Carnival of Financial Planning - December 27 2007 Edition

Welcome to the December 27, 2007 edition 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

Budgeting

Niharika presents 50+ Ways to Cut Back on Your Christmas Bills Without Feeling the Pinch posted at Credit Card Lowdown.

poetloverrebelspy presents Hotel Ratings from Consumer Reports posted at Less Than a Shoestring, saying, “Are you surprised? Top budget hotel brands meet or exceed the ratings of a number of higher-priced hotel chains. Find out how — and the sneaky fees you need to look out for — in this post.”

Economics

Sagar presents Comparison: Major Presidential Candidates on Monetary Policy and the USD posted at Currency Trading.net.

Edith presents Sam Zell says Subprime Crisis Manageable posted at Stewart Hsu.

Financial Planning

Ryan-Careonecredit presents Bankruptcy - The Last Resort posted at Care on Credit, saying, “Are you considering filing personal bankruptcy? Before you decide to take this irreversible step, make sure you understand what bankruptcy is and how considering bankruptcy may affect you”

Matthew Paulson presents Why Going to a Financial Advisor Might be Financially Disastrous posted at American Consumer News.

Adfecto presents My Money Decisions: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly posted at Adfecto Abundantia - Aspire 2 Wealth, saying, “Like everyone else in our consumer culture, I have made financial decisions that make me cringe. My bad decisions have helped me pile up a sizable amount of consumer debt. My good decisions have put me on a path to become wealthy. Today I’ll share some of the highlights of my financial past that have brought me to where I am today.”

David presents I Will Teach You How to Become a Millionaire posted at Worldwide Success.

Financing a Home

Mitch McDonald presents Rent Back House Tips To Avoid Home Loss posted at FYI About.com.

Health Care

Raymond presents My Experience With Lasik Eye Surgery - Thoughts About Laser Vision Correction - Is It Worth The Cost and Risks? posted at Money Blue Book.

Income

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Pity The Poor Lawyer (Limerick) posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Tyler McKinna presents The Secret of the Compounding Salary posted at Dividend Money, saying, “An article outlining the true benefits of a small annual raise”

Thomas Humes presents Linear Income Versus Exponential Income Growth posted at Wealth Building World, saying, “When you focus only on increasing your value per hour and the time you spend, your income increases in a linear fashion. Scalability is what separates the upper middle income earners and the rich from the truly super rich. Scalability explains why someone can make 100 times more money within twenty-four hours than anybody else.”

Nico Tramontana presents Home Business Opportunity: Yahoo Search Marketing posted at Nico’s Blog, saying, “Home Business Tips and Tricks That Have Been Gained From Over 25 Years Of Experience. Earn A Realistic $10,000 A Month With All Of The Tips I Give You.”

Investing

Dereck Coatney presents How To Make A Million Dollars In About 8 Years posted at The Best Stock Trading in the World.

Jose DeJesus MD presents Avoid These Mutual Funds - Be Like Goldilocks posted at Physician Entrepreneur, saying, “Improve the performance of your investments with this Goldilocks approach: These Funds are TOO LARGE;These Funds are TOO SMALL; These Funds are JUST RIGHT…”

Jay M presents Business Plan Basics II posted at 4 entrepreneur, saying, “How to write a creative business plan”

Jose DeJesus MD presents Select Mutual Funds with Lower Turnover- Your Money posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

Homo economicus presents Don’t Always Follow Conventional Wisdom posted at Homo economicus, saying, “Common sense? It isn’t that common. Are you a sheep? Or a free thinker?”

FIRE Getters presents Our 7 Mutual Fund Investing Mistakes! posted at FIRE Finance.

Robert D Flach presents WON’T YOU TAKE THIS ADVICE I HAND YOU LIKE A BROTHER posted at ANYTHING BUT TAXES!.

Ryan presents Managing Your Portfolio During Turmoil posted at Building Millionaire Money Habits, saying, “Hi, Thanks for hosting the carnival and considering my post. Here is a summary: Statistics tell us that the market rises and falls, and corrections are to be expected. And, if we happen to be entering a recession, your portfolio can experience major losses. Luckily, you can protect your downside risk from the market selling-off stocks and experiencing a correction.”

The Dividend Guy presents Examining My Dividend Portfolio Volatility Using RiskGrades posted at The Dividend Guy Blog, saying, “RiskGrades is a site that allows investors to analyze the risk they have in their portfolio. I have run my dividend investments through the tool and share my results.”

Value Seeker presents Stock Investing Vs. Stock Trading - Stock Investment Resource: Stock Market Investing Tips posted at Stock Investing, saying, “Describes the advantages and disadvantages of stock investing compared to stock trading.”

Larry Russell presents The Fund Authority Score - A Better Mutual Fund and ETF Rating System posted at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog, saying, “With the Fund Authority Score system, individual investors can make concise and objective mutual fund and ETF comparisons. Fund Authority Scores are based on cost, performance, and other measures, which are correlated with better long term buy-and-hold investment results.”

Larry Russell presents Where’s Waldo? - The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance. posted at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog, saying, “The effort to find those few supposedly superior money managers willing to sell their services sufficiently cheaply is a costly, time consuming, and futile, “Where’s Waldo?,” searching exercise for the individual investor. Many money managers will claim to be superior and few or none actually will be. If such superior money managers did exist, then there should be dozens or hundreds of them who prove their superiority year after year after year. Unfortunately, the scientific finance literature indicates that this is not the case. This year’s star money manager tends to be next year’s average or laggard money manager.”

Managing Debt

Ryan-Careonecredit presents The Cost of Credit: Understanding APR and Balance Calculations posted at Care on Credit, saying, “The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is the cost of credit (actual interest rate) expressed as a yearly rate”

Michael Bass presents The skinny on Balance Transfers posted at Debt Prison, saying, “Transferring your high interest balance to a new, lower APR% credit card seems like a great idea. Credit card companies have dreamt up this thrifty method for luring you over to greener pastures. If not done properly you could end up in a worse position than before you made the transfer.”

Lulu presents How to make the most of Cash Back Credit Cards this Christmas posted at How I Save Money.net.

Keyboard Culture Expert Community presents The First Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom posted at Marc Woolf Personal Finance Expert at Keyboard Culture Expert Community, saying, “In his article “The First Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom,” Keyboard Culture Personal Finance Expert Marc Woolf gives us an exercise illustrating the first step to focus on what you desire, because whatever you focus on is drawn to you.”

Jason Elder presents Understanding How to Get a Loan After Bankruptcy posted at A Bankruptcy Lawyer’s Blog, saying, “Getting a loan after declaring bankruptcy is not impossible, but it is just more difficult. After all, bankruptcy is a large black mark on a person’s credit report. It is important to understand, though, that there is life after filing bankruptcy and part of that life involves being able to be approved for a loan after bankruptcy.”

Real Estate

Allen Taylor presents Student Housing - A Niche Market - The Echo Boomers are off to College posted at Investing World Today, saying, “A confluence of trends in higher education are making student housing a potentially lucrative environment to park your real estate investment. While it’s potentially lucrative, it has its own unique mix of circumstances and setbacks, and you should be aware of them, and take measured steps into this market before sinking a lot of funds into it.”

Retirement Planning

Randall presents Roll a Traditional 401k Directly to a Roth IRA posted at Credit Withdrawal, saying, “Before 2008, moving a Traditional 401k to a Roth IRA was difficult. This article outlines how it’s gotten much easier with recent changes to the law.”

Risk Management and Insurance

Jacob presents Should I get insurance? posted at Early Retirement Extreme.

Dax Desai presents You’re Not So Special - Affinity Marketing posted at Dax Desai, saying, “Those special offers for affinity groups may not be such a good deal after all. Dax disects an offer to a medical group member for a “special offer” on term life insurance.”

Savings

Blaine presents Frugality, America’s worst nightmare posted at BlainePower.com, saying, “Frugality is corporate America’s worst nightmare. With so many corporations relying on you to compulsively spend money, it’s no wonder they’re rich and we’re not.”

unequivocal presents Emergency Fund posted at Unequivocal Notes, saying, “This post is about how and why an emergency fund is required.”

FMF presents If You Work the System, You Can Save a Good Amount of Money posted at Free Money Finance, saying, “If you work at it, you can save a good amount of money by using “the system.”"

Taxes

Alex M presents What Everyone Should Know About Taxation posted at Personal finance strategy.

Miscellaneous

ChristianPF presents Warren Buffett Videos posted at Money in the Bible | Christian Personal Finance Blog, saying, “10 video lessons from Warren Buffett on investing, business, and life.”

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.

Technorati tags: carnival of financial planning, blog carnival.

Related Personal Financial Planning Posts

• Conclusion of the Biggest Personal Finance Story of the Past 30 Years ( < <-- Go to Part 4 The Biggest Personal Finance Story of the Past 30 Years - Conclusion This article concludes our series on the greatest personal finance story of the past thirty years. In this article, we discuss whether the dramatic growth in equity value of the financial services sector indicates that securities markets are [...])
• Never Invest Solely Because of Superior Past Investment Fund Performance ( Never invest solely because of superior past mutual fund or ETF performance Superior past fund performance does NOT predict superior future performance. Summary: A previous article, “The Solution - ONLY follow financial strategies that are scientific, passive, diversified, savings focused, risk controlled, low cost, and tax efficient,” suggested that individuals are much better off with a [...])
• Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund - Select Shares (SWPPX) capture the Best +10 Fund Authority Score ( Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors' net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise, objective, and realistic summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within [...])
• May 10 2007 Edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning ( Carnival of Financial Planning - May 10, 2007 Edition Welcome to the May 10, 2007 edition 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 [...])
• 10 Lower Cost S and P 500 Index Mutual Funds ( 10 Lower Cost S&P 500 Index Mutual Funds Regular readers know that The Skilled Investor advocates a very boring, low cost, broad market, passive index investment strategy. Costs less. Gets the broad market return -- whatever that will be. Narrows the range of outcomes and therefore the risk to your long-term personal financial plan. Takes far [...])
• April 26 2007 Edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning ( Carnival of Financial Planning - April 26, 2007 Welcome to the April 26, 2007 edition 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 [...])
• May 31 2007 Edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning ( Carnival of Financial Planning - May 31, 2007 Edition Welcome to the May 31, 2007 edition 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 [...])
• March 12 2007 Edition of the Carnival of Investing ( The Carnival of Investing - March 12, 2007 Edition Welcome to the March 12, 2007 edition of the Carnival of Investing! We have a smorgasbord of articles from which you can choose. I have sorted the articles into three categories below: * Editors Choice, * Honorable Mention, and * Straying a Bit, but still interesting. Enjoy your feast, The Skilled Investor EDITOR'S CHOICE: FIRE [...])