The Amateur Financier

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day here in United States.  It’s hard to say anything that can truly do justice to those who are willing to put themselves at risk, willingly risking life and limb in order to ensure that the rest of us can live in peace in freedom.  Thank you doesn’t even begin to come close, but I hope my sincere thanks prove a good start.  To all the veterans out there (including both my parents), I hope you had a wonderful day.  To everyone else, I hope you told any veterans you know just how much you appreciate all they have done.

Alright, now onto the fun stuff: good articles from talented money bloggers around the internet:

Good Blog Articles Last Week

A Weak US Dollar Doesn’t Matter, Folks! – You’ll occasionally hear horror stories about what a weakening dollar will mean to the United States, including higher prices for foreign-made goods and more foreign ownership of US assets.  The Financial Samurai points out that there are advantages to a falling dollar, as well, including making our own exports less expensive.  I don’t claim to know whether the pros of a weakening dollar will outweigh the cons or not, but getting into a panic about it is definitely not the right course of action.

Why College is the Best Time to Start a Business – If you have the inclination to start your own business, why not do it during the downtime you have between classes (and hopefully, studying)?  That’s the plan presented over on Studenomics, which makes plenty of sense to me.  Had I started this blog during my college years, I could have had much more time to work on it than I do now (to say nothing of the how many more years of articles I would have built up, but that’s a different story.

How Not to Invest for Retirement – A great many people (too many, in fact) pulled their money out of the market when things were looking their worst last year, and have only been investing again now that the market is picking up.  Generation Y Investor shares the story of one such couple, and provides some solid advice for how you can avoid their plight.  In general, don’t try to time the market (especially if the market has already crashed or boomed before you can make your move).

9 Weekend Projects That Will Save You Money – There’s usually more that you can do to make your house more energy and water efficient, which in turn will save you money on your utilities.  A good list of way to start is provided by My Life ROI, who gives us nine projects that you can attempt when you have some spare time on the weekend.  I’m not particularly handy, but even I think I can handle most of his suggested projects.

Best Ways to Invest Small Amounts of Money – Chances are, you’ve found yourself with a chunk of money at some point that you wanted to put to work for you.  Some good ways to do so are listed by Silicon Valley Blogger on the Digerati Life; I’m particularly fond of her suggestion to start your own small business.  One of the more exciting (and profitable) things I’ve done with my spare time this year has been to start this blog.

That’s it for this week; just a reminder to all my fellow whippersnappers that I’m going to be hosting the Carnival of Twenty-Something Finances again this Monday, so be sure to get all your entries in!

• Weekly Thoughts: Christmastime is Here!
• Weekly Thoughts: Competition Time!
• Book Review: Start Over, Finish Rich

• Please don't pay for bi-weekly mortgage acceleration
• Weekend Personal Finance Review
• Revealed- The truth about article marketing for building an on line business