Carnival of Personal Finance No. 93

Welcome to the 93rd edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, and welcome to *Tired but happy*. I write about personal finance with a special emphasis on working families. While you're here, please take the opportunity to read some recent posts. You can subscribe to my feed at the top of the sidebar.

This venerable carnival has been around for nearly a hundred weeks, and it gets longer all the time. Popular topics this week included investing, real estate, credit, spending, and of course, taxes. In my usual carnival style, I have NOT broken these excellent posts out by topic. I find the most useful carnivals are a simple list that I can quickly scroll through, clicking on the posts that jump out at me. Because I like such a plain-Jane carnival style, that's what I tend to publish when it's my turn to host. Add to that the fact that I spent most of a gorgeous spring weekend inside copying and pasting links and code, and you'll understand why I didn't do anything too spectacular with the layout.

I have selected a few posts that I particularly liked and listed them first in an *Editor's Choice* section. Then, I listed the rest of the posts in the order they were received. Because Flexo has laid out such clear rules for this carnival, I didn't have to do as much weeding as I have had to when hosting other carnivals. There are a few bloggers who have multiple posts, but that's because the posts were from different blogs even if they had the same author.

Without further ado, here's the carnival!


Editor's choice

A new retirement plan, posted at Living Almost Large, is about people who overspend on their kids, and then have to rely on their children to support them after retirement.

You Don’t Need an Emergency Fund, posted at Broke Now, Rich Later, is a devil's advocate post arguing against the party line that everyone should have a hefty emergency fund. Although I disagree with his conclusion, I think it's useful to revisit our assumptions once in a while and see if there's a more creative solution that could be better for us.

Early payoff: The great mortgage debate, posted at a brand-new personal finance blog, Frugal Zeitgeist. This is a theme that's been covered before, but the clear writing style and interesting personal situation (how'd you like to be 20 months away from paying off your mortgage, with fully funded retirement accounts?) made me want to flag this new blog as one to watch.

Rule #16: Who Do You Think You Are?, posted at My Open Wallet. Madame X challenges us once again, this time asking us to identify how our self-image effects our spending and fight it.

5 Ways Balding Gracefully Can Save You Time, Money and More, posted at Clever Dude. I must be getting old, because I am beginning to think bald(ing) men are sexy. Ten years ago, I thought men with thinning hair were, like, somebody's dad or somebody's physics teacher or something. Now it's the "somebody's dad" types that turn my head. I like this post--it's a dignified and positive look at something many men are really touchy about. The way some men act, you'd think balding was the precursor to ED.



The rest, in the order they were received.


Sagar Satapathy presents Starting Early: The Young Adult’s Guide To Personal Finance posted at Debt Consolidation News.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Taxing Times at Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

L.L. presents Costly Tax Mistakes and What You Can Do about Them at Tax Information.

Jimmy Atkinson presents Become a Google Finance Power User: 13 Tips and Hacks at Ask the Advisor.

Matthew Paulson presents Don't Watch Financial Shows at Getting Green.

ispf presents Going To College Vs Starting Your Own Business at Grad Money Matters.

Jon Morrow presents Prosper 2.0: The Next Generation of Prosper.com at Real Estate Mega Book.

Azmi Mufti presents How to Keep Your FICO Score Up at Work at Home.

Paul presents It's the Economy Stupid - why we're doing OK economically at ExtremePerspective.

Lorraine Roach presents Does Money Make You Anxious? at Coping With Anxiety.

David presents Megatrends-Based Investment Ideas at Worldwide Success.

The Skilled Investor presents Searching for superior investment fund managers is a waste of your money and time at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog.

Ybother presents 10 Ways Retailers Make You Pay More! at Top Ten List Everyday to Jumpstart Your Knowledge.

Amy Pedersen presents Debt to Credit Ratios and How they Affect Your Credit Report at Your Credit Score Secrets.

TJP presents How to Lend Money on Prosper at Investor Trip.

Ranjan presents How to Add Value To Your Money at Weblog on Finance and Business.

WBL presents How To Become A Millionaire at Wealth Building Lessons.

Rad presents Investing: Keep it Simple at Daddy Financials.

Golbguru presents I Can't Get "Lifetime Warranty" On Brakes Unless I Spend $687 On Repairs at Money, Matter, and More Musings.

TFB presents Picking Stocks Is a Waste of Time at The Finance Buff.

FIRE Finance presents Investing - A Pithy View Of Market Timing at FIRE Finance.

Steve Faber presents 5 Real Estate Mistakes Homebuyers Make and How to Avoid Them at Debt Free.

Moneymonk presents Real Estate IRA at Moneymonk.

Jacqui presents More Tax Returns for International Students! at Late-Starters' Journey to Financial Freedom.

Michael Cook presents Understand Your Property Taxes at Suite101: Buying/Selling a Home.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents My Foolish Money Mistakes: Moves That Cost Me More Than $1,000 Each at The Digerati Life.

DDL presents Five Reasons Why Paying a Mortgage is Better Than Paying Rent at Make Your Nut.

Ben presents College Tuition Costs Gone Wild – An Apology Letter to My Son at Money Smart Life.

FMF presents The Best 529 College Savings Plans at Free Money Finance.

Dan Melson presents How To Effectively Shop for A Real Estate Loan at Searchlight Crusade.

Flexo presents Amount Charged is Less Than Estimate: Psychology Involved? at Consumerism Commentary.

Noah Kagan presents Credit Scores: Yes, you should give a damn at MyMint.com.

BudgetFreak presents Save Money On Gas By Driving Slower at Budget Freak.

King of Debt presents How To Get Two Memberships To the Gym For Under $13 Per Month at We're In Debt.

Shadox presents Retirement Survey: The Results at Money and Such.

Sarah Winfrey presents Can you afford to follow your dreams? Can you afford NOT to? at Wisebread Career.

Nina presents When Do You NEED a Financial Planner? at Queercents.

Miller presents Examples of Using My Path to Retirement: The Young Professional at My Pocket Change.

Lulu presents Homemade air freshners at Save Money.

Michael K. Dawson presents The Real Estate Market: Why “Bottom” is a Dirty Word at The Time and Money Group.

Getting to Graduation presents Writers: How to Make $1000 a Month from Associated Content at Getting to Graduation.

David J Kosmider presents The Psychology of Risk at StockWeblog.com.

bluntmoney presents How to Handle a Variable Income at Blunt Money.

Tom Hanna presents Financial Roadmap for March 26 to 30, 2007 at Financial Options.

Nigel Swaby presents Who Does a Down Payment Benefit? at Salt Lake Real Estate Blog.

Yan presents The art of negotiating the lowest price at ProBargainHunter.

Web admin presents Bogle: Expect Lower Market Returns at Stock-Net.com.

Mr. Credit Card presents Common Errors in Credit Reports at Ask Mr Credit Card's Blog.

jim presents Ten Things Your 401K Provider Won't Tell You, Part 1 at My Retirement Blog.

jim presents Morality of Deducting Charitable Contributions at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

nickel presents How to Decide When to Refinance Your Mortgage at fivecentnickel.com.

mom & dad present Allowance Insights at raising4boys.com.

Brett McKay presents 11 Free Video Games That Will Develop Your Business & Personal Finance Skills at The Frugal Law Student.

mbhunter presents The dollar coin allowance at Mighty Bargain Hunter.

Sun resents Shop and Save for College: UPromise vs. BabyMint at The Sun’s Financial Diary.

Wanda presents An emergency fund for peace of mind at Well-Heeled: twentysomething life & money.

Kirk Walsh presents Blackstone IPO? Not So Fast at Kirk Walsh.

Brett Weiss presents Why is the "Subprime" Mortgage Market Collapsing? at The Bankruptcy Law Network.

Jeffrey Strain presents Forever Stamp - Why It Will Cost You Money at Personal Finance Advice.

Escape Brooklyn presents I need to start a business at Escape Brooklyn.

Financial Hack presents 5 Ways To Live Rent Free at Financial Hack.

ML presents New Roth conversion eligibility rule and solo-401(k) at My 1st Million At 33.

savvy presents Software review - Quicken Rental Property Manager 2.0 at Savvy Saver.

ncn presents Fixing My Finances: 10 Lessons I've Learned at No Credit Needed.

Elizabeth presents Using Google Spreadsheets for Your Budget at Money For the Rest of Us.

Roman presents 3 Easy Steps Financial Plan in Excel at ChipAside.com.

Super Saver presents Survivor Income Insurance- Social Security Provides Coverage at My Wealth Builder.

Thatedeguy presents March and April 2007 PayPal coupon codes at eBay Habit.

Thatedeguy presents Cleaning up the Fiscal Mess we made at A Penny Saved....

Kevin presents Selling Your Cell Phone: A Look at Your Options at Personal Finance at KMull.com.



Thank you for reading! Don't forget to submit to next week's Carnival, hosted at No Credit Needed.