The Money Writers

Last week I mentioned how I furnished much of my kitchen with purchases from Amazon’s Friday Sale. There are some good deals, bad deals, and just wacky products out there. Today, I’m going to go through and point some of them out.

Best Value: Hand Crank Radio - This made my list of items you should have in seven things you must do before an emergency.
Men’s Underwear - Cue up Sisqó! I’m including this only because I get a tiny, tiny portion of the sales for my picture on every box.
Amazon Reads Lazy Man - Last week Amazon [...]

May 2008 Personal Finance Site Rankings
Included are blogs that meet the following criteria:

Personal finance related material
Minimum subscriber count of 200
Publicly displayed feed count and source

Sites are ranked as of Feedburner subscriber count on May 23, 2008. The feed displays will monitor the current counts each day. The ranking will remain static using the May [...]

Buying cheap plane tickets can start your vacation budget off on the right foot.  An airline flight is often one of the first things you spend money for on your vacation so spending less on plane tickets will leave you more cash for the rest of your trip!
One of the most important things to consider about [...]

I’ve started entering carnivals again with a vengeance, and I’ve noticed that there isn’t really a carnival that addresses careers (or lack thereof). The Carnival of Personal Finance does include a category for careers, but it’s aimed more at the financial aspects of careers. I am not trying to compete; my thinking was [...]

Overbought Oil
The Globe and Mail reports that oil supplies are rising but oil prices aren’t correcting. Are we in for a big time oil price correction in the near future? Seems that something has to give. If you are a contrarian and willing to bet against the oil bull, the Proshares Ultrashort [...]

I found a little time during this incredibly busy week to peruse the Carnival of Personal Finance #153, the Q & A Edition over at Money and Values. And from the humongous list that always comes out of the carnival, I found a few articles that I’d like to bring to your attention:

7 Personal Finance [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
RevolutionMoneyExchange’s $25 sign up bonus promotion was supposed to end on May 15, 2008, but it looks like the offer is still alive.
Yesterday, a reader emailed asking for a referral link so he can get an additional $5 bonus. I emailed back with the link and later asked the [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services recently launched a website, Hospital Compare, that allows patients to compare measures of quality of care of more than 2500 hospitals nationwide. The website, which was created by the joint effort of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services of DHHS and [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Finovate Start-up to learn whatever I could from various financial company start-ups and report back to you. I hoped to find three or four gems in the 40 companies that presented. One of the companies that I was least interested in was Zopa. In the UK, Zopa is a very successful peer-to-peer lending company. This lead to their widely anticipated US release. When the product was introduced, critics universally panned the service. For the investor, Zopa is basically a CD - you get a guaranteed fixed [...]

It’s time for Step 4 in the series! I like this step because you are truly aligning where your money goes to your values. Nothing feels better than putting your money towards your true desires.
Previous Steps:

Step 1: Brainstorming
Step 2: Assigning Numerical Values
Step 3: Calculating Total Cost

Step 4: Reflecting on priorities and values.
Reflect. Once you [...]

About a month ago, before I started problogging, I was walking in midtown Manhattan when I saw a strange sight: a young woman walking down the street singing at the top of her lungs. She was not particularly striking, but she looked about the same as most of the current pop stars if [...]

One of my older posts regarding the Manulife One Mortgage is still generating a lot of discussion. Basically it’s a battle between the convenience of having all your banking and debt under one account vs. the extra premium that you pay for the privilege.
To quickly summarize the Manulife One mortgage, it’s a giant HELOC [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
I have been considering getting a new online savings account with a better rate for quite a while. The banks I am using right now (IGoBanking and FNBO Direct) are OK, but their rates are not as competitive as they used to be. After looking around and evaluating potential [...]

Want to be a landlord? Here are some points to consider.

While many people may understand one side of the rental property business because they have been tenants, there is another perspective that may be of interest to those who have a little extra cash that they’d like to use to turn into a profit. [...]

I was working with an older gentleman who was going to be turning 68 this year, and begin working next month, so he came to me with questions about enrolling in the 401k plan. He was curious as to what the contribution limits were, investment choices, and so on. So, I explained how the plan [...]

Identity theft protection is no longer just a matter of buying a document shredder and keeping track of your receipts. Identity fraud evolves every day and according to security experts, net-savvy thieves are getting more efficient about blending their illegal activity on the ground and online. Here are some examples from Identity Theft Resource Center [...]

Credit Addict asked me to share my thoughts in six words. Wow, six words?
Kids & Family. Life & Happiness. Goals & Money.
In that order (and no, the & signs don’t count!) While I write about money like it’s the answer, it’s not my top priority. Here’s who I’m calling on next to share their [...]

Nearly two months ago, I mentioned that Expensr and NetworthIQ (now Money Strands) had invited some personal finance bloggers to talk about personal finance software. I learned quite a few things, but one thing stood out to me. When you have 20 people in a room, you are going to get 20 different ideas on how the ideal software should work. Here are some examples (my memory may have faded slightly since then, so I apologize if I misquote a few people):

J.D. from Get Rich Slowly wanted more control of categorizing his expenses - the ability to [...]

From Wikipedia:
The Cambrian explosion was the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals around 530 million years ago, as evidenced by the fossil record. This was accompanied by a major diversification of other organisms. Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organised into colonies. [...]

Ever have a conversation with someone and have to use every ounce of energy not to speak your mind?
I was having a candid money chat with a (have all the answers) friend of mine about having some savings on hand in case of the worst happening.
He looked at me with a puzzled face and replied [...]

I was getting ready to head to the cafeteria for lunch the other day, and before heading down with a co-worker I stopped to open up my wallet and rearrange my cash. He looked at me a bit puzzled and asked what I was doing. I didn’t think anything of it, but just told him [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
I started my own Zecco referral bonus sharing program back in December 2007 when Zecco relaunched its Zecco Friend program. At the beginning, it was actually pretty good. I sent new customers to Zecco and got a $50 bonus for each new customer shortly after they opened and funded [...]

According to some estimates, every household, on average, wastes 15% of its income (if you make $4,000 a month, this amounts to $600). This wasted money disappears into needless things that do not offer any real and lasting value. Things like lattes and money for useless knick-knacks that do nothing more than gather dust. Impulse [...]

One way to cope with rising gas prices is to try and talk your boss into giving you a raise.  Of course that may be easier said than done considering the poor state of the economy.  Many people are glad to have jobs in the first place, let alone start haggling for a higher salary.  [...]

I wrote this post for The Giving Hands a few months ago. I really liked writing it since I care deeply (although I have a long way to go in implementing my concern) about the environment and I don’t write much about it at brip blap. People took issue with my point about [...]