Money Under 30 » Roundups and Carnivals

Best of Money Under 30 (2009)

David Weliver — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:29:35 +0000

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.

Confessions of an Ex-Textbook Salesman — Over my career, I have had the dubious fortune of selling both cars and textbooks. When I first launched this blog, I wrote an extremely popular article about all the dirty tricks I learned about car dealerships. I decided to do the same about my experience working for a college textbook publisher.

Radically Re-Thinking Credit Cards — Nobody agrees on the “right” credit card strategy. Should you cut them all up or get as many as you can to maximize your rewards? Neither, says I in this two-part article.

How to Watch Your Wallet With High-Rolling Friends — I think this post is uber-relevant to young people. It tackles a question we’ve all faced at some point: How can we go out with friends and have a good time without looking cheap and/or going into debt?

AT&T Wireless Rebate Gift Cards are a Raw Deal — There’s nothing spectacular about this post; it’s just a bitch session about how much AT&T Wireless rebate gift cards suck. But apparently, lots of other people agree.

The 15 Best Financial iPhone Apps — I read a study claiming iPhone users are more productive that those that use other mobile phones. Based upon the popularity of this piece showcasing some of the best early financial iPhone apps, I have a hunch handle their money better, too.

My Credit Card Raised My Interest Rate! Here’s What to Do — Everybody I know that owns a credit card was affected by rate hikes this year. I know folks with huge credit limits and perfect credit scores see their APRs go as high as 20, 25, even 30 percent. It’s ridiculous, but if it has happened to you, here’s what to do.

In a Recession, Should You Save Cash Before Paying Debt? — That’s what Suze Orman said later this year, and I agree. Some readers also weighed in with their perspectives in the comments.

Young and Upside Down on the Mortgage — Imagine you bought your dream home only to find two or three years later that it’s only worth half of what you paid for it. It’s a reality many people are facing right now.

10 Easy Ways to Simplify Your Finances — Some people love juggling dozens of bank accounts and credit cards to earn the best interest and rewards. I, on the other hand, sincerely believe money doesn’t have to be complicated. Therefore, I present a few ways to make it less so.

A Case for Local Banks and Credit Unions — Finally, I leave you with a piece of advice I encourage you to follow: leave your large bank. Small banks and credit unions will add personal service to your banking and keep the money you save in your community; you may even snag a better deal.

That’s it for this 365 days. See you in 2010.

Happy New Year!

Weekly Reading 11/21

David Weliver — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:04:49 +0000

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:

A great personal story about the road to home ownership. (Fiscal Fizzle)
A short but important article showing the power of making extra debt payments. (Debt Free Adventure)
The pros and cons of giving plastic (gift cards) as holiday gifts. (Cash Money Life)
An important question to ask yourself: Is debt really what is keeping you down? (Suburban Dollar)
I find this stuff fascinating: What real millionaires do. (Free Money Finance)
It’s all tried and true advice, but a lot more fun when you think of it this way: Five ways to screw your credit card. (Squawkfox)
Good advice for anybody tempted: The pitfalls of trading penny stocks. (Dual Income No Kids)

Last, but not least, I’m thankful for the Carnival of Personal Finance, and this week’s host, M is for Money. Great job!

Weekly Reading 10/30

David Weliver — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:38:55 +0000

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!

Happy Halloween!

Three methods to pay off more than one debt. (Poorer Than You)
A financial “foul up” by Matt Jabs, who describes how he’s upside down and paying the price. (My Next Buck)
Some good advice for when you are ready to make decisions about home ownership. (Green Panda Treehouse)
A few frugality tips for pet owners. (Living Almost Large)
Why working while you’re a student may be harder than you think. (Studenonmics)
The shockingly low rate of retirement savings by Americans. Don’t become a part of this trend! (20somethingfinance)

Finally a big thank you to the hosts of this week’s Carnival of Twentysomething Finances and Carnival of Personal Finance (where my post on signs you may be at risk for identity theft was an editor’s pick!)

Weekly Links: Debt!

David Weliver — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:30:23 +0000

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.

Frugal Dad (@FrugalDad) published a great guest post by Wealth Pilgrim (@NealFrankle) about a young man considering buying an engagement ring while still paying off student loan debt.

PT Money (@PTMoney) answers another intriguing reader question: How do you handle somebody else’s debt when it’s in your name? (You either pay it, or destroy your credit. Either way, you then sue the guy.)

Man vs. Debt (@ManvsDebt) admits he’s a big, fat hypocrite in a personal update on his war on debt. Hey, at least he’s honest.

SpendonLife (@SpendonLife) has a guest post by PFFirewall (@PFFirewall) titled: How I paid off $20,000 of debt while still having fun. Whoa! That’s possible?

Good Financial Cents (@jeffrosecfp) explains Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps. And since Ramsey is the get-out-debt-go-to-guy, debt-haters would be wise to read up.

Finally, many thanks to Fabulously Broke in the City for hosting this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance!

Weekly Links: Dow 10,000 (Who Cares?)

David Weliver — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:30:11 +0000

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).

Financial Highway (@moneyhighway) sums up my thoughts with his post Dow Jones 10,000 So What?

Get Rich Slowly (@JDRoth) is becoming a regular in my link-ups, but there’s good reason—he’s got good stuff over there. This week is no exception with his post Dow 10,000 and Other Nonsense. We see eye-to-eye on this one.

The Digerati Life (@TheDigeratiLife) hypothesizes that we’re not out of the woods yet…by a long shot…in Double Dip Recession: Why Dow 10,000 May Not Last.

Zero Hedge reveals something shocking about this week’s stock market news in Dow 10,000!!!! Oh Wait, Make That 7,537.

Robert Reich, one of my favorite economists, has another great post explaining why there is no connection between this stock market craziness and the rest of the economy in Why the Dow Broke 10,000 and Why You Should Still Watch Your Wallet. In his words: “this is all temporary fluff, folks”.

Weekly Links: Mortgages

David Weliver — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:56:57 +0000

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

Weekly Links: Working

David Weliver — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:15:21 +0000

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

Weekly Links: Retirement and Investing

David Weliver — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:37:28 +0000

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!

We all wonder from time to time if we’re saving enough for retirement. Get Rich Slowly (@jdroth) has a great post this week on that subject: Ask the Readers: How Much Should You Save for Retirement? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Thirty-five percent? Get J.D.’s take and see what his many readers have to say in the comments.

Monevator (@Monevator) is a great investing blog I discovered this week. A post there, Seven Ways to Invest in the Stock Market When You’ve Got No Money, takes a look at a common problem: How can you start learning about investing if you’re still paying down debt (when the only investments you should be making are your debt payments).

Next up, Free Money Finance (@FMFblog) offers a very simple Retirement Plan Priority List. See how yours compares! (One suggestion: Add “pay off any credit card debt” in between numbers one and two).

Finally, a quick shout out to the two carnivals I participated in this week: The Carnival of Personal Finance at Simply Forties (@SimplyForties) and the Carnival of Twentysomething Finances at Rabbit Funds (@rabbitfunds).

As always, thanks for reading!

David @MoneyUnder30

Weekly Links: Simplifying Your Finances

David Weliver — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:31:39 +0000

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.

Yesterday, I was inspired by Man vs. Debt’s post 42 Ways to Radically Simplify Your Financial Life (and judging by Twitter, I wasn’t the only one). The list starts with the obvious: Focus on one goal at a time. Consolidate bank accounts, cancel credit cards, and use cash. But from there it gets interesting. Perhaps my favorite piece of advice is to make a list of everything you own and sell half of it within two weeks. That kind of thing may not be for everybody, but if you want to simplify, you can’t beat it.

Along the same lines, PT Money has a great post reflecting on his own efforts to clean his financial house: Clean Finances, Clean Minds.

This morning I posted a new tool called the Really Simple Budget Worksheet (guess I’ve really got simplicity on my mind). The printable version of that budget worksheet goes back to pencil and paper. Not that I don’t love all these cool new online budgeting tools, but sometimes it’s just easiest to lay it down on paper. Matt over at Debt Free Adventure agrees, as he describes The Modern Pocketbook. It’s not what you think. I.e., not a purse. You’ll just have to read the post to find out.

Moving along to ways to simplify more specific aspects of your finances, I have to point out the Generation X Finance article: If You’re Going to Consolidate Debt then You Have to Stop Using Credit. I did not learn that one fast enough back when I first started my battle with debt!

Carnival of Twenty Something Finances for July 13, 2009

David Weliver — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:15:36 +0000

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).

There are lots of good entries this week; thanks to everybody for participating. I’ve selected a few editor’s picks which are starred throughout.

Saving Money and Frugality

Lazy Man and Money: Save Money on Glasses and Contact Lenses

*Editor’s Pick—Sarah Eliza: Your Toolbox for Obtaining Organic and Local Produce… Affordably!

Tyler Tervooren: Save $550 a Year by Hypermiling

Super Saver: Happy Hour Deals: Beer Prices Lower than in a Store

J. Savings: Summer Tip: Buy winter clothes now!

Credit and Debt

The Dough Roller: Freecreditreport.com vs. Annualcreditreport.com–Where to get your free credit report

CreditCardAssist.com: When “Free” Costs You Cash

Debt Freedom Fighter: Tips for Finding the Best Credit Cards

Ben: Credit Report Disputes

*Editor’s Pick—The Smarter Wallet: Credit Management Tips For College Students

Credit Shout: Credit Card Hardship Programs: Can They Help You?

Colin Robertson: Does a Credit Check Lower Your Credit Score?

Master Your Card: The Debt Loans Survival Guide

Product Reviews

Patrick @ Cash Money Life: Ally Bank Review

Silicon Valley Blogger: Budgeting Tools and Software Products in Lieu of Microsoft Money

Budgeting and Money Management

MatthewPaulson: Planning for Non-Monthly Expenses

Save Money: Revising and Simplifying My Budget (One More Time)

*Editor’s Pick—Kevin: Creating a Budget: Start with a Financial Affidavit

Savings Toolbox: Handling Your Cash Without Technology

Matt Jabs: Follow Through on Financial Goals.

Investing

Oliver Kennett: Stocks and shares:What you need to get started

Darwin’s Finance: Lazy Portfolio Claims to Beat S&P…But Upon Further Inspection…

Jeff Rose: What Are Your Best Roth IRA Rates?

Ray @ Financial Highway: Canadian Discount Brokerage Review and Comparison for TFSA and RRSP

ABCs of Investing: Different Types of Stock Market Indexes

Consumer Protection

*Editor’s Pick—Patrick @ Military Money: Beware of Cash For Clunkers Scams.

Matthew Overstreet: Is Primerica A Scam?

Other Personal Finance

*Editor’s Pick—Kathryn: The 20 Best Twitter Users To Follow For Money Tips

*Editor’s Pick—Roshawn Watson: Colleges Pimping Their Students

ChristianPF: The Step-by-Step Process of Building a House

d. ninja: Getting pregnant is trendy.

Anthony Samuel: Scholarships for Left Handed People? Sort of.

My Life ROI: The Three Most Influential Lessons From My Childhood

MoneyNing: What to Do When Money Conflicts with Ethics

Pinyo: Gas Guzzler Rebate, Get Cash For Clunkers

Manshu: Sticky Wages

That’s it for this week’s Carnival of Twenty Something Finances. Thanks to everybody for participating; and thanks for reading!