Well, it is now September, the time of year when students begin to dread the ever closing time when they will have to go back to school (if they haven’t already).  I’m well past the joy and pain of school, myself, but I still have to be aware of the start of school because I’m dating a current college student.  Between her starting school now and my new job, it’s going to be much be harder to find the time to go out to see her.

Of course, there’s plenty else to keep me busy: my new job, the impending Labor Day Holiday, and of course, trying my best to keep up to date with my blog.  (It’s been kind of tough lately, with the new job and trips out to my fiancee every break from work that I’ve had, but I’m still here!)  In the spirit of keeping the joy and wonderment of this blog flowing to your eager eyes, here are a few of the more interesting blog posts I’ve read from the past week, and my thoughts on them (in case you thought I was trying to avoid doing any real writing for this blog entry):

Review: A Million Bucks by 30 – I have to be honest, whenever I see a book that claims to show me a way to retire before the age of fifty, my internal warning system goes off.  At best, they seem to rely on investment methods much riskier than I would be comfortable using myself, and at worst, they are little more than ways to enrich the authors at your expense.  However, Stephanie makes a very good case for A Million Bucks by 30; it seems like a story of a pretty normal guy, peppered with money saving tips.  As she notes, first looks can be deceiving.

5 Reasons to Take Another Look at DRIPs – A guest post on Consumerism Commentary looks into DRIPs, or Dividend ReInvestment Plans, a phrase purposely mis-capitalized to make the acronym work.  The basic idea is to buy stock directly from a company, who will then use the dividends to purchase even more shares of stock for you.  It’s a pretty decent article, and not a bad investment plan, assuming you are only interested in owning stock in a few very large, dividend paying companies.  Otherwise, sticking with a brokerage will save you on time, if not investing costs.

Buying a Home Without the Money – WC Porter writes on Wisebread about considering a house purchase, even without having a twenty percent down payment, due to many of the compelling ‘incentives’ that currently exist.  While the article itself is kind of interesting for mentioning things like the current tax credit and low mortgages, what’s more interesting is the comments.  Yes, over the course of the comments, just about every argument both for and against such a purchase was raised, and eventually, WC decided against the purchase.  (Which, as an aside, is what I would recommend, after reading that he would have no emergency after spending on his partial down payment.)  I find it kind of interesting, just how talking it out and getting feedback can help the decision process.

5 Things Your Parents Didn’t Teach You About Money – I’m a sucker for lists, and having posted on how my mother influenced my current financial acumen, I could hardly resist this post from Green Panda Treehouse.  There are quite a few things you’ll never learn from your parents (at least, not directly) when it comes to money, and her last point, on the trade offs of making a lot of money, is enough to make you reconsider your plans to forgo every indulgence in order to a millionaire by thirty.

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• Money School for Couples – Product Interview with Neal Frankle
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Ah, it’s Thursday already.  Time flies by when you’re spending hours each day in training at your new job.  So far, things have been going pretty well; a lot of general information about the company (Sanofi Pasteur) and the practices it follows are being presented, and we’re just starting to go over the actual building and area where I will be working.  I’ll working on vaccines for the H1N1 strain of flu (swine flu, don’t you know), so feel free to give me a passing thought when you’re lining up for your injections this flu season.

The only bad thing is that a combination of this job training and the fact that I’ve been feeling under the weather lately means that my blog has had to take a back seat for much of the week.  Once I am officially on shift and can get a good rhythm going, I should be able to catch up, but for now, I’m having a little trouble in keeping up with everything.  Don’t worry, though: short of coming down with the flu myself, there’s nothing that will keep me from updating my blog as often as life allows me the opportunity.

On that optimistic note, let’s see what some of the other personal finance bloggers out there are talking about:

Dairy Farms Rely on Illegal Immigrants – So often in debates about immigration, some basics of economics are lost in the shuffle.  Namely, more immigrant workers mean lower labor costs which in turn mean lower prices in the store (particularly for agricultural products, a field where most Americans aren’t exactly jumping for jobs).  On My Life ROI, these points and others are discussed in detail, a discussion that we as country seem to be endlessly trying to put off (but really can’t).

The Ultimate Financial Survivial Guide for New College Students – While the ‘ultimate’ in the blog title might be mostly good marketing on his part, Studenomics does an impressive job of covering many of the financial considerations of which incoming college students should be aware.  In fact, I’d go even further and extend his first few points to everyone over the age of twenty: if you are old enough to drink, you should have an online bank account, a retirement account, and a credit card already.  If you don’t, it’s time to get on the ball.

Deciding on Home Ownership – Given the recent decline in house prices as well as government incentives for new home buyers, it’s a good time to purchase a house.  That’s the thinking over at Green Panda Treehouse, apparently, as they finally took the plunge and purchased a townhouse.  Also covered is some of the logic behind the decision; while it’s a good time for those who want to be homebuyers, that doesn’t mean it’s the right time for all potential home buyers.  You need to consider your own needs and resources.

Spend Time to Save Money – Mrs. Micah provides a few good ways to spend a little extra time in order to save money on your purchases.  Using coupons (both online and off), creating a price book, negotiating lower insurance rates, and opening a higher yielding bank account are all good suggestions.  If you put your mind to it, there are plenty of ways to add some value to your life with only a (relatively) small investment of time.

What Kind of Saver Are You? – A list of different savings personality types, covering a range of people, is up on the Weakonomist’s website.  It’s kind of neat to read through his different descriptions and see which one fits you the best.  I like to think of myself as a Sweeper, for the most part.

Don’t Chase High Rates for Savings Accounts – I’ll admit, I’ve tried to chase high interest rates in the past (and actually, would probably continue to do so if the chance to earn a much higher rate presented itself).  Luckily, Stephanie of Poorer Than You provides a good idea of what to do with a wide number of online savings accounts, using each one for a different savings goal.  Not bad advice if you have a number of different accounts you want to put to go use.

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Yes, yes, tomorrow is the day that I go in to do some paperwork, listen to some information about my soon to be new job, and take a mandatory drug test.  It’s not quite as fun as the first day of actual work (which comes next Tuesday, happily enough), but it’s still a pretty sweet day.

The only problem is, I seem to be having trouble getting to sleep; it’s nearly four in the morning as I write this, and I’m still not tired.  I don’t know if it’s nerves or just inertia, but the Sandman has been eluding me tonight.  I have gotten a chance to read up on some of the articles that, with spending the past few days with my girlfriend and then going home to get ready for this interview, I haven’t had a chance to read up to this point.  So, here are a few of the articles that caught my eye in my late night ruminations:

Marriage and Money: Joint or Separate Accounts - An interesting view of the future, provided by Green Panda Treehouse. I haven’t had to worry too much about combining my expenses with my fiancee up to this point, as a result of the aforementioned living on opposite sides of the state, but at some point, we’ll have to combine our finances, and this is a pretty good template to follow.

To Prepay Your Mortgage or Not – In general, paying down your mortgage early is a good thing; you’ll save on interest payments and there’s the always fun ‘being free from debt’ aspect to consider.  But, as My Life ROI points out, doing so at the expense of your other investments is generally not a good option.  Basic money nerd rule: if the (after-tax, where applicable) return of the investment you’re considering doesn’t beat the return of your current investment, stay with what you have.

Moving: Maximizing Space When Packing Your Car – Some surprisingly time appropriate advice from Stephanie at Poorer Than You, just as I find myself needing to move my stuff across Pennsylvania again.  Most of the advice should make sense; reduce what you take, remove extraneous packaging, and using clothing as cushioning.  My favorite part of the article is that she refers to packing a car as ‘Tetrising’, which tickles my dork senses.

9 Small College Expenses That Add Up – On Mrs. Micah’s blog, there’s yet more advice for future (and current) college students: watch out and save up for situations where you spend small amounts that can add up.  Sure, ten cents a page in the computer lab doesn’t sound like much, until you have to spend the money you were saving for the weekend on in order to print out the five research papers your teacher assigned you to read, each averaging about 30 pages.  Yup, there goes your beer money.  Moral: Small expenses add up quickly, a lesson we can apply both in college and out.

Carnivals and Round-Ups Featuring my Columns

• Money Hacks Carnival-By the Books Edition hosted by Personal Finance by the Book, which features my Reading Online Stock Data column
• Weekly Dividend Investing Round-Up – August 8, 2009 hosted by The Dividend Guy, which features my Why Investors Care About Dividends column

• Parade Magazine: How America's Thriftiest Families Save Money
• Looking Back - Things I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18.
• To Really Save Money, Cut Recurring Monthly Expenses, Not Daily Splurges
• Tips and Tricks for Budgeting
• Four Reasons Why Poor Money Managers Should Read this Blog

On Sunday and Monday this week, I helped my baby sister move into her first real apartment.  She is going to be attending medical school in Philadelphia starting this fall, and I had to help her get her stuff down there.  It makes me feel both proud that she is smart and talented enough to get into med school, and just a bit old that my baby sister has graduated college and is now going onto med school.  Time does fly sometimes.

The most interesting part of the move, from my perspective, was shopping for furniture for her at IKEA.  I’ve never really gotten anything from them before, and it was rather interesting to see their massive warehouse filled with unassembled furniture.  Weird side note: we discovered that the covers for the couch she wanted to get came in several colors, with most colors selling for $159 and white covers selling for $11.  Luckily for my credit card balance (as I was playing the good big brother and paying for the furniture until my mother could reimburse me), she opted for white, although she did end up getting a total of three covers.  I’m proud of her frugal nature (although, I wish she had done more of the work assembling the furniture herself).

On the subject of going back to school, Studenomics offers up a few suggestions for Ways College Students Can Make Money Fast.  A pretty decent selection of money making ideas for students, including reselling your old textbooks and increasing your hours at a summer job.  My favorite suggestion is to get a job at your school during the year; it’s an excellent way to make money during the education process.  (Although, it doesn’t strike me as very fast…)  Some other interesting posts:

Library Fines Don’t Support Your Library – One of the more depressing things I’ve read this week (which might show how much of a geek I really am), Mrs. Micah shares the fact that paying late fees doesn’t directly support your library in many cases.  Luckily, I perked up a bit when she listed some ways to help your library, like donating your time or old books.

When Will My Investment Double? – A short but sweet post from Stephanie of Poorer than You, reviewing the Rule of 72.  Don’t know what the Rule of 72 is?  Well, the short version is that, if you divide 72 by the rate of return you are getting, you can find out how many years it will take your investment to double, assuming a reasonable rate of return.  (The rule breaks down at extremely high return rates, although that’s the sort of problem we all want to have.)

TED Spread-What is It? – On My Life ROI, there’s an interesting post explaining the TED Spread, the difference between three month Treasury bills and three month Eurodollar contracts.  It’s used as a proxy to indicate how much banks trust each other; lower TED values indicate more trust.  The chart he presents for the past two years is interesting: until late 2007, the spread is quite reasonable, then around October it increases and bounces up and down for most of last year, before spiking in October 2008, and then slowly settling down.  The goodness: we seem to be back to normal, according to TED, which is a good start.

• How To Make Estimated Tax Payments - For the Self Employed
• Getting Out of Debt Quickly pt 2
• Should I Save For Retirement While In Debt?
• Financial Tips: The 10% Rule Of Saving
• Learning About Hidden Credit Card Charges

Well, once again I’ve made the trek across the great state of Pennsylvania, this time for family reasons rather than work.  Yes, my godfather (the kindly, gift giving kind, not the running our family’s highly illegal crime syndicate kind) was born on August 1st, so I came back in order to more easily attend the party this Saturday.  It’s always good to help celebrate with your family, although these cross state trips are really starting to wear on me.

Still, it promises to be a fun time, and I do like my family for the most part.  Plus, it should be good practice for when I bring my fiancée out to visit; always good to get a refresher on the eccentricities of my family members before I subject her allow her to meet the crazies interesting people in my family.

Unfortunately, all the travel and time spent with my fiancée has left me with less time than usual for catching up on my blog reading.  Thank goodness for RSS Owl; otherwise I’d completely lose track of all the blogs I try to follow.  I’ve managed to catch some of the best posts each week using the feeds there.  Some of what I’ve found useful this past week includes:

What If There Was No Tomorrow? – Sometimes, you forget that on the other side of the computer screen, there are actual people who have lives outside of this computer screen.  It usually takes some big event to remind us that our fellow bloggers are mortal; earlier this week, Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money had a near death experience.  He nearly choked to death and thus had an epiphany about his life and how quickly it can end (as people tend to do in these situations.  Thankfully, he seems alright, and will be imparting some of the lessons he learned soon.

Chart Early Retirement – A good post from Luke Grand, writer of the new blog Cash Out Life, which focuses on preparing for an early retirement.  In this post, he suggests plotting your expenses, earned income, and passive income over the course of several months.  That way, you can see whether you are earning more than you spend and gauge when your passive income will become high enough to exceed your expenses.  It’s a pretty good exercise, one that can help you see where you finances currently stand.

What to Bring to College-College Survival Skills – Studenomics takes a new twist on the list of things to bring to college, collecting a list of four different skill sets you’ll need to survive college life.  I agree with all of them (particularly cooking and cleaning, an area in which college students tend to skimp) and would add good study habits, as well.

Save Money By Becoming An Organized Packer – Given how much I’ve had to carry from one side of Pennsylvania to the other in the past few weeks, any thoughts on how to be more efficient are welcome.  Luckily, on My Life ROI there are a fewer thoughts on how to make your travel a bit easier.  I’m especially fond of the reminder to Ziploc bag anything that might spill; after a bad situation with a left over milkshake on this last trip, I can definitely tell you it is no fun trying to clean up after a spill.

(Image taken from the Skate Ranch of Raleigh website)

• Weekly Roundup - Sprained Ankle Follow Up Edition
• College Life: Managing Your Financial Aid
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• How Should I handle “Alternative Income” Opportunities when Friends and Family are Involved?
• MBN Group Writing Project: My finances ten years back

Well, it’s time again to gather up some of the more interesting posts on the interwebs for a feature I like to call, Thoughtful Thursday Friday!  If you recall from yesterday (oh please, it was only a day ago; you can’t have forgotten that soon), I’ve been doing a lot of traveling this week.  I’m not a big fan of traveling, especially when it involves me driving a total of twenty-four hours in the course of this week, just going from my fiancee’s house to my mother’s house and back, twice.  (Yes, you heard that right: I’m going to spend the equivalent of a full solar day in the car this week to complete two round trips from one end of the state to the other.)

To add to my aggravation, I had an appointment with my doctor this afternoon to see if my ribs or any of the underlying organs were seriously damaged during my fall.  She didn’t think there was any problem (her comments amounted to, ‘if you’re still moving around alright and haven’t been vomiting blood all this past week, you probably aren’t seriously hurt), but she decided to send me in for a few tests anyway.  I ended up getting lost on the way to the hospital, missing the appointment her nurse got for me, going to the emergency room to get my CAT scan, and waiting in the waiting room for over two hours because she wrote out the prescription wrong.  (During the two hours, the emergency room staff were playing phone tag with my doctor’s office.)  Eventually, because my doctor could not be reached, I was sent home without getting the CAT scan (although, the tech at the hospital concurred with my doctor: with no more serious symptom than a few bruised ribs, I was unlikely to be in any health danger.)  All I can say is I can’t wait for digital health records to be commonplace; hopefully, being able to store and send my health information digitally could have prevented me losing so much time over a single missing word on a prescription.

But, I’m still trying to stay optimistic; the job interview I had today went pretty well (PeTA ended up causing my would-be employers to laugh), and I should be able to go back to stay with my loving girl (although, if I get this job, I’ll have to move out, yet again).  Plus, it’s that time of the week to catch up on some of the good posts that have appeared on the personal finance blogs:

Carnival of Personal Finance #214: United States Presidents Edition – I normally don’t mention carnivals on my Thoughtful Thursday posts; they are typically just a collection of links (not enough of which lead back to me), frequently presented without much thought or flare.  In this case, however, Stephanie of Poorer than You has gone to the trouble of matching each submission up to one of the past (or current) US Presidents, including putting up the official Presidential portrait of each one.  In short, this is a carnival as carnivals should be; go and support Miss Stephanie, and hopefully we can more beautiful looking carnivals like this in the future.

How Do You Want to Pay Taxes? – An interesting question posted by the Weaknomist.  Besides the obvious answers (Never, or if that’s not possible, as infrequently and as cheaply as possible), there’s a range of possibilities from a sales tax to an income tax to a hybrid system like we currently have.  Personally, I’d prefer consumption taxes (like a sales tax) over income taxes if possible, with refunds or other mechanisms to keep the system as progressive as we can make it.  But that’s just me.

Going Green: Costs Big Bucks, Returns Big Bucks – One of the biggest problems with going green (now that you are no longer automatically assumed to be a tree hugging ultra-vegetarian commune dweller for even bringing up the concept) is the sometimes large up-front costs you pay.  On My Life ROI, such costs are considered with an eye towards the money you could save by, say, suppling part of your electricity with solar panels or meeting LEED standards for energy efficiency.  Luckily for the would-be greenie, the large upfront costs can (usually) be made up with energy savings in the future, although you’ll have to consider your specific situation to see if this is right for you.

Checklist for College Freshmen: Dorm Room Essentials – A little bit of nostalgia for me, I suppose, thinking back to my college days.  Studenomics provides a list of things that an incoming freshman should bring, from hangers to sandals.  Take away the coffee maker, add in an alarm clock, clothing, bedding, and toiletries, and his list matches my supplies, and freshman year went pretty smoothly for me.

Oakland Almost Stumbles on California’s Budget Fix – Taxing medicinal marijuana.  As reported on Lazy Man and Money, Oakland has recently decided to start taxing medical marijuana to bring in increased revenue.  This led to a discussion of whether legalizing pot would be a good thing, economically and societally.  I generally think it would be; legalization, monitoring, and taxing just makes more sense to me than the government spending money to prevent people from purchasing a good they want to acquire.  Of course, without having any independent research at my disposal to prove that in one way or the other, this is more a statement of my general feelings than a legitimate political platform.

Carnivals/Round Ups where I am featured:

The 99th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by The Skilled Investor, featured my column Risk Management Strategies

Weakonomics Links: Management or Egoeconomics, a round up by the Weakonomist, featured my column The Tragedy of the Commons

• Weekly Round-Up: Five Cent Nickel
• Money Hacks Carnival #65 at Stretchy Dollar
• Sunday Money Roundup - Life At $5.00 A Gallon Edition.
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• Money Carnivals And Festivals I Missed Mentioning While I Was Away.

Well, it’s official: I’m now living with my fiancée, and it’s certainly quite interesting.  It’s the first time I’ve really had to share my space and my things with another person.  Back in college, I lucked out and usually had room mates who stayed to themselves and when I was back at my childhood home, my mother and sisters generally gave me plenty of space.  My dear Sondra, on the other hand, likes to spend her free time with me, which is making it harder to find time to get online to update my blog (to say nothing of searching for a new and better job.)

To make things worse, as far as getting blogging done is concerned, I made the mistake of bringing my graphics tablet along with my computer when I came to live with her, which combined with the Adobe Photoshop (c) program on my computer, means that she is almost as interested in using my computer as I am.  (Of course, what really bothers me is she is much more talented at drawing on it than I am….)  I had to all but wrestle it out of her hands in order to write this post.

But I’m sure we’ll find a way to share; after all, we intend to live together for the rest of our lives.    I’ll have to try to get more of my blogging and job hunting done while she is at work.  And speaking of blogging, here are some of the good blog entries that made me think this week (when I could steal my laptop back, at least):

How to be a Horrible Credit Card Customer – One of my favorite subjects, using credit cards in a way that benefits you and not the credit card companies, being covered by Broke Grad Student.  As long as you don’t charge more than you can afford and pay off the total each month, using a credit card (particularly a reward card) can be a good financial decision.  As one of the commenters noted, though, credit card companies charge the retailers a fee when you use your credit cards; some will pass the costs onto you, so you have to watch if the price is higher for credit card purchases (and use cash at those locations).

Credit Card Rules for College Students – Or anyone else, for that matter; Studenomics shares some good advice for using your credits and not letting them use you.  His comments are mostly right on, especially always paying off the balance and not spending more than you have available.  That said, unless you always spend up to your limit, I would not apply his advice to have a lower credit card limit; you’ll hurt your credit score, both by having less credit available and by using a larger portion of available credit when you do spend money.  My advice: keep a higher credit limit, and find some way to limit your spending to a small portion of that limit.

8 Tips to Avoid Scams on Craigslist – Over on Poorer Than You, Stephanie shares some tips to avoid scams on Craigslist.  I’ll be the first to admit, sites like Craigslist make me nervous, and articles don’t help.  Still, given how popular and useful Craigslist can be, I will likely use it at some time in the future.  When I do, I’ll keep her tips in mind (the one on not accepting strange forms of payment especially sticks with me).

What Do You do If You Need a Payday Loan? – An interesting question, one I’ve never had to consider (luckily).  On Green Panda Treehouse, you can learn some of the alternatives to taking on payday loans (which are one of the worst things you can do financially, by the way).  In general, if you find yourself regularly taking payday loans to meet ends meet, you need to find a way to rearrange your financial life so you don’t need to rely on incredibly high interest, short term loans.  One of the suggestions I liked (and probably would not have considered for my own needs) would be to take out a loan via Lending Club; just make sure that you don’t get yourself into more debt, as you’ll defeat the purpose and have to both pay back the Lending Club loan and the new debt.

Use Twitter to Find a Job – Every so often, I read an article that just seems to come out of left field; this one from My Life ROI falls into that category.  I’ll be honest, I never would have considered trying to find a job using Twitter as a resource.  (In case you haven’t picked up on it from my comments about Stephanie’s post, I’m not the most internet savvy twenty-six year old.)  However, now I’m highly intrigued to try it out, and hopefully find something good near my new location.  Thanks, MLR, for the heads up!

That’s it for this week; I’ll share more fun links that make me think next week.  Enjoy my normal blog entries until then!

• Credit Cards Just Loans Wrapped In Pretty Plastic
• Beware of Tax Refund Loans
• Credit Cards as a Money Tool
• Impending Credit Card Changes: What Consumers Should Know
• Paying Too Much for Credit? 7 Ways to Avoid Credit Card Costs

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting with one of my old high school friends and having dinner together.  It was really enjoyable.  We’re both rather quiet people (or at least, we were back in high school), but when we have the chance to get together and let our hair down, we are great fun.

It’s amazing how much has changed for both of us in the eight years since we graduated from high school (it’s also amazing that it’s been eight years already, but that’s for another day).  He’s been married for over a year now, is currently a teacher at our old school, and is planning to go to England next year.  (I was debating whether to bring up whether he’s planning to have kids, and if so, when, but there was only so much time to discuss everything.)

Sometimes, all it takes is the chance to talk and remember with an old buddy to make you laugh endlessly.  (If you’re a very, very good blog audience, I might just share the Berlin story one day; remembering it made us both crack up for at least a solid minute.)  And so, quite happily, let’s look at some of the good articles out this week:

What Factors Matter for Your FICO Score? – I’m guessing that this information is unlikely to be new to anyone reading this, but if by chance this is the first you’re hearing of it, there are a total of five factors that determine your Fair Issac Corporation (or FICO) score (more commonly referred to as your credit score).  Over on Green Panda Treehouse, you can get much more detail on exactly what factors are involved, and how to improve each one.  With luck, you won’t need to do much improving, but just in case…

Erasing Negative Credit History – Now that you know just what your credit history is like, you might see some things you don’t like; so, how can you go about rectifying the situation?  In a guest post over on Poorer Than You, Kelly Oakin covers some of the ways you can erase negative marks on your credit report.  It’s pretty good advice for anyone with less than ideal credit.

The Three Most Influential Lessons From My Childhood – My friend My Life ROI shares some of the good lessons he learned from his father during his childhood, including the difference between want and need, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and that the best time to start saving, if you haven’t already, is now.  Good stuff, good stuff; it kind of reminds me of an old post of mine, in a way   Also, a happy birthday to Her Life ROI!

How to Guess A Social Security Number and Get Famous on the Internet – If you’re an American citizen, you’re probably (a) aware that your Social Security number has become a personal identifier nearly everywhere you go, (b) identity theft and similar crimes worry many people in our modern age and (c) anything that can panic a crowd will automatically grabs lots of headlines.  So, if a group of researchers showed that, at least for a select group of Americans, it was fairly easy to guess their Social Security numbers, you’d expect there to be a cavalcade of media coverage, right?  And you’d be correct: as Frank Curmudgeon of Bad Money Advice notes, there’s been a recently released study that shows just that.

But don’t panic yet.  As Frank points out, the news isn’t really THAT bad.  First, the odds of guessing a number, even in the best case scenario, are less than one in one thousand; not as hard as I would like, but more than enough to slow down the average punk with a Blackberry.  Second, even that number only works for small states and people born in recent years; if you were born in a populous state, the odds are much lower, and ditto if you were born before 1989.  Third, and least comfortingly, there are plenty of easier ways for no-good-niks to get your person information without relying on a brute force guessing techniques, so this new study will likely have little real world impact.  See, no reason to worry!

Honest People Still Do Exist – Finally, a nice reminder from Studenomics: even in the dog-eat-dog, cut-throat, vicious world in which we live, there are still good, honest people.  One of them returned Studenomic’s wallet over the weekend, using his address to get directions and personally returning the wallet to his house, before leaving without any kind of reward.  I like to believe there’s a very special place in Heaven for people like that.

And on that note, goodbye to you all, my friends!  Feel free to invite me to a pizza joint anytime; I’m a hoot!

• Interview with Rick Rodgers & Giveaway!
• On Taking Your Social Security Payments Early.
• Understanding the Social Security Claim and Suspend Strategy
• Saving TOO MUCH for retirement?!
• The New Social Security Benefit Calculator as a Reality Check

Greetings, Amateur Financier readers.  As I write this, I’m waiting for my sweet adorable fiancee to return from her job.  I’m also searching for a job of my own, preferrably one that allows me to continue to stay with my sweet girl and not have to commute too far in order to reach my job.

Unfortunately, the current job environment does not make me very optimistic on that point.  I’m expecting to search for quite a while longer before I get anything in my field.  Even getting something just to tide me over is likely to be hard; according to my fiancee, even Wal-Mart isn’t hiring, and is actively cutting down the hours of its current employees.  This does not bode well for my future prospects job hunting.

On the plus side, being between jobs and looking for other employment does have its advantages.  I have more time to read up on what other bloggers are currently writing, as well as having more time to  blog myself (well, when I’m not spending time celebrating the completion of my last position with my loving fiancee).  Some of the more interesting posts of the last week:

Why Should You Take Personal Finance Advice From Me? – A question I’ve asked more than once, myself, but this time posed by Studenomics.  He lists many good reasons for taking personal finance advice from him, but the one that strikes me the most is getting different perspectives.  That’s one reason I try to read numerous PF glogs, and always focus on less established bloggers for these Weekly Update posts.

What to Carry in Your Car for Emergencies – Something I’ve been neglecting, making sure that I have proper supplies in my car for unexpected events.  Luckily, there’s a discussion of just this circumstance on Green Panda Treehouse, including some suggestions of what to include in your car.  There are some pretty good suggestions, both in the main post and the comments.

Negotiation Tips for Beginners – A huge, HUGE number of suggestions on negotiation techniques listed by Baker of Man vs. Debt.   I’ll be honest, I tend to have a rather shy personality, so I tend not to be very good in negotiations.  Hopefully, learning some of these techniques will make me more effective in sale situations.

Credit Card Rates and Usury: Where is the Line? – My Life ROI provides an interesting history of credit rates and usury (excessive interest charged on borrowed money).  It’s kind of interesting to know that at some points in history, like 14th century Europe, any interest rates above 1% were considered usurious.  I wonder what the medieval Catholic church would think about the current interest rates offered by credit cards…

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If you’re a long time reader of The Amateur Financier, you probably recall that a few weeks ago, I began a new job working at night.  While the job itself isn’t too bad (the work is somewhat easy, if rather repetitive, the people are nice, and the pay is good), I’m having a hard time getting back onto a night schedule.  It’s been rough trying to get to sleep during the day, especially this past week.  Even on the weekend, I am still really off, and haven’t been doing as much with my blog or other work around the house as I probably should.

As a result, I’m feeling a little sleep deprived these past few weeks, but I’m slowly getting into the swing of things.  Unfortunately, this temp position is currently slated to end on the 26th, two weeks from now, so just as I’m getting used to being nocturnal, things might change up on me again.  Ah, well, at least I will have more time to work on my blog.  (Although, I won’t complain if I get another job before too long.)

Luckily, there are bloggers who’ve had more time this week to write than I’ve had.  Some of the blog posts that have made me think this week:

Financial Guru Review: David Bach – Proof that personal finance writers DO read their comments, there’s a review of David Bach’s writing over at Green Panda Treehouse that I suggested.  The review is pretty much par for the course; Bach has some good suggestions, including focusing on your little daily expenses and automating your financial transactions as much as possible, but he tends to push home ownership regardless of your financial conditions.  As long as you remember to consider your own situation and make your own decisions, he gives good advice.

Government Spending out of Control, or is it Something Else? – The Weakonomist makes a very good point regarding government spending and oversight.   He noted that in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where much of the the work is being done by contractors, the system of awarding contracts without taking the lowest bids and little oversight leads to less efficient outcomes.  Proper auctions and supervision would lead to much more efficient outcomes.

Suze Orman: Not Equipped to Educate Us? – Suze Orman takes a great deal of heat, as a result of being a famous money advisor with a sometimes grating personality.  (One of my first posts actually covered another controversy involving her.)  Over on My Life ROI, MLR reviews a recent interview she did for the NY Times Magazine, where she said some rather questionable things.  My opinion of her advice is still quite high, but she is becoming a little sullied in my mind as a result of many of her off-topic comments.

PF Bloggers Weight Loss Challenge Week 1 Results -  In one of those fun, not quite PF related but interesting events that occasionally pops up, Baker at Man vs. Debt has gotten a group of personal finance bloggers together and convinced them to break into teams and try to lose weight.  It’s a cool idea, and if my night-time temp job weren’t messing with my schedule and my metabolism, I’d be eager to join.  As it stands, I’ll just have to watch, and see if he does this again when I might actually be able to compete.

The Black Box Theory of Stock Market Returns – There is a tendency, when talking about the return you will get from the stock market, to only think of the average return and not consider everything that goes into getting that return.  Luckily, Frank Curmudgeon of Bad Money Advice is there to help, providing some insight into the ‘black box’ of the stock market, and talks about some of the factors that influence stock movement.    As with much of what he writes, it’s an insightful view most people never consider.

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If you’re a fan of other personal finance blogs, or were home last Friday and decided to watch some network television, you might already be aware that ABC ran a special called ‘UnBroke: What You Need to Know About Money’ last Friday at 9 p.m.  Unfortunately, I did not hear anything about this special until…last Saturday, meaning I completely missed the entire thing.

Not to worry, though; it seems that plenty of other bloggers were paying more attention than I, and managed to watch and make notes about the show.  I’ve seen commentary on Green Panda Tree House (who apparently was tweeting on Twitter about the special live), Poorer Than You (which has a nice snippet of the show featuring Seth Green, always a good way to draw in a former Buffy aficionados like myself), and Lazy Man and Money, which actually goes through a blow by blow description of the show.  It sounds like the advice they gave was fundamentally sound, if a bit old hat to anyone who’s done their own research: save for retirement, don’t buy more house than you can afford, limit your credit card usage.  All good points, and it’s nice to see some attention paid by the national media to personal finance issues.

Although, it does make me think: if they had tried harder to get good money management information out to people years ago, rather than promoting programs like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, perhaps fewer people would not have been hit so badly by this downturn.  But, that’s just me thinking out loud.  Here’s some of the other posts this past week that had me thinking:

Any Printed Number is Believable – On Bad Money Advice, there’s a disscussion about an old study which broke down the time people spent during their lives doing various things (waiting at red lights, using the bathroom, waiting in line) in terms of years of their life.  Frank Curmudgeon (which is a terrific pseudonym, by the way) notes that though the numbers given seem reasonable when expressed in terms of years, if you break it down into hours each day, you come up with some absurd results (like two hours a day spent in the bathroom).  He also noted a recent Newsweek article claiming women spend nearly $450,000 on beautification during their lives, a number that makes some absurd assumptions.  (Bi-weekly bikini waxes starting from the age of 13, anyone?)  The moral of the story: be skeptical, double-check any assumptions, and work out the math yourself for any money-based claim.

Chipping Away Senior Discounts – One of the advantages of getting older, besides joining the AARP and being able to complain about kids these days, is getting senior discounts at various locations through out your community, from restaurants to movie theaters.  However, as Mr. ToughMoneyLove notes, the recent economic downturn has caused two movie theaters in his area to raise their senior discount age.  I’d imagine that you can expect more of this in the future, as well as declining student discounts and other ways for companies to increase the amount of money they bring in while avoiding increasing the retail prices they charge.

Things You Are Willing To Pay Consistently More For – An interesting question posed by Baker on Man vs. Debt: what products or services command a price premium when you spend?  There are numerous good thoughts in the post, from great service to quality goods.  Personally, I tend to be willing to pay a premium for books I want as well as help with my blog; two of my biggest spending weaknesses.

Financial Guru Review: Dave Ramsey – On Green Panda Tree House (and yes, this is the second time I’ve mentioned her blog in this post), there’s a discussion of Dave Ramsey and his seven steps.  It’s a pretty good review of Mr. Ramsey’s general philosophy and his seven baby steps.  Personally, I find too many flaws in his approach to consider following it completely, but it’s not a bad place to start, and many people swear by him, so it’s certainly worth learning more.

Tax Records You Should Save, and For How Long – Ever wonder just how long you need to save all your tax information?  Ever worry that you didn’t know what to save?  Ever use a bunch of rhetorical questions in a blog post?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should check out MLR’s (that’s My Life ROI (Return on Investment), in case you were wondering) research into just these issues.  It’s a nice compendium of what information to keep and the time you need to save it.

Focus on the Long Term, Not the Money – Finally, Nut on The Writer’s Coin talks about taking back his blog, cutting down the number of blog entries and working on putting out less, but better, content.  It’s a good approach, one I hope to emulate.  I’ve been focused lately on how to maximize the profit of my blog, forgetting the importance of putting out good, quality content and sticking with my blog for the long term.  If I blog, they will come; and if they don’t, I should at least have some fun with my efforts!

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This morning, I had a little bit of a scare, finding that my blog was down when I went to update it this morning.  It turned out that there was maintenance being done on the server, which is what shut down my blog.  After a brief period of panic, I settled in for a good day’s sleep (one of the advantages of being nocturnal, I suppose), and when I woke up, I discovered that my beloved blog was back up.  So, yay for that.

This whole experience has made me realize that I need to learn more about computer programming and similar technical issues.  I’ve been learning slowly, but if I hope to make my blog into a regular source of income, I will need to be able to maintain my own blog without requiring assistance.  Any suggestions as to where I can learn more about the fine art of blogging?

Some of the blog entries that made me think this week include:

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Going to Community College – Studenomics covers some of the advantages (smaller classes, less expensive tuition) and disadvantages (less challenge, less creditability) of starting your college career in community college.  He raises some interesting points; if I were approaching my college years and didn’t have the financial backing I was able to atain at my univesity, I would consider the possibility of community college long and hard.   It’s not a bad place to start (but probably not finish) your higher educational career.

Using Financial Aid to Graduate Debt Free – Keeping on the subject of decreasing your college education costs, My Life ROI covers some of the types of financial aid available to college student.  Given the rapidly rising cost of higher education (at least if you’re not in a community college), it’s good to know more about ways to defray some of your out of pocket expenses.

Parents Bamboozled by FreeCreditReport.com – Stephanie of Poorer Than You recalls a story where her mother and step-mother used a site (which I have no intention of repeating or linking to here) other than AnnualCreditReport.com in order to get their credit reports.  It’s a good reminder; make sure that you and everyone in your family know not to fall for the deceptive ads for the other site (catchy though their jingles might be).

Anything Worth Doing is Difficult and Requires Sacrifice – Finally, a column from Kevin at No Debt Plan reminds us that though things might not always be easy, the things in life that are worth doing tend not to be.  Getting your financial house in order, putting money aside for retirement, and getting in shape are all things that we should, nay, MUST do to have a good life, but the rewards are more than worth the pain.

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Ah, my first Thoughtful Thursday column since I got back from my trip out to California.  I feel I’ve missed so much, more than a week of posts at all the blogs I follow and emails from all the other sites I frequent.  It’ll take me a little while to catch up, but with so many great writers out there, it’ll be fun the whole time.  Here are a few of the articles from this last week that I’ve enjoyed:

How to get a Federal Job – Over on My Life ROI, there’s some good advice for anyone who hopes to gain a job with the federal government.  It’s a pretty article, and given how crummy the broader economy has been doing lately, having a job with excellent benefits and almost no chance of disappearing sounds downright perfect.

Credit Card Reform Treats College Students Like Babies – Stephanie (who is, as always, Poorer Than You) makes note of the recent changes in the laws regulating credit card companies.  In particular, she focuses on the new rules requiring college students under twenty-one to have proof of ability to repay or get a parent to cosign.  I’m less upset by these requirements than others seem to be; if we were talking about a group other than college students, having proof of income or a cosigner would be required anyway.  To my view, all this does is make it harder for credit card companies to guilt parents into paying off their children’s debt on cards about which the parents didn’t even know.  Of course, as with any legislation, I’m certain there will be unintended consequences, but we’ll have to see what happens once this becomes law.

Peer-To-Peer Lending With a Twist – As you might be aware, I do some investing with Lending Club, where I make loans to other individuals and get paid interest back in return.  So, it was with great interest that I read the post about Pertuity over on No Debt Plan.  Apparently, rather than make individual loans as with Lending Club or its nearest rival, Prosper, Pertuity allows you to put your money into a single fund, from which all the interest is paid and all the loans are made.

It’s an interest concept, sort of a mutual fund for peer-to-peer lending.  The ability to pull your money out of the investment without having to sell the loan is plus, as is not being dependent on the reliability of any one borrower.  But, given the relatively low cost of each individual loan on sites like Lending Club, it shouldn’t be too hard to assemble your own diverse portfolio without too much money and effort.  Plus, there is the added personal touch of knowing that your money is going to, say, help someone to consolidate their loans and get out of debt.  Still, Pertuity is something to keep an eye on for the future.

Investment Clichés: Helpful or Not? – On The Writer’s Coin, there’s talk about whether investment clichés are helpful.  In particular, he focuses on whether the oft-quoted ‘8% average return’ on stock investments is useful, especially given the always present warning on investment products, ‘past results are not indicative of future returns’.  Personally, I think it is easy to put too much emphasis on that 8% (or 10%, 12%, or whatever figure you hear), and assume that just because that’s the average stocks have returned in the past, you can expect that return each and every year.  Still, for long-term planning, you need to have some idea of what to expect in the future, and these clichés serve as a good place to start your research.  (Note: start with the clichés, but by all means, don’t stop there.)

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Sometimes, life just seems to sync up, and I wonder if perhaps there is some higher power at work.  This week, for example, I donated several dollars to the American Cancer Society.  One of my former professors is going to running in the Relay For Life, and he sent me an email asking for a sponsorship.  So, I decided to chip in a few dollars myself, to help him in his cause.

Then on Tuesday, I got a call from a recruiter from Manpower about a position for which I don’t recall even applying.  It’s only the first step in the process, and I don’t know if it will lead to anything (although I am quite qualified for this position), but it was rather heartening.  And I was wondering if perhaps it was a form of karmic repayment, or just random happenstance.  Of course, then the fun events of yesterday happened, and my thought that I was being somehow rewarded seemed rather out of place.  But I still wonder, is it just random luck, or is there some overarching plan I just can’t see?

And of course, that’s hardly the only thing I’ve been thinking about lately; here are a few posts that got my brain ticking:

Should Your Financial Guru Be Changing His or Her Advice? – On Man vs. Debt, there was the discussion of whether a financial guru should be changing their advice, as Suze Orman did recently.  It’s an interesting question; in theory, good financial advice should be just as good all the time.  However, in the real world, things do change, sometimes dramatically, and I can understand gurus changing their advice to fit changing situations (like our current credit crunch).  That said, I don’t think that Ms. Orman’s advice is necessarily the best; based on interest rates alone, cutting down at least some of your credit card debt (while you build up an emergency fund, if you feel it is needed) is generally is the best procedure.

How to Obtain Your Credit Report – On My Life ROI, there’s some helpful advice about getting your free credit report.  (Here’s a hint: don’t use FreeCreditReport.com, the truly free site is AnnualCreditReport.com)  It’s good advice, and you should be sure to check out our credit report on a regular basis.

Recession Tips for College Students – I do not envy current college students.  Not only are they going to be facing much steeper qualifications to get credit for everything from houses to their student loans, but when they graduate, they’re going to have even more competition from out of work previous grads (like myself).  Luckily, Studenomics feels their pain, and shares a few tips to hopefully get them off to a good start.

The Best Time to Start Thinking About Money – On a much more uplifting note, Stephanie writes a wonderful post about her progress over the past few years.  It’s truly wonderful to hear about someone else’s success, especially given how far Stephanie has come in that time frame.  Kudos to you, Stephanie; keep up the good financial progress, and you’ll have to change your blog’s name to ‘Richer than You’!

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I normally don’t post links to major financial news sites on my Thoughtful Thursday posts.  After all, part of the reason I do these posts is to draw attention to other small bloggers, or at least, to other personal finance bloggers.  After all, we bloggers have to stick together.

But occasionally, there are posts on mainstream sites that just impress me.  One such post was by Liz Pulliam Weston on the 100 most useful Web sites.  The sheer number of good sites on the list, used many of them to good effect in the past, but had not heard of many of them prior to reading this list, all meant that I just had to post this.  Plus, she did include several blogs on her list of useful sites, so I thought I should return the favor.  Perhaps if she keeps doing this, I’ll end up on the list as a worthwhile blogger (hey, everyone has to have goals).

Other worthwhile posts I’ve come across this past week:

Earning More Money of Optimizing Spending? – Over on Studenomics, the question was raised of whether you should focus on optimizing spending or taking a second job as the best method to increase your available money.  He recommends focusing on savings first, but I think that trying to earn more money has greater potential.  You can only cut your expenses so much, and hopefully you’re already living pretty frugally.

How Bad Credit is Always Bad – My Life ROI lists several areas where having a low credit score will hurt you, even if you aren’t applying for a loan or other form of credit.  It’s interesting, if a bit disturbing, to see just how many areas of your life rely on your credit score, from insurance companies to potential employers.  All the more reason to know your score, and do everything you can to increase it.

On Salaries: Why We Want More Money – This is a simple one: more money allows us to acquire more goods and services, which in turn makes us happier people inside.  But on the Writer’s Coin, we learn that a big influence on how happy or unhappy we are with our salary depends on how much we make relative to our coworkers and the other people in our lives.  If we are making a small salary, but it’s the highest of our friends, we’ll be happier than if we are making more money in a company where we are being paid the lowest relative amount.  It’s an interesting concept, although I think it can be taken too far (if you go to the extremes of ensuring you only date or hang out with people who make less money than you, for example).

Bad Stock Performance Raises Insurance Premiums – The title of this blog entry pretty much says it all, but the Weakonomist elaboarates the connection between the stock market and your insurance company.  Rather than holding all your premiums in a big vault until it needs to pay them out (a la Scrooge McDuck), the insurance company will invest your money, hoping to profit when the market rises.  But, given the recent downturn, they are getting hammered as badly as the rest of us.  To make up for the shortfall, there’s going to be an increase in premiums for many consumers this year.

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I just got the latest issue of Money Magazine (easily my favorite of the personal finance magazines, although Kiplinger’s is decent, as well), and it included the Money 100 list.  In it, they provide 100 money related factoids, in short, easily digestible segments.  It’s always an interesting read.  Some of the things I learned:

-The best questions to ask a charity, such as whether the IRS recognizes them as a charity and what percentage of the donations go to charitable works.  They also gave two resources, charitynavigator.org and guidestar.org, that should make finding a good charity easier.

-If you are going to get a private pension, it’s good to be a Pennsylvanian, as my home state does not tax pension income.  (Of course, if you still are getting a pension, you are one of the lucky ones, no matter where you live.)

-If you need alcohol to help you get through this downturn, some of the best, most cost-effective options are Smirnoff Vodka, Old Grand-Dad Bourbon, and Mount Gay Rum.  (And yes, they actually including this as the last three items on their list.

This is interesting stuff, and the list format makes it a quick read.  It will probably inspire a few posts after I’ve had time to look over the list in more detail.  But no time for that now; there are blog posts to inspire me:

Calculating the Per-Person Cost of the Bailout – Kevin of No Debt Plan breaks down the actual spending for the bailout, in hopes of debunking some emails claiming that it amounts to $75,000 to $300,000 per person in the United States.  Turns out, the real cost is probably much less per capita, although I doubt that will appease the Tea Party Protesters…

What Happened During the Great Depression – Philip of The Weakonomist provides a thumbnail sketch of just what happened during the Great Depression.  It’s useful if you want to avail yourself of historical facts when you hear people toss around terms like ‘the Next Great Depression’.  Furthermore, he also mentions several things that may have ended the Depression, including the New Deal, an influx of money from investors seeking safety in American gold, and World War II; I just hope we don’t need a massive, multi-continent conflict in order to get out of our current economic funk.

How to File the FAFSA Without Your Parents’ Information – Stephanie, who just so happens to be Poorer Than You, writes about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form and the changes made to it in 2008.  She emphasizes that you no longer need the information from one or both of your parents to fill out the FAFSA form, but there are limits to what aid you can get if you choose (or are forced into) this path.  Stephanie does a great job of laying out some of the options you have if you are in this situation, and I highly recommend it if you are a current or soon-to-be student.

Happy Tax Day & Some Fun Facts – Over on My Life ROI, we have a short history of taxes in the United States.  From the length of the tax code to the first time that illegal income was taxed, you can learn much more about the US tax system.  Plus, how many times can you see the words ‘happy’ and ‘fun’ along with ‘tax’ in a blog headline?

Want to Get Paid Like a Trader? – An interesting discussion about ‘pay for performance’ on The Writer’s Coin.  It’s an interesting concept, and it works in professions like trading securities where everyone’s progress is easily quantifiable.  But for many other professions, hard numbers are harder to come by, and the ones that exist may not be good measures of actual productivity. For example, when I was a QC tech, the figures of what proportion of samples passed our specs was readily available, while how hard I was working would have been much more difficult to pin down accurately.  But paying me according to how many samples passed the specifications or the purity of the anesthetic that we bottled would have given me an incentive to fudge the numbers to inprove my numbers and make more money.

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Every so often as I read through the blog entries from other PF bloggers, I come across something that touches me deeply.  One of the great things about blogging is that, as you get more comfortable with sharing your life online, you open more of your life to your readers, or, if I may sound a bit emotional for a moment, your friends.  Some of the things that other bloggers share just pull at my heartstrings.

Such are the sensations that I felt when I read Stephanie’s post on the one object she wants the most.  It seems she had a necklaced stolen from her four years ago.  The true value of the necklace was not the jewelry itself, but rather it what it represented: the necklace was a gift to her from her older sister.  When her sister got married, Stephanie was part of the wedding party, and the necklace was a gift to all the bridesmaids.  The value of the necklace to her is almost entirely sentimental.

Reading Stephanie’s comments about the necklace, I couldn’t help but be touched about her situation.  I have a few objects I feel strongly about, myself; sometimes, we imbue objects we own with such emotion and energy that it can hurt to lose them.  I wish her the best of luck in getting her necklace back.

Some of the other posts that made me stop and think this week:

10 Things I hate about Economists – One of the latest additions to my blog watchlist, the Weakonomist notes many of the flaws with economics.  A lot of his criticism seems to be well founded, since economics (as currently practiced) tends to be uniquely situated in our society, holding the ears of politicians, businessmen, and even scientists with their explanations and theories.  Which wouldn’t be so bad, if they had a better track record.

Emotions and Personal Finance Don’t Mix Well – Over on Studenomics (not Stud-o-nomics), there was an interesting discussion about how your emotions can cause you to make bad emotional decisions.  He gives an example of one of his friends who would bet on his favorite team regardless of their prospects, losing hundreds of dollars in the process (at least $100 of which found its way into Studenomic’s pocket).  The lesson is two-fold: betting on sporting events, especially based on your personal preferences and not actual performances, is a losing proposition, and mixing money and emotion generally doesn’t end well.

Glass Door, Know Your Worth – A post from My Life ROI about a website that allows you to see what other people earn at companies for which they used to work.   He also raised the interesting point that the common workplace practice of not asking your coworkers what they make only helps your HR department.  Certainly, a change in corporate culture would be for the best, but until then, Glassdoor.com makes an interesting site to help you figure out what you are worth.

Find Meaning in Your Money – Mr. ToughMoneyLove waxes about the need to reflect and renew during this Easter season.  I certainly agree; if we don’t have meaning in our pursuit of monetary gains, or our lives in general, all our success will be very hollow.  Have a wonderful spring financial cleaning, and get your money situation in order.

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We’re officially well into April 2nd, and that can mean only one thing: all the clever and timely April Fool’s jokes from yesterday are over.  Yes, you can come out of your whoopee cushion-proof bunkers and take off the banana peel resistant boots, the scourge of April Fool’s Day is behind us…until next year, that is.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much (even though I was pranked by a malicious malcontent yesterday), as I added to the festivities of the day with my own April Fool’s blog post.  (Although, to cover my rump, I made sure to have a readily visible disclaimer at the bottom of the page.)  But I’m hardly the only one to indulge my impish nature; here’s a list of every PF blog April Fool’s joke I’ve come across:

Obama Eases Treasury Costs with At-Home Money Printing Stimulus – Paul Michael on WiseBread reported on the new government initiative to get people to print out money on their computers.  It’d cut down the expense for the Treasury, who could then pass the savings on to you!  And don’t worry, there’s a link to an instruction manual if you need help.  (Or it could be a picture of Obama with a podium saying ‘An April Fool We Can Believe In’.)

The $1500 Frisbee – J.D. of Get Rich Slowly relayed a story that started back in his college days, of being won over by the offer of a Frisbee by a bank which then proceeded to charge him a monthly maintenance fee for the next 17 years.  He estimated it cost him more than $1500 compared to the ‘free checking’ bank offer he turned down (not counting interest or investment returns he could have gotten with that money).  Not really a funny article, but a stark reminder of how the little expenses in life can add up, and how we can all make silly mistakes while we’re young and still grow up to be incredibly popular personal finance bloggers.

Budgetting for a New House – Lazy Man and Money is making plans to buy a new house, and is smartly trying to save up enough to afford it.  The only catch is that he has his eye on the Spelling mansion, which is on the market for $150 million.  Even if he can haggle like a demon with the Realtor, I think it’s bit more than he can afford.

Why You Should Purchase GM Vehicle Now -  A stirring and inspiring, if tongue in cheek, call to arms by Mr. ToughMoneyLove himself.  It’s sad that the only way GM can get an endorsement is to wait for April Fool’s Day.

Chegg Introduces Text-A-Licious Textbooks – Stephanie at Poorer than You had one of the best April Fool’s posts I’ve seen, about edible textbooks (with digestible information, to boot).  I only wish the links provided actually worked, as I’m sure that they’d be interesting.

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When it rains, it pours, I suppose.  I wrote my article about serving on consistory at my church yesterday, where I stressed the need for volunteers and money in order to keep the church running, especially in light of the recent economic downturn. On the very same day, Wisebread put up an article by Catherine Schaffer about Nine Charities that Deserve Your Money.  And down at number 8, you have local churches and charities.  I suppose that great minds think alike.

Catherine’s proposition is simple: if we need to put more money into the economy (as just about every commentator says we should), our focus should be on the people who can really benefit from that money.  I agree completely; I’m going to look seriously into these charities, and see what I can do to help.  (Some, like Habitat for Humanity, might be better served with donations of time rather than money; luckily, I have more than a little bit of time on my hands.)

Some of the other thoughts I’ve mulling lately:

Writer’s Coin is at WiseBread – The title pretty much sums it up, but I’ll elaborate anyway: the blogger behind Writer’s Coin, WC Porter, is now publishing articles on the popular PF site, WiseBread.  (Yup, the same WiseBread from which I pulled the first article; it’s a big, popular PF website.)  Anyway, go and support him!

Buying a Dog Saved Me Money – My Life ROI makes some financial arguments for dog ownership, starting with exercise benefits and ending with security.  I don’t think his arguments are applicable for all dogs; trying using a tea cup poodle for security purposes, and you better hope the burglar laughs himself to death at Muffin’s yapping barks.  But his main points are valid; dogs and other pets have numerous advantages, most of which are not limited to finances.

Money May Satisfy But Does Not Bring Happiness – An interesting post by Mr. ToughMoneyLove, detailing a study noting the effects of increased income on happiness (the positive feeling, as measured moment to moment) and satisfaction (how fulfilled you feel in life overall).  The study noted that money was more closely correlated with satisfaction than with happiness.  One possible reason: lower income people had more leisure time.  My inferred conclusion: giving up a few hours of overtime to relax or otherwise do something for yourself might lower your satisfaction, but could make you happier.

What You Don’t Know About Renter’s Insurance – Stephanie of Poorer Than You covers some of the finer points of renter’s insurance.  I’ve never had to rent a place of my own (one of the positives of ‘boomeranging’ on my mother and living in her basement, I suppose), but when I do, I’ll be sure to look into renter’s insurance.  It sounds cheap, easy, and highly advantageous should something unfortunate occur (which is, of course, the whole reason to have insurance).

Paying Less for Prescriptions: Generics and Assistance – On a sadder note, we have a story about a woman who stopped taking her medications and ended up dying of a stroke.  Mrs. Micah then lists a few recommendations to avoid finding yourself in this sort of situation, including buying generics and signing up for a prescription drug plan.  Hopefully, we stop a repeat of this incident; some tragedies can be avoided.

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Woo Hoo! Good news everybody, I’ve had my first guest post published today. My Life ROI published a post I wrote, How to get Ahead of the Game, during his out of country vacation. It’s simply some advice for current high school students that I wish someone had told me ten years ago.

Of course, there are other financial columns out there that I didn’t write. They might not be as clever, witty, or entertaining as what you’re used to here, but they are still worth reading. Some of the more thought-provoking pieces I’ve read this week:

New Study on Emergency Fund Importance – Flexo on Consumerism Commentary was one of several commentators to note the recent study by the Consumer Federation of American. The primary conclusion of the study? That having an emergency fund leads to greater mental security. This is an excellent lesson to be reinforced, and does have an impact on how you should rank your financial priorities, in this case, favoring putting savings aside for a rainy day over paying down debts without a cushion, for example.

Protect Your Home from Bumping and Bump Keys – Clever Dude has posted a video taken from a local news channel about burgulars ‘bumping’ keys in locks to force open doors. An interesting video, and something to think about when shopping for locks. You have to stay ahead of the bad guys in the home security arms race.

Learning to Love Generics – Stephanie makes the point that genericfood stuffs will save you money and tend to be just as delicious as brand names. She also teases us with some delicious looking cookies but refuses to share them. Boo!

20 Free Online Finance Courses – A listing of different online sources of information from Generation X Finance. I’ll admit, I don’t usually follow this blog, but I’m always looking for more good sources of information. Which means this is a doubly useful post, letting me know about plenty good financial information online, as well as cluing me in to another good blogger.

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Alas, it seems that everywhere you turn, someone is trying to rip you off. With the recently passed stimulus bill, the scammers, conners, and other rip-off artists have a whole new avenue to abuse. Mrs. Micah reminds us all that the government is NOT going to be sending you a check. (This time around; maybe if we need yet another stimulus in a few months or so…) Be vigilante, be intelligent, and be careful; the best person to watch out for your money is YOU. (Or possibly your mom; but even she can’t watch out for you forever.)

Some of the other good posts I’ve seen in the past week:

How to File Your Taxes for a Recent Graduate – MyLifeROI writes about some of the basics of filing your taxes. He covers several different options, from filing yourself to using professional services, covering the good and bad about each. Personally, given my relatively simple financial situation and low funds, I opted for filing a paper return on my own, but if you have a more complex situation (investments, owning your own business, etc.) you should probably consider professional help.

College Money Tip #12: Free Stuff, Part I – Stephanie of Poorer than You notes several free services that available. She focuses on several budgeting tools, like mint and wesabe as well as some other useful sites. She also mentions NetworthIQ, which I’m particularly interested in (don’t be surprised if a little NetworthIQ icon shows up on the side of my blog; as you might be able to tell from my Saturday posts, I like to track how much money I have). Plus, the Part I indicates there will be a Part II coming soon.

I could have kept that $20 (Ethical Quandry) – We heard a story of CleverDude returning money to a confused couple. He raises an interesting ethical question, about what situations we attempt to return money lost by other people, and what lengths we go to do so. Personally, I respect him for making the effort to return the money; ethics are what you do when nobody is forcing you.

Save Money on Television – Lazy Man and Money gives some interesting suggestions on how to save money on your television. The first one I particularly liked, spending more money on your television to save money. Although it’s counter intuitive, if you can cut down on the expenses for other entertainment (like going out to the movies) by paying a bit more for television, you’ll ultimately save money.

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J.D. of Get Rich Slowly made me laugh by posting about cats as stock market analysts. Honestly, it’s one of the better (or at least, more entertaining) suggestions of how to reform Wall Street that I’ve heard lately. At the very least, it would make for more interesting shows on CNBC:

“Now, Mittens, if the Dow is going up, bat the rubber mouse; if it’s going down, pounce on the ball of yarn.”

But that’s not the only thing that made me think this week:

Young People in Debt – Studenomics writes about several of the societal forces that lead young people to get into debt, specifically credit card debt. He touched on convenience, media pressure, and the feeling many young people have that they need to reward themselves. I would add in some of the practices of the credit card companies (only requiring you to pay a tiny amount of the total debt each month) as a major contributing factor.

10 Things You Must Do After College – My Life ROI (a relatively new blogger, whom I have begun to follow) gives several useful actions you should take while you’re young, such as starting a Roth IRA, building your network, and start a rainy day fund. All very reasonable actions to take, and my only quibble is that you should be doing most of these things during college, if not before. If you’re old enough to hold a job and you haven’t started checking things off this list, what are you waiting for?

Three Financial Lessons Learned the Hard Way – The current market conditions are proving a harsh and brutal teacher, as Lazy Man and his wife are discovering. One big thing I took away from his story is the importance of establishing your risk tolerance well before investing, and being willing to follow it, even in bad times. It’s easy to say you’ll be able to handle a drop in your portfolio’s worth, but much harder to actually resist pulling out when it happens to you (as I can certainly attest).

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It’s that time of year again, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of… taxes. Yes, the only certain thing in life (besides death, of course) is the inevitable pinch of taxes, whether on our income, on our sales, or on our own heads (the per capita taxes). And almost as certain is attempts by tax payers to cut down on what they owe. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there for the diligent tax cutters; one particularly good example is that J.D. of Get Rich Slowly wrote a post about Bankrate’s 2009 Tax Guide.

There’s so much information there, it’s going to take a day or so just to get through it all. I usually just take the standard deduction when filing my taxes; since I live at home, don’t have my own business, and until last year, wasn’t doing any investing, there didn’t seem to be much I could do to get a bigger deduction. This year, though, I’m going to attempt to itemize, and see if that method will yield a higher refund.

Onto some other interesting links:

Real Estate: Asset or Liability? – Mighty Bargain Hunter takes a look at the difference between the financial community’s definition of an asset (something that is owned and has value) and Robert Kiyosaki’s recasting (as asset is something the brings in money).

My Thoughts: While both definitions are good points to keep in mind, attempts to redefine a word tend to lead to confusion. It’s better to think of Kiyosaki-style assets by a different name, like ‘passive income sources,’ and understand the mindset behind thinking of them as assets. Particularly during tax time, knowing what the IRS considers an asset is important, however much you might disagree with their definition.

Investing with Minimal Risk – Trent at The Simple Dollar answers a reader’s question about ways to invest without the chance of losing the investment (even if it means very low returns). He recommends investing in yourself and becoming self-sufficient, as well as putting your money in Treasury notes and high-yield savings accounts.

My Thoughts: I think it’s not generally a good idea to focus on capital preservation to such an extent that you give up all chance of growth; Treasury notes and high-yield accounts will barely be able to keep up with inflation. Still, better a steady hand with low yields than shooting for the moon and pulling out after your investments have decreased in value. I also recommended investing in a stable value or money market fund via a 401(k); if your company gives you a match on your contributions, it’s about the only safe way to get a 100% return on your money.

How to Save Money on Cell Phone Insurance – Cody Hebden writes a guest post on Queercents, relaying an interesting way to get around high-cost, high-deductible insurance plans on personal items like cell phones and laptops. The method involves taking out a “inland marine policy” for the replacement costs of the item, whether as a separate policy or as a rider on an existing home policy.

My Thoughts: It sounds like a really interesting, and frugal, method of cutting down on replacement costs for personal electronics. I’m going to look into it a bit more, though, as the math described seems to favor the policy holder way too much. (The complete cost of replacement insurance for a $400 iPhone? $35 a year; which enables you to be fully reimbursed should the iPhone be lost, damaged or stolen. I think one (or more) of these events is quite likely to happen within the 12 years it would take the insurer to recoup the expense of the replacement coss, so I’m a bit suspicious about these policies…)

How to earn an extra $1000 – Studenomics is currently taking a short vacation, but before he left, he wrote a post about how earned some money for the trip. His methods included dividends, blogging proceeds, selling some of your stuff on eBay and reselling tickets for popular events.

My Thoughts: It’s a good list, with plenty of useful suggestions (although, as mentioned by others in his comment section, you have to be careful and aware of local laws if you are trying to buy and resell tickets, as you may end up pegged for a scalper). Most require a significant amount of time to set-up, though, so you shouldn’t rely on them for money to make a last minute trip.

Top 6 Reasons High School Students Think You Should Invest – Jeff Ross of GoodFinancialCents lists reasons students gave for investing at a local high school . Most are forward thinking (retirement, college expenses), a few are more straight forward (making money) and at least one I hadn’t even considered (bragging rights; which are few and far between in this market).

My Thoughts: I’m impressed with some of the reasons that came up during Jeff’s talks with these kids, as well with the kids themselves for thinking about their future like this. (How many 17-year olds do you know who are thinking about retirement, even in passing?) I just wish I had more of this sort of financial exposure when I was a high-school student, so I could have gotten an earlier jump on controlling my money and planning for the future.

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One of the problems with being under-employed, besides the obvious problem of ‘not having a regular, full-time job’, is that you frequently wonder what’s next in your life. Do I look for another job? Do I go back to school for a master’s degree? Do I try to get into a professional program like medicine or pharmacy? The confusion is sometimes overwhelming.

Of course, there are other bloggers who engage in these sorts of soul-searching, and here’s a few of the blogs that have made me think lately:

What Next? by J.D. An excellent article about what to do when you’ve become financially sound and moved past the stage of your life where you are simply trying to apply the basics of finance advice (spend less than you earn, invest regularly, concentrate on the long term and use tax-advantaged retirement vehicles) and wonder, what do I do now? He notes that there isn’t much main-stream literature out there for this stage of your life, and is setting out to learn all he can (and share what he learns with us).

My Thoughts: Once you’ve gotten the basics of saving and investing down well enough that you no longer worry about your financial future, there are many possibilities for how you spend the rest of your life. These range from the traditional model of retirement (years of rest and relaxation) to philanthropic goals and giving to our children. With such a wide-range of possible goals, it’s hard to find appropriate advice on what is best for you. Good luck to J.D. in his quest to find out what’s next.

It’s Not My Fault… by Studenomics Considers a question that frequently arises when talking about finances and fiscal responsibility: are we responsible for our financial decisions, even if our parents didn’t teach how to budget and use money properly?

My Thoughts: Certainly your parents have an immense influence on your life, including your finances. But, ultimately, you are your own person, and can go above and beyond what your parents taught you, and learn and act for yourself. The sooner you can accept this fact, the easier it will be to take control of your own life.

I Will Not Be Able to Afford My Student Loans by Stephanie She’s facing larger than expected payments on her student loans, and is modifying her plans for her post-college life as a result.

My Thoughts: I really feel for Stephanie; currently, my only outstanding debt is my student loans, and making the necessary payments to pay down the debt is a persistent worry. The only plus is that Stephanie realized her financial situation before she found herself unable to meet all her needs; she is already making plans to accommodate her situation. Good luck, Stephanie!

How are we not frugal by Clever Dude One of the rarest of PF blog topics, an admission of how he is not always the most frugal person in his life. Includes such examples as keeping his thermostat at 72, eating out regularly, and getting his and his wife’s work clothes dry cleaned frequently.

My Thoughts: It’s always nice to get proof that PF bloggers are real people, too. Everyone has ways in which they’re not fully thrifty; the key is to limit your indulgences, and be sure to stay on track with the rest of your savings.

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