Carnival of Financial Planning – Edition #95 – June 27, 2009

Best Personal Financial Planning and Personal Investment Articles this Week from Personal Finance Blogs

Welcome to the June 27, 2009 Edition #95 of the Carnival of Financial Planning.

The Carnival of Financial Planning takes a long-term view of personal financial planning for individuals and families. We focus on efficient and sustainable personal financial planning practices that can lead to lifetime financial security.

This edition is arranged by subject heading, so that you can browse efficiently.

Enjoy!

The Skilled Investor, Editor

Budgeting

• Dorian Wales presents The Personal Financier: Personal Finance Management: Budget vs. Net Worth posted at The Personal Financier, saying, “While it may be recommended to manage both a budget and net-worth sometimes focus leads to better results.”
• Patrick @ Cash Money Life presents Free Online Money Management Tools posted at Cash Money Life, saying, “Here are the best free online money management tools, including Mint, Quicken Online, Yodlee, and others.”
• d. ninja presents Oh how I love to find a bargain! posted at Punch Debt In The Face, saying, “Who doesn’t like to get a good deal? I mean honestly, seeing something that you want, especially at a ridiculously marked off price, brings out my inner finance geek. I feel warm fuzzies inside and can sleep peacefully knowing I got a great deal.”
• Susan Saverton presents Living Expense Tracking Methods posted at Family Financial Planner, saying, “If you do not understand how much you spend and how much you are saving and investing, you simply do not have a financial plan. This situation dramatically increases your family’s long-term financial risk.”
• 2 Pennies Earned presents The Cost of Pet Ownership: Adding Two New Kittens to Our Home posted at Two Pennies Earned, saying, “Amy Fontinelle weighs the short- and long-term costs of adopting a pet in The Cost of Pet Ownership: Adding Two New Kittens to Our Home.”

Economics

• Dorian Wales presents On Causality and Correlation in Economics posted at The Personal Financier, saying, “Causality is perhaps the most fundamental element of empirical evidence available to economists. However, it is also the source of many misconceptions due to its elusive nature.”
• Zach Scheidt presents Healthcare “Discussion Draft” Raises More Questions than Answers posted at ZachStocks, saying, “A new proposed healthcare plan would provide medical coverage for 95% of Americans. However, details on how the government will pay for this coverage is unclear.”

Estate Planning

• Tushar Mathur presents Getting finances in order posted at Everything Finance, saying, “Keeping organized records is a gift to your family and to yourself. It helps ensure that your wishes are followed, that your assets are accounted for, and that your money is available to meet your family’s needs in a timely fashion.”

Financial Planning

• Big Cajun Man presents Mid-Year Personal Finance Check Up posted at Canadian Personal Finance Blog, saying, “Mid year is a good time to go over your plan for the year to see how well you are doing, so do it now!”
• Patrick @ Cash Money Life presents Do You Need Long Term Care Insurance? posted at Cash Money Life, saying, “Do you need long term care insurance? When should you but it and how much should you get?”
• Susan Saverton presents Efficiency of Personal Investing Strategies posted at Family Financial Planning, saying, “When pursuing optimal financial planning and investing strategies and controlling your costs and capital gains taxes, you also need to establish a time-efficient system to monitor, adjust, and adhere to your financial plan. You need to control and limit the time that you spend on your financial planning, and you need to focus your planning efforts on the most effective activities.”
• Silicon Valley Blogger presents What’s The Best Savings Account? posted at The Digerati Life, saying, “Thanks!”
• Shadox presents Gambling Your Finances posted at Money and Such, saying, “This article is about all the risks we are each taking with our finances without realizing this, or sometimes knowingly ignoring the potential cost of the gamble.”
• KCLau presents Why Robert T. Kiyosaki is a best-selling author? posted at KCLau’s Money Tips, saying, “Robert T. Kiyosaki is the best personal finance author I follow. I started reading his books back in 1999. Although some reviews you found written by readers on Amazon say that he keeps repeating most of the points, I still find them interesting every time. It works as a revision whenever he repeats.”
• Rohit presents A complete guide to emergency funds – Part 2 | eMoneyLog posted at eMoneyLog, saying, “Emergency funds are the need of the hour. In this post I discuss how to get started? How to invest your emergency fund? What are the common pitfalls of emergency fund and how to avoid them?”
• Save Money presents Save Money By Increasing Your FSA Contributions posted at How I Save Money.net.

Financing a Home

• Brian McKay presents Compare Mortgage Types When Shopping for a Mortgage posted at MonitorBankRates.com, saying, “The type of mortgage you get is just as important as the mortgage rate you pay. There are several types of mortgage available these days, some mortgages are riskier than others.”
• Alex Fotopoulos presents When is it Smart to Refinance a Mortgage? posted at My Trader’s Journal, saying, “Some key points to consider when refinancing your home.”

Financing Education

• Patrick @ Military Money presents Tax Advantages of 529 Plans posted at Military Finance Network, saying, “Tax advantages for the 529 College Savings plan.”

Income

• FMF presents How to Market Yourself into a Job posted at Free Money Finance, saying, “A key part of managing your career is marketing yourself correctly.”
• Praveen presents Easy Ways to Generate Cash posted at My Simple Trading System, saying, “Easy ways to generate extra cash”
• FMF presents The Most Useful Thing Students Can Do to Prepare for the Job Market posted at Free Money Finance, saying, “The one things students should do to prepare themselves for the job market.”

Investing

• Dan at Everydayfinance presents Natural Gas Anomaly – Time to Exploit? posted at Everyday Finance, saying, “This article highlights a strange phenomena brewing in a natural gas which may be ripe for exploitation.”
• Darwin presents Stockpicker Investing is Gambling Says Vanguard Icon posted at Darwin’s Finance, saying, “This article takes on Vanguard founder John Bogle’s assertion that buying individual stocks is the same as gambling.”
• ABC presents Investment Time Horizons for Retirees posted at ABCs of Investing, saying, “Discussing investment asset allocations and time horizons for retirees.”
• The Smarter Wallet presents Use Candlestick Charts, Trading Signals To Evaluate The Stock Market posted at The Smarter Wallet, saying, “Thanks!”
• Barry presents Buy Gold To Keep Up With Inflation posted at Jeflin’s Investment Blog.
• Mike Pastore presents How to Make Money in Our NEW Economy posted at Mikes Millions.com.
• Dividends4Life presents Manulife Financial Corp. (MFC) Under Investigation posted at Dividends Value, saying, “Have you ever read something then paused and said well that’s stating the obvious? Then upon further reflection realize what is obvious to you may not be obvious to others. This happened to me recently as I was scanning some retirement headlines.”
• TIE presents What Is Market Timing? posted at The Incidental Economist, saying, “Exploration of the meaning of market timing.”
• MoneyNing presents Turbocharge Your Savings with Certificate of Deposits (CDs) posted at Money Ning, saying, “Certificate of Deposits are boring but it’s a guaranteed way of capital preservation!”
• Larry Russell presents 7 Ways to Pick the Best Investments posted at NoLoad Mutual Funds, saying, “Taken as a whole, the vast body of investment research studies show that there really are better approaches to buying and owning certain investments. You do not need to frantically chase their performance. Performance chasing simply does not work.”
• Super Saver presents My Plans for the Stock Market Pullback posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, “At this point, I don’t expect a correction to take out the March 9, 2009 lows. However, I will hold back at least 25% of my funds, in the case the market does dip lower”
• Four Pillars presents Asset Allocation – Include Future Contributions? posted at Quest For Four Pillars, saying, “Can a small investor ignore asset allocation?”
• The Smarter Wallet presents Use Candlestick Charts, Trading Signals To Evaluate The Stock Market posted at The Smarter Wallet, saying, “We look into how to use candlestick charts to analyze the stock market.”
• Craig Ford presents Five Things Everyone Should Know About Investing posted at Money Help For Christians, saying, “In a simplistic way this article presents five things every investor should know.”
• KCLau presents What is the best investment? posted at KCLau’s Money Tips, saying, “The best investment comes in many forms. I was frequently asked this same question over and over again. Let’s see how some successful people answer the same question”
• Dividends4Life presents Wal-Mart Has Gone Shopping posted at Dividends Value, saying, “What do you do when the economy tanks and the stock market follows suit, but you are still generating a lot of cash? Many people would look for bargains in the market. Wal-Mart (WMT) has done just that.”
• FMF presents The Best Way to Maximize Your Investment Return posted at Free Money Finance, saying, “Between rate of return, amount invested, and time invested, what is the one factor that most influences your total investment return? The answer and how much it determines your success will surprise you.”
• ABC presents Should I Invest In Dividend Stocks (and what are they?) posted at ABCs of Investing, saying, “An explanation of dividend stocks and why you might want to invest in them.”
• Four Pillars presents Transfer In Kind posted at ABCs of Investing, saying, “An explanation of transfering your investments “in kind”.”
• Tom Escent presents Introduction to Nerds on Wall Street posted at Quantitative Finance, saying, “Think of this book as sort of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to Wired Markets. There are no robots parking cars for six million years, but there are robots trading millions of shares in six milliseconds, so maybe that’s close enough.”
• Investing School presents Passive Investing Convert posted at Investing School, saying, “Passive investing is really wearing on me!”

Managing Debt

• Super Saver presents We’ve Achieved Zero Debt posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, “We paid off our mortgage and became 100% debt free.”
• kathryn presents Major Banks? Debt Relief Hotlines Revealed! posted at Out of Debt Christian, saying, “To help you make your loans more affordable, we tracked down the direct contact information for the loan modification departments at major U.S. banks”
• Tushar Mathur presents When It Pays To Use Cash For Purchases posted at Everything Finance, saying, “For years there have been many consumers who have charged through life (pun intended) putting any and all expenses on their trusty credit card. Roughly half of those consumers managed their accounts responsibly and benefited from the many perks associated with using their credit card and paying the balance in full each month. The other half….well many of those people are dealing with the fall out from the economy and struggling with high levels of debt.”
• RateNerd presents 10 Things You May Not Know About Your Credit Card posted at Rate Nerd, saying, “Unknown to most of us, the credit cards in our wallets offer hidden benefits and secret perks that you may not be aware of, which go well beyond frequent flyer miles. Some special offers are listed in the fine print of your credit card agreement, and many others aren’t public knowledge at all. These insider special offers are only available to customers who know exactly what to ask for and how to negotiate.”
• jim presents How Debt Settlement Works posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Miscellaneous

• Ray @ Financial Highway presents Bad Credit Loans-Tips on How to Spot Scams posted at Financial Highway, saying, “Tips on how to spot loan scams.”
• Home Life Weekly presents Prevent Identity Theft in 14 Easy Ways posted at Home Life Weekly, saying, “The need to prevent identity theft is something you think only happens to other people. As we know identity theft is a fast growing crime, here are 14 ways to prevent identity theft and protect you identity.”

Retirement Planning

• Super Saver presents Planning to Retire Later also has Risks posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, “The option to continue working is no longer easily controlled by the employee.”
• Nesher presents Why financial planning for retirement is important posted at Planning your Retirement Smart Way.

Risk Management and Insurance

• Chris McClelland presents Life settlement scams could lead to another subprime fiasco. posted at Lucrative Investing.

Savings

• MoneyNing presents How to Save Money Every Month posted at Money Ning, saying, “Recurring expenses really add up. Here are a whole bunch of ways to save money, month after month after month.”
• Barry presents Save Money By Reducing Waste posted at Associate Money.
• The Skilled Investor presents Most Individual Investors Are Poor Personal Portfolio Managers | Personal Investment Management posted at Personal Investment Manager, saying, “Investors more easily understand investment costs that are directly measurable, such as fees deducted on investment statements. However, many investors ignore or are unaware of the opportunity costs of their sub-optimal investment behaviors. Opportunity costs are usually much more difficult to measure directly, but these investment costs can be even higher than more visible investment fees.”

Taxes

• Patrick @ Military Money presents Disabled Veterans to Receive $250 Stimulus Checks posted at Military Finance Network, saying, “Information about who receives the $250 economic recovery check (or stimulus check), including retirees, social security recipients, railroad retirees, and disabled veterans.”
• MoneyNing presents Let Businesses Deal with Sales Tax – Government Improvement Series posted at Money Ning, saying, “Government really needs to improve on somethigs and I say to let businesses deal with sales taxes!”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Financial Planning using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Carnivals

• TMM Carnival
• Festival of Stocks
• Bankruptcy and Debt Carnival
• TMM Carnival II
• Carnival of Twenty Something Finances
• Festival of Frugality
• Carnival of Top PF posts
• Festival of Frugality
• Money Hacks Carnival
• Carnival of Debt Reduction
• Bankruptcy and Debt Carnival II
• Festival of Frugality
• Money Hacks Carnival
• Carnival of Personal Finance

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