Carnival of Money Stories Edition #92

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My favorite blog carnival is the Carnival of Money Stories.  Everyone loves a great story and I love reading the different stories people have about their money situations.  Some are sad, some make me a bit angry, some make me feel a little better about the “dumb decisions” I’ve made in the past, and most just give you hope.  Regardless of the the money story, they really put the “personal” in personal finance.

Once again, I have the honor of hosting the Carnival of Money Stories and specifically edition #92.  I a total of 45 entries and the 23 that made the cut are included below.  Most of the articles were great reads, but weren’t money stories.  I selected articles for inclusion based on whether they told a personal story or not.

There are some really great articles included below.  I read each and every one of them.  I’d highly recommend you spend some time over the next week reading through them.  If you see something you particularly like, take a few minutes to add a comment to the authors blog and/or submit the article to your social media network of choice to share it with others.

If your article is included below, make sure you don’t forget to link back to the carnival!  Thanks to everyone that submitted and for supporting such a great carnival.

Editor’s Pick

Trisha from Empowering Mom submitted a top notch excellent article called: Are You Waiting For Your Ship to Come in? This was by far the best article submitted this week and I’d encourage everyone to read it.

The article a wonderful reminder that life is short, often shorter than we might expect it to be.  The article is very well written, and deeply personal.  It’s  wonderful reminder that we should really think through putting off our dreams and desires until tomorrow or later, as tomorrow or later may not come.

Other great articles

Patrick @ Cash Money Life presents MacBook Vs. PC: Why I Chose PC posted at Cash Money Life.

Green Panda presents Our Financial Goals For 2009 posted at Green Panda Treehouse.

Ben presents New Years Action Plan posted at Money Smart Life.

Skyler Reep presents 30 Days for 30 Dollars Manifesto posted at 30 Days for 30 Dollars.

vh presents Making less…less posted at Funny about Money.

Isaac Yassar presents 2 Requirements Of Definite Success posted at Isaac Yassar’s Overture.

Raymond presents My 2009 Stock Market and Real Estate Predictions posted at Money Blue Book.

FMF presents Don’t Let Shipping Fees Sour a Good Deal posted at Free Money Finance.

Jeff Rose presents Client’s Personal Story on Long Term Care Insurance posted at Jeff Rose of Good Financial Cents.

Jim presents Total Cost of Owning A Dog posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

pfincome presents Personal Finance Goals (2009) - version 1 posted at Passive Family Income.

J. Money presents How we’re putting the Mrs. through grad school! (so far so sexy) posted at Budgets are Sexy..

Mary@SimplyForties presents Rooms to Let, Fifty Cents posted at SimplyForties.

Mr.CC presents My Letter To American Express posted at Ask Mr Credit Card’s Blog.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Debt Elimination Tips: How To Reduce Debt With These Dos and Don’ts posted at The Digerati Life.

Ryan Suenaga presents What Counts as an Emergency? posted at Uncommon Cents.

Sun presents How To Become A Millionaire: Actually It Is Quite Easy posted at Earn More and Invest Wisely at The Sun’s Financial Diary.

MoneyNing presents Do You Switch “Frugal Mode” On When You Come Back from Vacation? posted at Personal Finance Blog by Money Ning.

Super Saver presents Financial Shuffling posted at My Wealth Builder.

Amanda presents My 25% Grocery Savings Rule In Action-Part 2-Planning and Resources | Value For Your Life posted at Value For Your Life.

FIRE Finance presents Rule of Thumb for Investing posted at FIRE Finance.

Steven Lohrenz presents Expertise Equals Income posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Photo by: Sugar Pond

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Deals of the day sites

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Like most of you, I love finding great deals.  I’ve been a fan of Woot for a good two years and have bought a number of items from Woot.

Deals of the day sites like Woot that feature a single item for an incredibly low price really offer a significant and easy way to save some considerable cash.  For example, I bought my wife a Pentax digital camera that Woot had on sale a week or so before Christmas.  Using Woot, I saved myself more than $40.00.

Since I enjoy Woot so much, I figured their must be similar sites, so I recently started looking around for similar sites and here is what I found (along with some help from a few followers on twitter):

Deals of the day sites

Deals of the day all on one site

Want to see all of the Deals of the Day (DOD) deals on one aggregated site?  No problem, check these out:

Did I miss any?  Have a favorite deal of the day site I missed?  Have some feedback on the ones I’ve listed?  Add a comment!

Photo by: lou2ser

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The Friday Gathering - 2009 New Year Edition

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I have to be honest, I’m not a big fan of the whole “new year” concept.  To me January 1st is just another day, no different than December 31st or any other day of the year.  I realize many people consider this to be a fresh start and a time to re-energize themselves, set new resolutions and start with a clean slate.  Call me a curmudgeon, but you can do this on any day, it certainly doesn’t have occur on the first day of some man-made time schedule.

I recently posted the following on twitter:

Tweet #1: Call me a party-pooper, but I just don’t get this new years thing. just another day,no different than any other day…ok,except that I’m off

Tweet #2: I don’t get new years resolutions either. Why wait until the new year? Start immediately. No time like the present

I received a number of replies to this, some agreeing some disagreeing, but I think the best reply was from sforzley who replied:

Ah because NY resolutions give you a fake perception (and perception is reality right?) of resetting and forgetting what happened.

What are your thoughts?

The one thing I DID start on the new year was a new budget.  Over the past couple of months I really fell off the wagon on updating and managing like I should have.  So I spent about 3-4 hours yesterdays updating my budget spreadsheet and I’ll begin updating it daily.  Just to be clear, I didn’t do this due to the new year, but just wanted to start it the first day of the month after Christmas.

Follow me on Twitter

By the way, this is just one of the many different discussions that I have on Twitter with the people I follow and who follow me. I’ve really recently become huge fan of Twitter and find that I get news, updates, great links and great discussion from twitter. Interested? Then follow me, I’ve updated more than 1,000 times and update often throughout the day. I post links to articles I like, what’s going on in my day and offer my thoughts to other people’s tweets as well.

The Gathering

Here are my favorite articles from my blogroll and the M-Network over the past week:

Photo by: mugley

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