We’re back with the latest on the financial blogosphere! Let’s check out what’s happened in the lives of some of our favorite bloggers…
- Who’s pondering paying off their car loan using a credit card strategy?
- Who just completed a home renovation project under $50,000?
- Who’s not too happy with Target… and why?
- Who lost their job contract?
- Who has their 2008 Budget all planned out?
Find out in the roundup….
Personal Finance Reads
- The Simple Dollar has a heart-to-heart talk with a young person in his life. I’ve learned that for many successful people, the opportunity to have worked with a mentor has helped them significantly along the way to reach that success later in life.
- Lazy Man and Money recommends 15 items that can save you time, money and space. Great ideas in time for the holidays!
- Money Smart Life suggests a holiday budget that is inspired by Ebenezer Scrooge. I agree — I wish we didn’t get so carried away in the glitz, commercialism and pressures of the season.
- Money, Market and More Musings muses over how things seem to become more valuable upon their loss or the threat of their loss. It’s totally human nature to take things for granted when things are going well but to regret it when things start to unravel. Each day that passes is one more to be deeply appreciated.
- Gen X Finance talks about the practice of some to use their home equity like a checking account. I was aghast to learn that this was more prevalent than I first thought. I look upon home equity as a fund of last resort — the prospect of reducing my equity by tapping into it for frivolous reasons completely terrifies me maybe because paying it down already feels like an albatross around my neck.
- The Sun’s Financial Diary ponders the possibility of paying off his car loan; but not via cash. Instead, he is determining whether to proceed doing the pay out via a strategy involving the use of “a credit card that returns him 0% APR for 12 months while using the balance transfer money to pay the loan”. This will ensure him 12 months of free interest on his loan. I wish I were as skilled with credit cards as Sun is, who’s such a master at this sort of thing.
- All Financial Matters covers the financial dilemma of using funds for prepaying your mortgage or for investing purposes (care of Money Magazine). Though “investing” may make the most financial sense, it may not necessarily be the action you should take depending on your profile and circumstances.
- Consumerism Commentary tackles the subject of indulging our kids. How can we stop overspending on our kids? It hasn’t been difficult for us as my children aren’t the type to ask for stuff (they may still be too young), but I wouldn’t hesitate to give them an unapologetic “no” whenever necessary.
- Five Cent Nickel wraps up his home renovation project for under $50,000. Not bad for the list of changes that were made! One good thing about this real estate slump is the commensurate slide in contractors’ fees. Now is a great time to renovate!
- Blueprint For Financial Prosperity: Jim is getting married and has a wedding registry at Target, which he now regrets having. He suggests Bed, Bath and Beyond, which is actually my absolute favorite home store. And yeah, that’s a plug.
- Mighty Bargain Hunter talks about getting what you pay for, in the realm of job boards.
- No Credit Needed shows us how $10 a day can turn into three quarters of a million dollars in 50 years via some chart examples.
- Free Money Finance offers fine advice on writing your resume. The classic form for a resume — short, keyword-focused and with lists and bullet points — does work out well, so I’d stick with this as much as possible. Becoming too creative with a resume can be a risk.
- My Open Wallet shares her 2008 budget plan complete with numbers and charts showing her financial set up. I’m still slated to work on mine but so far, I’ve been held up.
Additional Readings Around The Web
- 5 Lessons Learned About Investing @ Dividends 4 Life
- YouTube Your way to Success @ The Wild Investor
- The Best High Yield Savings Account/MMA @ My Investing Blog
- More on my “job loss” @ Clever Dude
Announcements
I just stumbled upon a couple of blog ranking sites that I found intriguing.
The first one is called SocialRank, whose mission is “to monitor thousands of blogs in popular categories and identify the hottest stories and bloggers every day.” They claim to be able to do this “democratically by measuring what stories users link to, talk about and pay attention to.” Hmmm…. sounds like another Technorati. Also, there’s a personal finance arm to this ranking system called Personal Finance Wire, which is powered by SocialRank. We’ve got PFBlogs.org as it is, but sites continue to spring up to add just another twist to the idea of finance blog rankings and online communities.
Speaking of Technorati, the other site I’ve come across is called Wikio, which is “a personalized page of news, including a news search engine that searches media sites, blogs and member publications.” They also present rankings and I was surprised to make it as 8th in their Business Blogs section for the month. How I made it to this list, I don’t know, but it seems to be a category that mixes entrepreneurship blogs with investment, general finance and personal finance blogs. The lack of other PF blogs here makes the list a bit suspect (unless there’s another category for finance or personal finance). I was happy to see the Ask Mr. Credit Card Blog in there as well as Fat Pitch Financials but I find the coverage of personal finance limited. I assume things will evolve in time.
Both these sites look promising though it would be nice to see them expand their coverage of money sites further (to include investment, personal finance, business, entrepreneurship, real estate and so forth).
Recent Carnivals
Hot Finance Carnivals
66th Festival of Stocks
Personal Stories of Change Blog Carnival: Edition 12
My two favorites where the articles on Home Equity and 2008 Budgeting.
I believe that the credit crunch (good cereal name btw!) is going to hit the sub-prime CC market hard this year. So many people were floating irresponcible lifestyles ith their credit cards, then paying it off with Equity loans.
As the house values lower, this just won’t be available. Some will have a very tough post-Christmas due to the overspending with no way to pay it off.
Which leads me to 2008 budgeting…I better get on it!
Thanks for the round-up I gave it a Digg!
Thanks for the Digg Racer X, I appreciate it!
I agree about the coming years — it won’t be pretty. A lot of people are quite convinced we’re headed for a recession given how bad they expect the credit, loan and real estate markets are going to look down the road. I agree that the worst is yet to come. But I’m still on the fence regarding the prospect of recession. We’ll see, I guess!
And yes, we really got some good posts this week, that ran the gamut of financial topics. I was also particularly fascinated with a few posts myself, including the idea of paying off your car loan with a credit card since I, of course, would never have thought of that! I’d prefer to pay in cash since I don’t trust myself with a credit card…
All in all, a great week in the blogosphere.
Thanks for linking my article “5 Lessons Learned About Investing”!
Best Wishes,
D4L
hey thanks for linking my post
I hve to say that car loans are a dime a dozen, but which one should you go for? Especially if you are a prudent consumer with a balanced budget, getting the right auto finance can be quite a challenge, what with so many auto finance providers thrusting their offers in your face. Your dealer may even offer to do it for you. While this sounds really tempting, it may prove to be a costly affair. So do your own thing and check out the auto loans yourself.
I just read this government info on home equity loans are they really as risky as they make them out to be?