What better way to celebrate the last day of 2009 than a retrospective? Hence, I give you 15 of the year’s best Money Under 30 articles, subjectively selected for uniqueness; popularity among readers, commenters and re-tweeters; and, of course, my own personal bias. I hope you enjoy them as much today as you did the first time!

• Choose Where You Want to Live, Then Find a Job — In one of the more personal articles I’ve written here, I examine my decision to move to Maine without a “real job”—even in the middle of a recession—and just make it work.

• How to Create a Five-Year Financial Plan — We all know that building financial security doesn’t happen overnight. That said, it’s not very easy to put money away for 40, 20, even 10 years from now. Five years is a different story. That’s why it’s so important to set a “five-year plan”.

• 23 Things Beginners Absolutely Must Know About Saving for Retirement — I’m proud of this post that contains basic but critical information about saving for retirement. This article did really well on social media sites like StumbleUpon, though I was disappointed it didn’t get more comments.

• How to Overcome a Fear of Your Finances — Does the thought of looking at your credit card statements or checking account make you anxious? Have you ever ignored financial mail because you just don’t want to deal with it? You’re not alone. This post offers tips to beat your fear and start taking control of your money.

[...]

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Yes, I love the food. (Which is why, for the second year in a row, I’ll be running in a 5k at eight o’clock Thanksgiving morning in an effort to justify all the calories I’ll consume). But I really love Thanksgiving because the whole point is to be grateful for what you have. We share a meal and a day with people we love. Not to put down any other approaching holidays, but I like that the sentiments of Thanksgiving, for the most part, have yet to be completely obscured by full-throttle consumerism.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for this year. When it comes to blogging, I’m thankful for everybody who reads Money Under 30 and leaves great comments and for all the other bloggers pouring their heart and soul into creating absolutely incredible content for the rest of us to read, enjoy, and hopefully learn from. Here are just a few examples: [...]

It always amazes me the number of great financial blogs that I stumble across every week. When there are a million new blog posts every day, it’s hard for one guy to keep up. This week I’m honing my recommended reading in on blogs that also focus on money in your twenties. If you enjoy this site, you’ll want to make these blogs part of your regular reading, too! [...]

Ah, debt. Either you’re trying to get out of it or you’re working fastidiously to make sure you’ll never be in it. Whichever camp you’re in, debt is a constant focus of personal finance blogs. Although I like to focus on other topics from time to time, providing solid advice on dealing with and avoiding debt has its place. So this week, I give you a few stellar recent articles on debt. [...]

All this talk about the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above 10,000 points on Wednesday has me crazy. As if it matters! Yes, the stock market is rallying. That’s a good thing for investors. But what about the double-digit unemployment that still plagues our nation? It will still be a long time before employment returns to pre-recession levels, and there’s no guarantee that good news in the stock market will pave the way for good news in other economic sectors. We can hope, but that’s all. Finally, readers who have come across my investing mindset already know what I’m going to say: Don’t let any stock market index passing some arbitrary number influence your investment strategy. Invest consistently and invest for the long run. That is all!

That said, since the Dow crossing 10,000 was so important to the media this week, I want to focus my weekly roundup on other bloggers’ reactions to this landmark (however arbitrary I think it is). [...]

I know the whole subject of buying a home and mortgages doesn’t apply to everybody under 30 out there…certainly if you’re still in school you’re probably not thinking about owning your own home just yet, but you might be. But given that this year’s tax credit opportunities along with depressed home prices makes it a good time to buy a home…especially for first timers (who may well be in their twenties), I decided to find some great articles about home buying and mortgages this week.

The Dough Roller (@doughroller) posted 7 Lessons Learned from a Failed Attempt to Refinance. Great reading if you’re thinking about refinancing to take advantage of ridiculously low mortgage rates.

The Debt Kid (@debtkid) talks about how “you can save literally tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments over the life of the loan by [making extra mortgage payments]” in Paying Down Your Mortgage Faster Reaps Big Benefits. Once you’ve got a mortgage, there’s no reason why you have to take a full 30 years to pay it off! In fact, you’ll grow much richer if you can do it faster!

Get Rich Slowly (@JDRoth) presents an extremely helpful look at comparing 15- and 30-year mortgages in Pros and Cons: 30-Year Mortgage vs. 15-Year Mortgage. This article is a good companion to the one on prepaying your mortgage, as a lot of people ask “why take a 15-year mortgage instead of taking a 30-year home loan and prepaying it?”

Personal Dividends has another look at What You Need to Qualify for a Home Mortgage Loan. It’s a topic I’ve written about a bit, but definitely an important one to understand before you jump into the mortgage market!

Finally, thanks to Studenomist for hosting this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance. Happy weekend! (And a long one if you’re lucky!)

David @MoneyUnder30

A lot of people enjoyed this week’s article How to Ask Your Boss to Work from Home. Staying on-theme, here are some weekly links all about working.

Squawkfox (@Squawkfox) is running an extremely helpful series on writing cover leters. Don’t miss the first installment: Anatomy of a Killer Cover Letter. Squawkfox’s Kerry Taylor also wrote a guest post for Get Rich Slowly (@jdroth): Five Ways to Rescue a Rotten Resume.

Along the same lines, Jim Wang over at Bargaineering (@bargainr) published another group of resume pointers: 10 Tips to a Kick Ass Resume. (Between the two, your resume should have no excuses!

And, if you’re wondering if all that Facebook and Twitter time could be cutting into your career, check out the article on Queercents (@queercents): Is the Way You Use Social Media Hurting Your Career?

Finally, thanks to the following carnivals for including Money Under 30 posts this week!

• The Best of Money Carnival at Steadfast Finances (@Matt_SF).
• The Carnival of Debt Reduction at Christian Personal Finance (@christianpf).
• The Carnival of Personal Finance at Taking Charge (@TakingCharge).

That wraps it up for this week! As always, thanks for reading!

David @MoneyUnder30

If you haven’t noticed, the stock market is rallying. I’m an automatic investment, buy and hold kind of guy, so I don’t really care; but it does have me thinking about investing and saving for retirement at the moment. Fortunately, there happen to be some great posts in the blogosphere this week on, what else, retirement and investing! [...]

As a part-time blogger I found it impossible to stick to any type of posting-schedule. Now, I have no excuse! That means Friday roundups of my favorite personal finance articles from around the Web are back…with a twist. Each week’s links will focus on a theme. This week…simple finances. [...]

Sometimes, “better late than never” does not apply. That old line probably won’t work if you forget your wedding anniversary, arrive late to an important job interview, or fail to repay a loan shark on time. I hope, however, that it does apply to this week’s Carnival of Twenty Something Finances. (I was supposed to have it up yesterday and I admit it completely slipped my mind). [...]