No Debt Plan

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The Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted by Alpha Consumer at US News and World Report. That’s huge! US News and World Report is a PR8, and the Alpha Consumer blog is a PR6. My post was included, so hopefully that’s a good thing!

The Carnival of Debt Reduction was also hosted at Rocket Finance. Check it out!

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, the NCAA Tournament brackets have been announced, my wife’s parents are in town… a busy weekend! Here are some posts that I’ve found interesting over the last week or so.

PFBloggers.com:

• The Social Marginal has reached a huge savings goal — $20,000 in discretionary spending saved up. Wow!
• Pinching Copper wrote an open letter to Ben Bernanke… which I agree with to a point.
• Wide Open Wallet does her budget the exact same way my wife and I do. Glad we’re not alone.

Elsewhere:

Being Frugal is hosting this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

Ask Mr. Credit Card is hosting this week’s Carnival of Debt Reduction.

I had two posts included in the above carnivals, so check it out!

Jonathan at Awake at the Wheel blogs while walking on his treadmill for 4 hours per day. This is simply the best thing I have ever read. What a great idea, although I’m not sure I could pull it off!

There’s an article over on earthweb arguing we should globalize time. I personally hate day light savings time. What do you think?

Gather Little by Little replaced his wife’s engagement ring with one he purchased online. It turned out well. I bought all of our rings online as well, through BlueNile. A fantastic experience and much less expensive than a brick and mortar jeweler.

Cash Money Life asks how to spend a bonus check.

The Carnival of Personal Finance is back over at Four Pillars. This time it’s the Canadian edition, eh! My post about the lottery was included this time around.

I’m still waiting on the Carnival of Debt Reduction to be posted to link you to that.

Happy Monday!

Update: I missed that the Carnival of Debt Reduction was posted… it got caught my spam filter. But it is up!

Every Monday leaves us with a list of interesting posts from throughout the week to enjoy. This week the Carnival of Debt Reduction is being hosted by No Credit Needed. The first step in the No Debt Plan was included in the list of posts.

Also, the Carnival of Personal Finance is up over at The Baglady.

BrokeGradStudent has posted the latest edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. It’s title The College Years. BGS did a great job with the theme, I really enjoyed it. And thanks to BrokeGradStudent for including my post The Savings Snowball.

Here are some posts I especially enjoyed:

• MyTwoDollars tells us about his sources of alternative income. Some of them are specific to MTD, but there are a few in there you can try.
• The Financial Blogger shares The Trap of Working Harder. Makes an excellent point. We work harder to buy more stuff, and we usually buy it with debt which makes us have to work even harder after that. We end up exhausted with nothing but a house full of stuff to show for it.
• Two Wise Acres talks about remodeling a kitchen on a $4,000 budget. Obviously someone is investing in real estate. I’ll definitely be back to see this one as that is something I am personally interested in.
• Money Crashers advises everyone that is renting to get renters insurance. I had coverage in college for a whopping $12 per month. I could have purchased everything I owned one and a half times over on the coverage, too.
• A Penny Closer donated $728 worth of stuff. Less clutter is great. I got excited about a link to something called It’s Deductible that tells you how much your stuff is worth (and of course if it is deductible). Unfortunately it looks to be a TurboTax customer thing. Oh well.
• The Digerati Life asks us how we got involved in personal finance. My parents gave me a subscription to Money magazine in college. I saw the numbers and said to myself, “Wow, I need to learn more about this.” The rest is history. Thanks Mom and Dad!
• Badlady talks about entering a lot of sweepstakes. If you are careful and don’t mind giving out some personal information, it can turn out well.
• MoneyCrashers talks about budgeting on an irregular income. The first step listed is crucial, and we do it too. I am on base plus commission.

That’s it for now. Check out the Carnival for all of the posts.

The Carnival is back, this time over at My Dollar Plan. My post outlining Pre-Step #1 for the No Debt Plan was included. (Thanks!)

There are a bunch of great articles this time around… too many to list. Nonetheless, here are some I enjoyed:

• Millionaire Money Habits gives us 8 Habits of Millionaires. I especially like #1 - Earn to Invest, Not Earn to Spend.
• Chief Family Officer tried the cash-only lifestyle and it lasted two days. They are back to using their credit card and paying it off every month. A big thumbs up from me on this. We do the exact same thing. Thank you, Mr. Cash Back from AMEX!
• College of Cash doesn’t “do” Valentine’s Day. Hey, neither do we!
• Liberty and the Pursuit of Money talks about The Smartest Guys in the Room.
• Graceful Retirement canceled her life insurance, and it looks like a smart move (gasp!).
• Greener Pastures tells about her Life on a Spreadsheet. Seriously, I could have written this article. I love Excel. My wife makes fun of me sometimes, too. I budgeted our wedding in Excel, and use it for our budget.
• Smart Money Daily offers up ideas on buying foreclosed homes.
• Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck points out that even ‘reputable’ stock tips can be dangerous. I’ll say! I have thought in the past that I would start tracking all of the recommendations major magazines make on specific stocks. Sit and wait one, three, and five years and see what happens. It could be fun, but man that is a lot of work…
• Dog Ate My Finances talks about leaving the 9-5 for freelancing. In the long run this is something I would love to do, even if it were just writing this blog.
• My Wealth Builder gives us an update on retiring in his 40’s! Incredible. Big thumbs up here.

The Dividend Guy has put up the 137th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. Check it out! One of my posts made the cut, and I’ll throw up some other quality ones I come across when I get a minute today.

Some posts I found interesting:

• ChristianPF talks about getting textbooks for free or nearly free. I do this exact thing with my MBA textbooks. The books usually end up costing me $10-20 due to Amazon taking a cut of the selling price, and shipping costs.
• SearchLightCrusade goes into amazing detail about refinancing costs. A really impressive post from someone within the industry.
• Green Panda Treehouse discusses how they manage their money. I recently shared how we manage our money, too. I think it is interesting to see how different people manage it in different ways.
• Gather Little by Little shares this — Improve Your Finances: Direction not Perfection.
• Money Management and You talks about how to save money without really budgeting. He says budgeting doesn’t work; I completely disagree. However, whatever can be done to get you started on saving is important so that’s why I am linking it. Budgeting is not rocket science, in my opinion.