Carnival of Personal Finance #155

The Carnival of Personal Finance #155 Hosted by Pinyo @ Moolanomy is up and running.

Check out my article which is post #4 under Money Management.

There's a ton of great articles (a total of 98), I know what I'll be doing this weekend in addition to celebrating my mom's B-day.

While you're reading all of the great articles - the ones I scanned so far seem to be very useful (especially the career ones in my case) don't forget to check out fellow PF Bloggers posts by Our Four Pence and Living Almost Large that were included in the Carnival.

My Annual Review is coming up

My annual performance review is coming up and one of my financial goals for this year is to obtain a promotion.

I'm a little worried that my goal of a promotion might not happen this year, not because of a lack of performance on my part but because my role in the company has changed. The new role which is on a difference career ladder I've only been performing for about 6 weeks now, definitly not enough to prove myself in to obtain a promotion but I definitly deserved in my old role.

I feel like a promotion was coming if I had been able to stay in my old role or go back to preconstruction, especially since on Monday my old boss, who's doing my review, called to make sure I was going to fill out a skills assessment that he was going to email me. I said I'd never heard of it before and he said it was a tool that he liked to use to prove to the brass that someone was ready for a promotion.

I've filled that form out and have all of my other ducks in a row to prove I'm ready for a promotion so we'll see how it all goes - unfortunately I won't find out anything until late August.

So we'll see how it all turns out - wish me luck.

Monday's Money Funny --- Can't Afford Mortgage

One of the regular features on my blog is "Monday's Money Funny" which are humorous (at least to me) articles/jokes/just about anything that I've discovered over the weekend when I catch up on all my on line reading that spark a need for knowledge. For example the previous Monday Money Funny was a about the Cost of Pop Culture Icons in today's Dollars.

This week's Money Funny really is not funny, it really sad, but I wanted to use it as a Monday Money Funny because I wanted to share the advice I've found on coping with situations like this.

Last week, Kevin from No Debt Plan wrote a post called People Living in Cars in Santa Barbara that he read about from CNN. (You can check out the full article here.)

Highlights from the CNN article are below:
A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she'd spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.

"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."

Harvey was forced into homelessness this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.

"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.

If you find your self in a situation where you can't afford your mortgage payments, my advice would be to get out as soon as you discover this problem because its not going to get better only worse. Since I'm not a trained professional that's only my gut instinct but I've found many reputable sources with similar suggestions as well as step by step methods.
New York States Guide to When You Can't Afford Your Mortgage
Non-Profit Neighborhood Works' Mortgage Solutions
HUD's Tips for Avoiding Foreclosure

I hope no one is facing this problem but I know with the current housing market problems and US economy this could be a very real problem for many.

Stay tuned for next week's Monday's Money Funny. If you run across any Money Funnies please email them to me at future.millionaire.blog@gmail.com and if I use them I will give you credit and link to your blog.

Weekend Round Up

I was sick most of last week so I had plenty of time to read blogs. Here's some of the highlights from this last week in the PF Blogger world.

Living Almost Large posted about Money Personalities. I checked out the quiz and discovered I'm 38% Saver, 25% Empire Builder, and 13% Guardian.

Jonathan from Master Your Card posted 7 Ways to Curb Overspending. I think I do/will try all of them except I probably won't be freezing my credit cards any time.

Our For Pence Worth's Penelope posted a Vacation Checklist. Which is perfect for me since I'll be leaving for my cruise on July 11th.

Seb at Pinching Copper wrote a very interesting post about Pennies, especially since his blog name is about saving pennies.

Wide Open Wallet's Mom pulled out her budget from last year to check her personal inflation. I love the idea, now I need to go dig around and bull my budget from last year to compare.

Don't forget to check out all of the PF Blogger's blogs and posts by visiting the left tool bar for the links. Hope everyone has a great week.