Entries Tagged 'Carnival of Personal Finance' ↓

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog for the 142th edition of The Carnival of Personal Finance! There were over 100 submissions this week and it took me quite a while to read them and I cut the list down to a bit over 80 posts. Even though my blog is called The Baglady I have never written about the homeless. So for today’s carnival I will highlight some myths and facts about homeless in America, and hopefully raise awareness about this important issue.

Editor’s Picks

1. Dorian Wales from The Personal Financier gives some Practical Reasons Why You Should Definitely Learn a Foreign Language. I would definitely teach my future child(ren) both Chinese and English. This article gives some good reasons why foreign language skills are helpful to almost anyone.
2. Keeping the Reins Tight relates his passion (ultrarunning) to his young financial journey in Musings on UltraRunning and Finances.
3. Veteran Military Wife from Life Lessons of a Military Wife presents Investing My Muffin and a Cup of Coffee With Their Help . She writes in detail about how to choose a financial adviser.
4. Jeff from Wise Money Decisions presents Using Allowance to Teach Kids About Money . This post really amused me and I want to train my future child like this too.
5. Smarty from Growing Money helped his friend break down the benefits of a job offer in Australia in New York City vs. Brisbane, Australia. I think Smarty’s friend made a good choice.
6. Steward from My Family’s Money writes about the financial aspects about having a real monkey as a pet in Pet Monkeys - The Financial Considerations . I was seriously amused by this article. As with any pet, you do need to figure out the financial consequences of owning one.
7. Madame X from My Open Wallet presents Six-Word Financial Biographies , and says, “Could you tell your financial life story in only 6 words? How about ‘We budgeted, saved, and retired early!’ Or ‘Bought high, sold low, smacked forehead.’ Or “Must mend holes in my pockets!’” This is a collection of short and funny money stories by Madame X and her commenters.
8. Steve from brip blap presents 38 Random Thoughts on Building Prosperity. Each of the random thoughts in this article is a tiny bite of wisdom that can help you build wealth in your life. Read it for some great insights!

Budgeting

• Myth: Cities that set up services for the homeless will attract large amounts of homeless people.
• Fact: Many homeless people move to search for jobs or family, and not for public services. In fact most still live in the city they became homeless.

1. Jesse from You Need A Budget brings us The Law of the Harvest: a Man Reaps What He Sows . This is a very well written article about hard work, persistence, and optimism.
2. Mark from The Butler Project thinks that a budget is a key to financial independence and sends us this post, the first in a series about funding your life. Funding Your Life
3. Hunter Nuttall gives us some step by step instructions on budgeting in this post: Where Have All The Dollars Gone?
4. The Great Money Challenge presents Why Do People Hate the Word ‘Budget’?

Career

• Myth: Most homeless people do not work and are on welfare.
• Fact: Many homeless people have full time jobs but cannot afford to pay rent or purchase a home. A survey in 1987 found that most homeless people do not receive public assistance.

1. Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents How to Create Lasting Wealth Via Self-Employment. This is a good guide on how to build your own wealth by working for yourself.
2. Broke Grad Student from Broke Grad Student presents Why Internships Are A College Student’s Best Friend. I couldn’t agree more with this article. When I was in college I did multiple internships and that helped me tremendously when I tried to find jobs later in life.
3. Kristin from The Financial Engineer presents When are the Peak Earning Years. This post includes a graph of the earnings by Americans in different age brackets. The data is quite interesting to look at.
4. Seb from Pinching Copper writes Five tips for negotiating a better salary. This is a very basic article on how to get a better salary, and it should be helpful for those who are always afraid of salary negotiations.
5. Tim Struck from Daily Money Tips asks Is Dual Income the Right Decision for You? In some family situations a second income doesn’t add much, but for couples who have similar incomes it is advantageous to have two incomes.

Credit

• Myth: Homeless people are mostly dangerous and violent criminals.
• Fact: A study conducted by John Hopkins found that homeless people are more likely to be arrested for non-violent crimes, but actually commit significantly less violent crimes against property or people.

1. Deamiter from Handling Finances noticed that since the subprime mess credit card rates actually started increasing! Read more in his post: Credit Card Rates Increasing
2. Chuck from The Finance Journey offers us a look into some new startups as well as other options for obtaining your credit score and report in his post titled New Startups Offering Free Credit Scores and Report Analysis. It seems that the services offered by some of these companies are promising.
3. JS from Smart Money Daily presents Top 5 Factors Affecting Your Credit Score. This is a good primer on what affects your FICO score, which is used to determine many things in your life.
4. Kimberly Palmer from Alpha Consumer presents Five-Star Rating for Credit Cards Under Fire. This post wonders if the five star rating for credit cards as proposed by Senator Obama is a good idea.

Debt

• Myth: Homeless people choose their lifestyle and do not want help.
• Fact: A portion of homeless people are mentally ill or suffer from some serious addiction. Others suffered some serious illness and lost their jobs. Many battered women are also homeless. Most of them do want assistance.

1. Tim from Canadian Dream: Free at 45 rants in this article How Can A Person Be ‘Debt Free’ with a 300K Mortgage? I totally agree with this guy because I can’t believe how some people think that a mortgage is not debt but an asset.
2. Tehnyit from Cheap as chips discusses the reality of a situation where you have to skip meals to pay rent. Would you miss a meal to pay your rent?
3. Meg from Finally Frugal explores the ’shopping beast’ that resides within many of us in Taming the beast.
4. Ana from Debt Free Revolution presents How I Got Out of Consumer Debt: THE BUDGET, and says, “A working, realistic budget was the tool I needed to get me and my family out of consumer debt!”

Economy

• Myth: Homeless people is a static population that does not change very much.
• Fact: Research shows that 40% of homeless people are homeless for less than 6 months, and 70% have been homeless for less than two years.

1. Kyle from Amateur Asset Allocator gives us a neat little calculator to estimate our own personal inflation rate in the following article: Calculate Your Personal Inflation Rate.
2. Megan from A Dollar a Day presents Learning about the Federal Reserve. Megan is learning what the Federal Reserve is all about. I think everyone should look into learning more about this powerful organization.

Finance

• Fact: San Francisco, CA is one of the meanest cities towards homeless people. Many laws are enacted in cities across United States against the survival of the homeless.

1. Howie from Howie Finance is a retirement plan administrator and gives us tips on How to Avoid Problems While Contributing to Your IRA.
2. Ron@TheWisdomJournal from The Wisdom Journal presents The Riskiest Decision of Your Life.
3. Mr. Debtbeater from Debtbeater tells his personal story of debt titled My Financial Epiphany
4. Henry Stern, LUTCF, CBC from InsureBlog tries to explain all the numbers associated with tax deferred retirement plans out there in this post Jumble o’Numbers. Frankly I am still kind of confused after reading this.
5. Harrison from Finandom gives some tips on how the Federal interest rates affect our personal finance in Federal Reserve Interest Rate Cut and Your Personal Finance.
6. Madison from My Dollar Plan presents Dear Husband: What to do if I die! This is a simple and precise checklist on what your spouse should do in the event you die.
7. Super Saver from My Wealth Builder presents Hunkering Down Financially.

Frugality

• Fact: About 20% of homeless children do not attend school. Those who do attend schools switch often and has a less stable learning environment than housed children.

1. FIRE Finance gives us some very helpful tips to trim down the grocery bills in Top 5 Ways To Trim Our Grocery Bills!
2. Shawna from One Girl’s Quest presents Frugal heating tip - candles. This is a short and sweet post about using candles to make a space warmer.
3. Vixen On A Budget writes about her struggles to be content with less on a birthday in the following post Learning To Be Content On Birthdays. I think it is silly to make a big deal about getting older, and I agree with her that you don’t need to have a giant celebration every year.
4. plonkee from plonkee money wonders if it is better to pay lots of money for designer furniture or buy knock offs for a fraction of the cost in designer furniture: knock offs vs. the real thing.
5. Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck questions whether buying organic food is worthwhile in the following article: The 45-cent strawberry: Are organic foods worth it?
6. MoneyNing spent some quality time with his new wifey by Walking to the Supermarket. He saved some money, too!
7. Andy from Tight Fisted Miser says that you should concentrate on reducing your three largest expenses: housing, transportation, and taxes. Read more: Concentrate on the Big Three.

Investing and Savings

• Myth: Homelessness is only prevalent in large cities.
• Fact: There are a lot less shelters in rural areas so the homeless are less visible and live mostly in cars and campers. The truth is that there are homeless people everywhere.

1. Raymond from Money Blue Book thinks you should open a Roth IRA immediately, and offers great advice on how you can open an account and start investing in the following article: How To Open A Roth IRA Account And Which Broker To Use.
2. Clint from Accumulating Money has an excellent post on how consistency in returns beats sporadically large returns when you are Living Off Your Investments
3. The Financial Blogger presents The Sad Truth About Investing, and comments, “I realized a very sad truth about investing; Small investors cannot really hope getting steady two digits returns. Small investors are usually not made to invest plain and simple.” I think this article needs to be read by everyone who believes that they will get 10 to 12 percent returns every year.
4. Invest In India presents Should I invest in Gold ? Gold prices have soared in the last couple years and Tushar has some ideas on how you can profit. I am still kicking myself for not buying more gold Panda coins from China.
5. Dan from Everyday Finance presents Platinum/Palladium Bonanza and How You Can Participate. This is another article about precious metals and how you can profit from them.
6. Dividends4Life presents Tracking Yield On Cost, and says, “Yield on Cost (YOC) is an important metric, worthy of tracking on each of your individual dividend income investments.
7. Ciaran from Chance Favors presents The Single Most Important Thing You Can Control (when it comes to your investments).
8. Thicken My Wallet examines the conventional wisdom that dividend increases are always a good thing for investors in the following article. Some companies could have stock prices that stall but the dividends increase. Is that always desired?
9. Ryan Suenaga from Uncommon Cents gives us a primer to exchange traded funds in Working Backwards: What’s an Exchange Traded Fund?
10. RC from Think Your Way To Wealth gives a nice breakdown of what I-bonds are in Are I Bonds A Good Investment Option Now? I own some I-bonds and they are definitely a safe investment. I treat it as a CD, and since I don’t have to pay state taxes on the gains the yields are quite good.
11. Retirehappy from My Retirement Blog gives us something to think about when we are considering a 401k rollover with this article: Reconsider Rolling A 401(k) Into Another 401(k).
12. The Dividend Guy presents The 3 Things That Will Make You Better Than 99% of Investors. This is a simple article that gives you some common sense tips on how to become a better investor.
13. Penny Nickel from Money and Values has a thought provoking about investments and genocid: Is your money funding genocide? What can you do about it?
14. Shuchong from But Why Doesn’t It Grow on Trees? writes 529s… Not Just for the Kiddies and argues that 529s are great for young professionals to save for an educational fund for themselves.
    
15. Sid from The Money Well tells us Stocks & Shares - Not Always A Good Investment. However, I think the same can be said for any investment because you are never rarely guaranteed to make money.

Money Management

• Myth: All homeless people are adults
  
• Fact: The typical homeless person on the San Mateo Peninsula is just 5 years old. In fact, nationally the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population is families with children. About 39% of all homeless people in 2003 are youths under the age of 18.
  

1. Heidi from BankerGirl presents Want to Save Money on Food and Support Local Growers? Consider a CSA. Apparently a CSA is a community farming association where you can buy foods locally. It sounds pretty interesting and I wonder if there is something near me.
2. Ben from Money Smart Life shows us how to save time with an online billpay service in Online Bill Pay Your Way to a 4 Day Work Week.
3. Jim from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity explains the difference between the AGI and MAGI in this informative article: Adjusted Gross Income and Modified Adjusted Gross Income
4. RacerX from Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Money presents College the Poor Kids Way, and says, “Too many kids just aren’t prepared for life after college. A big part of this lays on the parents shoulders. The article makes the
   case that kids may be better off paying there own way through school, even if it takes longer to graduate.”
5. Fathersez presents Aircraft Carriers and Personal Finance Management. This article uses the metaphor of an aircraft carrier to describe personal finance habits.
   
6. NCN from No Credit Needed gives us a list of 10 Things To Do After You Get Out Of Debt. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel for those of you in debt!
7. Dan from Money Myths gives us his insights about people’s attitudes towards money in this article: Personal
   Finance isn’t Just About Money
8. NtJS from Not the Jet Set writes about Michael Jackson and how even wealthy folks are not beyond making horrible financial mistakes. Read his comments in How To Lose the Farm.
9. David from My Two Dollars has some good tips on how to save money just by taking care of what you have. Read more in Take Care Of What You Own To Save Yourself Money.
10. Patrick from Cash Money Life gives the steps Dave Ramsey teaches for financial independence in Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps
11. Aryn from Sound Money Matters gives us a collection of 29 personal finance moves people can make in honor of leap day at Financial Leaps for Leap Year.
12. The Happy Rock recounts the most important choices in his life and how they made him successful at How the Happy Rock went bold.
13. Shana from Smart Easy Money presents Financial Lessons I Learned Early
14. Four Pillars from Quest For Four Pillars gives some compelling Reasons Why Your HELOC Can Be Your Emergency Fund.
15. paidtwice from I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… presents Make Sure Your Snowflakes Stay Snowflakes. This is a short article about keeping snowflakes against debt special, and not a part of the budget. Only by keeping them special can you pay extra towards your debt.
16. Small Cents tells us how he used Sudden Windfalls
17. Lynnae from BeingFrugal.net has completed step 3 of Dave Ramsey’s baby steps and fully funded her emergency fund.
18. Bob from Christian Finances writes The rules for borrowing from friends. Borrowing money from friends can be tricky business. These rules may help you keep a relationship intact.
    

Real Estate

• Fact: Homelessness has risen in America in the past 20 to 25 years because of the decrease in affordable housing and the decline of real wages.

1. T.Pettinger from Mortgage Advice gives us some common sense tips for saving money on a mortgage 10 Mortgage Tips for Saving Money.
2. John Crenshaw from Truthful Lending dot Com writes about the debate people have about whether or not a mortgage should be paid off as soon as possible. Read more at Paying Off Mortgage - Is It Right For You?
3. FrugalTrader from Million Dollar Journey has some good tips for home buyers in this post: 8 Things to do Before Closing on a House
4. Tushar from Everything Finance gives some good advice about refinancing in Thinking about Refinancing ? Read This….
5. Dan Melson from Searchlight Crusade writes about The FHA Secure Program - Saving Some Homeowners From Foreclosure. I’m not sure how many people this program will help, but the information is quite solid.

Taxes

• Fact: Many homeless people are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit on their tax return but are not aware of the resource.

1. Art Dinkin from Moment on Money tells us some Interesting Facts about the 2008 Economic Stimulus Package and exposes the loopholes in the system.
2. Kay from Don’t Mess With Taxes gives us some expert advice on taxes and children: Children’s ages, rebates and credits. She says, “Got kids? You might — or might not — be able to get an extra $300 in tax rebate money for each of your youngsters
3. Squawkfox teaches us Top Five Tax Tips for the Taxed. This is a good article for anyone who hates taxes.
   

Other

• Myth: I can’t do anything about homeless people.
  
• Fact: Read on for how you can help!

1. Silicon Valley Blogger from The Digerati Life presents They Want To Make Money Fast. This article is a discourse on why trying to make money fast is not always wise. Apparently my favorite failure Casey Serin is back at his get rich quick schemes.
2. Funny about Money presents Checkbook Security: Your Privacy, Your Pocketbook, and Why It Matters. This article certainly makes you feel a little bit paranoid about where you are sending your private information!
   
3. Pete from Bible Money Matters teaches us 5 ways to make some extra money.
4. Prime Time Money writes about a personal finance book he enjoyed in Automatic Millionaire Book Review
5. Dawn the iowahippiechick recounts the story of her mother’s death and shows that we all need to have our finances organized and have a will to take care of those left behind. Read more: Are You Prepared For An Unexpected Death?
6. Amanda from Value For Your Life tells us about risk taking in this eye opening article: Risk Taking For Regular People.
7. Are You Going To Be This Way the Rest of the Time I Know You? highlights a concept I have never heard of. Apparently there are “concierge doctors” that charge people a fee for the privilege to be their patients. Read the post for details! Concierge Doctor Plans - Not Frugal But Perhaps Money Well Spent.
8. FMF from Free Money Finance discusses the cost of removing snow in The Economics of Snow Removal.
9. Pinyo from Moolanomy gives us an excellent worksheet about life insurance in Life Insurance Part 1: How Much Life Insurance Do I Need?

That is all for this wonderful carnival and thank you all for writing so many informative, amusing, and thoughtful articles! I have learned a lot about personal finance and the homeless this week. Submit your articles for next week and my favorite Canadians will host the carnival at: Quest for Four Pillars.

Sources:

Homelessness Myths and Facts

Why are people homeless?

San Mateo County Shelter Network

NLCHP.org

Image Credit: Stolna by Krc krc
blog, carnival,personal finance, money, credit,debt,saving

Share This

Technorati Tags: blog, carnival, personal finance, money, credit, debt, saving

Yup, I finally got picked to host The Carnival of Personal Finance by Flexo! The current carnival is going on at Broke Grad Student and includes my article on sweepstaking. The two carnivals I have hosted in the past are Carnival of Money Stories and Carnival of Debt Reduction. However, The Carnival of Personal Finance would be the largest carnival I will ever host! I hope I don’t disappoint all of you. Anyway, if you want to be included, send over your best post here. I will be reading the new posts soon enough.

In other blog related news, my article about horrible financial products on Wise Bread was picked up by Lifehacker! I actually really liked this article so I am glad a lot of others liked it too. Additionally, my article about not loaning people money has 95 diggs right now! Though, I’m not sure if it will make it to the front page. Digg is pretty weird these days because I saw a lame picture with 44 diggs making it to the front page while a good article about foods took 260+ diggs. It’s pretty unjust in many cases.

Hope you are having a nice Monday, I am thinking of translating more of my Dad’s epic story later.

Share This

Well everyone, this is the 100th post! In the past four months or so The Baglady has had over 20000 visitors and over 45000 page views. The large spikes in visitors I have had came from The Consumerist, Patrick.net, and GetRichSlowly. This blog really started as something to entertain myself and my friends, but I am glad that I managed to provoke, entertain, and inform so many other people from my little corner of the world to the end of the earth. So thank you all for reading The Baglady!

I enjoy writing about whatever comes to my mind and so perhaps this blog may seem a bit random, but that is how I am. I want to share my life experiences with others and my blog is sending out my voice to be heard and I find that quite satisfying. I have had blogs in the past, but this is the one that has lasted the longest and I have definitely put in quite a bit of effort into writing this blog. When I was young I wanted to be a journalist, but for practical reasons I became an engineer. In a way this blog is fulfilling that childhood dream because people are reading what I write, and I am publishing anything I want.

For a little flash back, here are my personal favorite articles of this blog:

When Did “The American Dream” Become Debt? — This article has been featured as an editor’s pick at the Carnival of Personal Finance at Cash Money Life and the Carnival of Debt Reduction at Blogging Away Debt! Additionally it was linked by Karen Datko of MSN money’s SmartSpending blog.

Would You Ever Sell Your Eggs? – Since I wrote this article I found that there is a huge interest in selling eggs. Now about 30 to 40% of my search engine traffic comes from people searching for information on how much they can get for their eggs. It’s pretty funny to me.

The Anatomy of Crazy Bosses – A collection of crazy bosses I have observed.

Early Retirement May Not Be Optional For Twentysomethings — This is my personal pessimistic view of the future, but as people have pointed out, I may be wrong because more jobs will be created.

My Super Cheap Ex-Boyfriend — This article just never dies and was linked by J.D. at GetRichSlowly. It showed me that a lot of women have cheap boyfriends and are quite bothered by it because there are searches about this every single day. It is also now in Chinese.

This blog will continue to grow in the future, and most recently I started a Chinese version of the site. It is written in simplified Chinese and it is a place for me to practice my Chinese. So far I only translated one article, and it took me a pretty long time. We’re living in a crazy era, and I am sure there will be a lot of insanities for me to record.

Until next time, I leave you with this excellent video about the new internet bubble. 

Once again, thank you all for reading and commenting on The Baglady.

Share This

Well, The Baglady was in quite a few carnivals the past two weeks, and here they are in no particular order:

Festival of Frugality — Kyle mentioned me as an editor’s pick! Thanks Kyle!

Carnival of Personal Finance

Personal Finance Money Tips

Carnival of Money Stories

All Women Blogging Carnival

Happiness Carnival

How to Solve Money Worries

Carnival of Debt Reduction

Carnival of Family Life

Carnival of Cities

Carnival of Insanities

Common Sense Wealth Carnival

Here are a few of my favorite stories from the past couple weeks:

Ben Stein writes about his clueless friends who don’t know how to work. I thought it was an extremely funny article.

Blownmortgage shows us the “best borrower ever”, and why even conforming mortgages could fail. This is a must read, and it was very eye opening to me because I never thought that a “prime” borrower could also be living on the edge.

The Retirement Hobo writes about thanking his network, and I’m in the story!! yeah!!

Millionaire Mommy spills the secrets to her investment portfolio. I read the strategy thoroughly and it actually makes a lot of sense and is easy to implement. I took a free trial of the NoLoad FundX newsletter and it turns out I already own some of the funds in the list and they are definitely the better performing funds in my portfolio. I have held these funds for a while though, and I don’t trade very often.

Anyway, I’m coming upon my 100th post of this blog! I am planning a Chinese edition of the blog to improve my Chinese writing skills, and we’ll see how that goes!

Share This

This week there were some great carnivals as usual. First there is the All Women Blogging Carnival at Red Sultana where my article about selling eggs was included. Being the nerd I am I really liked this article about bird migration.

Next there is The Carnival of Personal Finance #126. In this carnival I wrote about speed interviewing. A couple articles I would like to highlight is Scrabble and Personal Finance: 8 Lessons from Tiles at Blueprint for Financial Propsperity and Soup Parrish’s Ground Rules for his retirement at age 24. I really love Scrabble and I love how Jim put together his experiences in a game into lessons for personal finance. Soup Parrish is a friend of mine and he is trying an interesting experiment in retiring on $75,000 in San Francisco. I would like to see how he does.  I have told him that realistically he can’t retire on $75,000 here in the Bay Area, but he has a set of rules that lets him generate other income too.  Check out his blog at The Retirement Hobo.

Finally, there is the Carnival of Money Stories at Being Frugal. I like Lynnae’s blog a lot and this week my article about Asian parents  has been included.  I also really liked this story about gifts for children by Betsy Teutsch.  It’s pretty true that kids don’t like presents like stocks and bonds because they can’t really play with it.

That’s all for this week!

Share This