth IQ, PFBlog, Savvy Saver, PFBlogs.org and, last but not least, the MoneyBlogNetwork all made the cut.

Ooops! MAKE LOVE NOT DEBT was also included (I put it in all caps to try and make up for the oversight. Sorry!)

Congratulations one and all!

–nickel

February 23, 2006 | Filed Under Media | 2 Comments 

Welcome Indianapolis Star Readers!

Just a quick note to welcome those of you that surfed in from Erika Smith’s Techno File column in the Indianapolis Star! Feel free to poke around the site and see what we have to offer. You might be interested in subscribing to our RSS feed, which aggregates content from all five member sites. You might also want to drop by our separate sites:

AllThingFinancial
Blueprint for Financial Prosperity
ConsumerismCommentary
FiveCentNickel
FreeMoneyFinance

And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thanks for stopping by!

–nickel

February 19, 2006 | Filed Under Media | Comments Off