Weekend Round Up

Its been an exciting week around in the PF Bloggers World this past week. A few highlights include:

Living Almost Large explains all about IRA's.
Penelope @ Our Fourpence Worth gave tips on how to Resist the Urge to Slurge.
Master Your Card's Kristy gave a great test to determine if you're smarter than a 5th Grader when it comes to Credit Cards. (I love that TV show!)
Ashley from Wide Open Wallet shared a great story about a play it forward for coupons. Such a great idea.
Girls Just Wanna have Fund's Ginger shared tips on saving money when Vacationing.
And Seb from Pinching Copper wrote another great letter to Mr. Bernake.

Weekend Round Up -- The Neglected Edition

Ugh -- this past week has been exceptionally rough on the Project from Hell. This week we were trying to top out the building so it meant even more exceptionally long hours (Thursday I was at the job site for a solid 20 hours yuck!) -- I think I'm still sleep walking trying to catch up on sleep. I'm now trying to spend a lazy Sunday on the sofa sleeping and catching up on the PF Bloggers World -- while I was sleep walking my peers on PF Blogger were busy keeping up informed.

A few highlights from this past were include:

Ashley from Wide Open Wallet featured another guest post from Bruce the Tax Guy about how to hire a professional. Very good advice - especially since I've started thinking I might want to hire a professional financial adviser but that discussion is for another post.

Kevin from No Debt Plan discusses Target Date Retirement Funds. This is what the bulk of my retirement is housed in because its really easy to manage.

Master Your Card's Kristy shared how to Get Perfect Credit -- looks like no matter what I'm going to have to wait another 20 years before I can potentially have perfect credit, I guess I'm okay settling for near perfect credit ;)

Penelope from Our Four Pence Worth shared an interesting twist on Monopoly with accounts.

Living Almost Large raised some interesting questions about are Credit Cards really the cause of debt or is it simply the people using them. Personally I use a credit card for every purchase, I think for the last month I've had the same $12 in my wallet. I'd be in real trouble if I could only use cash. Until Mr. Be Mine I'd never met anyone who was a strickly cash person, to me it seems a lot more difficult and more expense - always having to drive to the bank plus you have to keep all of your receipts to keep track of your spending. Are you a cash or credit person?

Weekdend Round Up - Happy Dad's Day Ya'll

Hope everyone's having a wonderful Sunday with their Dad's.

This past week in the PF Bloggers World was most exciting a few highlights to check out are:

This week Ashley from Wide Open Wallet and I exchanged financial data and posted Millionaire in the Making Stories about each other.

Kristy from Master Your Card posted about how young is too young to have a credit card. I have to say I got my first card that I was responsible for when I was 18 however I listed as an authorized user on one of my mom's credit cards since I was 12. About a year ago I had to ask my mom to take me off of as being an authorized user because it was great when I was younger to have a long credit history but the balance my mom carried on that card was hurting my debt to credit limit since she was close to maxed out on the credit card.

No Debt Plan's Kevin shared about do-it-your-self projects. I think I'm like Kevin a lot in that my DIY project end up taking forever and a day longer than planned. About 4 months ago I bought an unfinished side table and you guessed it - it only have one coat on it right now. Maybe Kevin's success story will help motivate me to finish it up.

Living Almost Large posted about Medical Costs in Retirement. I know that's a big concern for a lot of retirees. I guess I'll have to make sure my mortgage is paid off so I can afford medical care in retirement.

Congrats go out to Ginger from Girls Just Wanna Have Funds for being featured on Good Morning America. -- You go girl!

Also out side of the PF Bloggers World Banker Girl posted 6 Secrets for Fast-Tracking your climb up the corporate ladder. Very useful to me since I'm aiming to make it to the next rung this year.

Weekend Round Up

I had a lovely weekend. We celebrated my mom's Birthday and I baked a storm. I spend all of Saturday in the kitchen but it was well worth it to see my mom so appreciative. So times in life the best presents are the ones that are of your time and energy.

Now for some highlights from this week in the PF Blogger World:

Our Four Pence Worth's Penelope Pince posted Simple Solutions to Staying out of Debt.
Kristy from Master Your Card posted about the Modern "Necessities" that Drain your Cash. (Althought I have to say I love my cable TV)
Girls Just Wanna have Fund's Ginger provide a great link for the Ultimate Graduation Resource List. Good luck to all of your recent Graduates!
Mom @ Wide Open Wallet posted about the Opportunity Cost of Having a Baby. Its very interesting read for any one especially a career woman.
No Debt Plan's Kevin post about Portion Control and your Finances. I'm always worried about portion control for food and finances as a Marathon Runner and as a Future Millionaire.
Living Almost Large posted Food Inflation. No wonder my grocery bill keeps going up.
And Seb from Pinching Copper with is humorously truthful posted posted the death of the SUV with rising gas prices.

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.

Weekend Round Up

I hope everyone's had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. Its time for the Weekend Round Up highlighting some of the great posts shared over the last week by my fellow PFBloggers.

Kristy over at Master Your Card continues the Emergency Fund Debate. Personally, I don't see how one can not have a emergency fund, life happens and you've got to have a pool of money some place that you can draw from. What are your thoughts on Emergency Funds, please share over at Kristy's post.

Living Almost Large posted about the Rising Luggage Costs. I guess I've been living in a cave and haven't seen the news lately and haven't traveled in the last month to be aware of this new trend. Luckily when I fly for business I rarely check bags but I usually fly once or twice a year for personal travel and always check bags, I guess I'll be having to figure out a new plan of action this year.

Get Rich or Die Trying's JB recently got married (Congrats go out to him) and is on his way to Vega. He posted about why he choose to spend money on a Honeymoon rather than paying off his debt. I think he did the right thing, you can't go on an all out money diet or you will fall off the band wagon, I think JB is making the smart money moneys, even though he's going on vacation he was still budget conscious. What do you think?

Seb at Pinching Copper pondered whether Credit Cards will be the next Financial Crises. I'm sad to say I think they will. I think its a spiral effect, first the house then the car and then credit cards. I think we headed down a couple of years of bad times. But I'm hopeful none the less.

Wide Open Wallet's Mom recently posted about Credit Protection and why its not needed. Everyone watch out, there's all types of gimmicks like this around. I told you all a while back about booking my cruise for this summer, well one of the add ons included unless you specifically requested it be removed was medical protection insurance, basically for an extra $30/person you are guaranteed that your money from the cruise will be refunded if you have a medical reason documented by a doctor for being unable to attend. But what they don't tell you is that up to 7 days before the cruise you can receive 60% of the costs back no matter the reason and IMHO if you really can't afford to loose the costs of the cruise then you shouldn't be going anyway.

Kevin at No Debt Plan shares why you should only buy appreciating assets on credit. Also check out his post on Credit Cards and Depreciating Assets don't mix. We're in full agreement. I plan to never buy any depreciating asset on credit including cars.

Despite agreeing that credit cards and depreciating assets don't mix, I am still a fan of the credit card much like Penelope at Our Four Pence Worth who posted about why Credit Cards Really Aren't so Bad.

Weekend Round Up

Hey all. With my new no guilt for not posting concept. I didn't have enough time (and still get 6 hours of sleep) to finish catching up on my fellow BFBloggers posts from the past week. I plan to do in the coming week and include those highlights with next week's Weekend Round Up.

But in the mean time I thought I'd remind you all to check out their blogs for some good ideas/tips and stories.

• Get Rich Or Die Trying
• Girls Just Wanna Have Funds
• In Debt Blogger
• Living Almost Large
• Master Your Card
• No Debt Plan
• Our Fourpence Worth
• Pinching Copper
• The Social Marginal
• Trees Full of Money
• Wide Open Wallet

Weekend Round Up!

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers out there. This weekend I've caught up on my blog reading from posts this week so I thought I'd share some of the highlights from the PFBloggers world.

Living Almost Large shares a story of how one of her husband's fellow grad students wants to just Add it To Her Tab, and doesn't get the big picture about how much debt she's going to be in.

Penelope @ Our Four Pence Worth reminded us all that the cost of mailing via the USPS is increasing on Monday. Unfortunately I still have stamps from when it only cost 39 cents to mail a letter, looks like when I mail letters I'm going to have a total of 4 stamps (one 39 cent and 3 one cent stamps) on each letter.

Get Rich or Die Trying's JB reminds us all of why to save.

Seb @ Pinching Copper draws paralells between Grand Theft Auto IV and personal finance.

Wide Open Wallet's Mom share's her father's own Millionaire Next Door Story. I love stories like this - it reminds me to keep on my saving path so I can become a Future Millionaire.

Continuing with the Millionaire Theme, Kevin from No Debt Plan shares 10 steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire in response to Kristy from Master Your Card shared 10 steps to becoming a Millionaire.

Weekend Round Up

I've had a lovely weekend. I was a single woman this weekend because Mr. Be Mine has been working out of town this week and unfortunately most of the work needed to take place on the weekend. I took full advantage of a very girly weekend. On Friday several of my girl friends and I went to see Marriage of Figaro, Saturday The Councilor was selling her hand made jewelry and coasters at a craft fair and she wanted help so I put on my old retail hat from my high school days and helped work the booth, then today after Church my mom and I went to the dollar theater and saw 27 dresses.

Wow! Just typing it makes me feel tired - but it was a most enjoyable weekend. And now for what you all really want...this weeks highlights from the PF Bloggers. Also don't forget to check out their links over on the left hand side to read all of their posts.

Highlights from this week include:


Johnathon at Master Your Card has started a new series call Life or Debt. For anyone in debt I highly recommend reading, these emotional aspects of being in debt are enough to prevent me form even considering it. I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

I appreciated Pinching Copper's Seb reposting his Why We Rent, especially since I'm starting to have doubts about continuing to rent. I'm at least renting for the next year since I just signed a lease with a roommate, but after this year I'm going to have to reevaluate.

Kevin at No Debt Plan shared his cash back stats for Amex Blue Cash Back. I too recommend the Amex Blue Cash Back, so far I have $81.72 in cash back, but unfortunately I think I'll catch up with Kevin since I keep having $50+ weekly grocery bills and the sad thing is I'm not buying anything out of the ordinary.

Mom at Wide Open Wallet shared about how she's able to purchase a Wii in part by selling coupons on Ebay. I've never thought of selling coupons, I appreciate the idea - I'm going to have to try that (first I have to find a little extra time in my life!).

Weekend Round-Up

Sunday has rolled around and tomorrow the work week starts back up again, I don't know where the weekend has gone.

Starting the new project has been crazy lately, I've been working all kinds of hours and sadly I don't see it lessening any time soon so I've been having to catch up on all my blog reading on the weekends since I barely have enough time to eat dinner and go to sleep before I have to start the work cycle all over again the next day.

Anway....Below are a few articles that caught my eye this weekend as I caught up:

Living Almost Large writes about having financial priorities and it is okay to splurge some times. I'm in full agreement wit LAL - I often write about financial "savy-ness" is all about smart money choice.

Mom at Wide Open Wallet shared about her friend was contemplating a second job instead of reducing luxury spending in her post I deserve it.

Penelope Pince from Our Fourpence Worth also discussed luxuries versus necessities and has a great break down on how to decide the difference. So often I hear people say they have to have xyz when in reality its a luxury.

All in all my thoughts are if you don't have the money stick to the necessities, if you have your necessities covered, are not in debt (other than a mortgage), have a healthy emergency fund, and are contributing to your retirement than you should be able to make wise money choices and fund some luxuries but keep in mind unless you have an endless money supply you can't have every luxury and so you have to pick and choose to stay within your budget.

No Debt Plan's Kevin answered a reader question regarding opening a Roth IRA and minimum investments. For anyone who hasn't already started a Roth IRA I highly recommend it - check out Kevin's Million Dollar Retirement plan using only a Roth IRA.

Kristy at Master Your Card posted about the additional costs associated with paying your federal taxes by credit card. Can't say I ever thought about paying them with credit card but now that I know the costs involved I most definitly will not be paying via credit card, I'll continue to whip out the good ole check book.

The Social Margin's Cinder helped remind me that you need to Treat Your Job like an Investment. I'm wondering with all of the blog posts and articles about leaving bad jobs are not a sign, but then again my job only got bad recently when I was transfered to the "problem project", but all food for thought. Thanks Cinder for posting about this.

I also enjoyed Seb's post at Pinching Copper about Is the Price of gas really that bad? The secretary at my old project would always complain about the rising cost of gas and how its almost so bad people can't afford to pay the gas to go to work anymore and according to her people are actually paying more gas each day than they make. I can't tell you how many times I tried to explain to her using all kinds of examples of how people make more than pay for gas to drive every day. Oh well some people like to focus in on one thing.

Well that's it for this Sunday. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Weekend Round Up

Yay! I'm down to only three more boxes that need to be unpacked so I thought I'd take a break and share with you some of the highlights from this week in the PFBloggers World:

Jonathan over at Master Your Card has shared a three part series on Identity Theft. I'm glad he's shared - I hope none of us have to use the advice.

Kevin @ No Debt Needed shared his advice about Buying Clothing off Season. I ran errands this weekend and one of them was to the mall to buy Fashionista a B-day present and I have to stay I got the clothes shopping bug. I've been pretty good for the last six months or so - I can't remember the last new article of clothing I've bought so maybe its about time to add a few pieces to my wardrobe.

If you came into $1M...? Is the question that Living Almost Large asked of her readers this week. What would you do if you came into $1M? Make sure and share your thoughts in her comments.

Mom at Wide Open Wallet did the cost calculations on hybrid cars as a follow up to Girls Just Wanna have Fund's Ginger's post about hybrid suv's. I'm glad to know that hybrids are still more expensive - I can't help question my decision 4 years ago to forgo a hybrid Honda Civic instead of my "regular" Honda Civic, at the time it came down to money but now with gas prices I question my original decision.

Following along the car theme of this Round Up - I appreciated JB's frustration about needing to drive and pay the rising gas costs. I feel his pain.

And last but not least, I recommend reading Seb's guide to buying car tires online posted at Pincing Copper. Most helpful - I never would have thought of buying tires on line but its perfect timing as I've started noticing wear on my tires.

Don't forget to check out all the other blogs in the network. I've conveniently listed them all in the left hand column for your use.

FINALLY All Moved in so its time for --- "Weekend" Round Up on Wednesday

I'm officially in my new apartment and am finally back in the ATL. Yay! Over the last few days my family, friends and I made good progress unpacking and getting the place in order - almost all of the boxes are unpacked and its starting to feel like home. And on Monday I started my new "job" - same company completely different role and project so its like starting all over again.

Now that every thing's at least livable until I get motivated to finish unpacking I've started feeling guilty for neglecting my blog for the last few days so thanks to my new neighbor for letting me "borrow" their wi-fi, don't worry the cable guys coming tomorrow to set up our internet so I won't have to continue "borrowing", I was able to catch up on my blog reading.

Since today is the day after the big Tax Day - I hope everyone's filing went well - I'm very glad I filed mine several weeks ago so I didn't have to add any more stress to the moving time. Kevin @ No Debt Plan and I apparently share the same thoughts about taxes.

Thought I'd share the highlights from my blog reading:

I also liked Kevin over at No Debt Plan post that reminded us all that accumulating wealth shouldn't be your #1 end all goal in life.

Mom at Wide Open Wallet shared about how she and her husband got off on the right foot.

Ginger @ Girls Just Wanna have Funds questions why anyone would give up a 401k match -- I have to agree with her. I love my 401k match - its like a 3% salary raise, I can't understand why some of my co-workers turn that down.

Pinching Copper's Seb shared why he loves Mint.com -- personally I'm a wesabe.com fan because you don't have to provide any of your account info, you manually upload so I feel like my security is more secure. Either way I highly recommend using some type of tool to track your monthly budget - otherwise how do you know your expenses and your savings.

JB @ Get Rich or Die Trying shared about his Pretty Princess Party --- okay don't worry about JB really it was about spending money to live and the Princess Party was for his Step Daughter. I'm glad he shared because I have some news to share about how I just spend money...I'm still trying to get over the sticker shock. I'll give you all the details tomorrow about this purchase.

Living Almost Large posted a very interesting post about Social Status and Dating. I have to say I'm really ton, I'm one of those double standard women I guess. I've always joked that I want to marry a man who wants to be a stay at home dad so I can continue my career with a single minded focus and have some one take care of the kids, the house, and all those little details but at the same time I think I might loose respect for a partner who's' not as career ambitious as I am no matter the job or the pay rate of his chosen job. Its definitly food for thought -- thanks Living Almost Large for keeping me up at night debating this in my mind!

And last but not least Johnathan at Master Your Card shared some Government Credit Card Bloopers -- this would have made a wonderful Monday's Money Funny.

Since I should have my internet connection set up tomorrow I plan to get back to my regular blog schedule. Until then I hope you enjoy some of the post from my friends over at PFBloggers.

Weekend Round-Up

This has been a very busy week for me with packing and preparing for my move to Atlanta come Thursday, but despite all the packing I've been able to read some very interesting posts from my fellow PFBloggers -- I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.


Kevin @ No Debt Plan shares a personal story of attempted Identity Theft -- I hope its a lesson to all of us not to provide any personal information over the phone.

Living Almost Large shared her and DH's net worth update for March and I have to say this Future Millionaire is dang impressed. Seeing her stats helped remind me that while I think I'm doing a great job of saving there's plenty of room for growth.

Mom @ Wide Open Wallet joined me in responding to No Credit Needed's question about Financial Strength and Weaknesses. Hopefully we'll both find ways to break out of our shells and not be so conservative in our investments.

Get Rich or Die Trying's JB shared how thinking his car needed repairs saved him from a bad financial move.

For those of us who are slightly jaded with all the housing/mortgage meltdown stories, check out Seb @ Pinching Copper's post about how there are no victims in the housing bust.

Jonathan @ Master Your Card shared The College Student's Guide to Credit Cards. I too wish there had been a Banking 101 course offered in High School.

The Social Margin's Cinder posted an amazing article about Planning for your future with out Social Security- Starting Younger. I really appreciate the post and used it as a check list for ensuring I'm on the right track. I'm on tack with Steps 1-3, but a re-occurring theme for this week is that I need to work on Step 4 investing.

I also thought I'd add a round-up from outside of PFBLOGGERS and that's Single Guy Money's post about how his Childhood has influenced his finances. Not only did it help clarify some of his money moves but it also has given me courage -- for the past 2.5 months I've had a draft post sitting in my box about why I save and haven't posted it because it's rather personal about my family - specifically my mom. But after seeing Single Guy's courage to post about his family background I'm going to dust off the post, double check my editing and share it with you all on Tuesday (after all can't miss Monday's Money Funny for the second week in a row).

Weekend Round Up

Below are some of the highlights from this week in the PFBloggers World:

Living Almost Large questioned about Downgrading your lifestyle? I found this most interesting as I'm about to move into my nicest housing ever so its going to be hard to downgrade from that in the future.

Johnathan at Master your Card posted Why raise your Fico score? Check out the chart at the end of the post highlighting the different interest rates based upon FICO scores - gives me extra incentive to ensure my FICO score is as high as possible before I buy a house in the next year.

Kevin at No Debt Plan posted It’s Starting to Sink In. He and his wife area already starting to plan to buy their next car in 2012.

If you're in my age range make sure and check out Planning for your future without relying on Social Security - Part One - Starting Young posted at The Social Margin.

Seb at Pinching Copper posted Minimum wage doesn’t work be sure and check out my comment about why People who make minimum wage choose to make minimum wage.


Don't forget to check out all the other blogs in the network. I've conveniently listed them all in the left hand column for your use.

The Weekend Round Up

After joining the PFBloggers Network my game plan was every Saturday to post a Round Up highlighting my favorite post from the week...well as you can see since today's Sunday and not Saturday I missed my first mark. So it appears I'm off to a great start, although I was worried that my misspelling of Savy made a rocky start to the blogging world but I think I'm doing okay despite my lack of grammer/spelling savvy-ness.

Below are some of the highlights from this week in the PFBloggers World:

Ben @ Trees Full of Money answered my question about the radio commercials that say “Hi, I’m Todd Davis, and my Social Security # is 457-55-5462" with the post LifeLock®: A Review of Todd Davis’ Controversial Service

Jonathon @ Master Your Card provided Everything you wanted to know about Fico Scores* - and let me tell you there's a ton to know.

After learning everything about FICO scores mom@ Wide Open Wallet explains How I check my credit score anytime I want... for free!

I really enjoyed the humor in Kevin @ No Debt Plan's post Dumb Money: The Lottery because Mr. Be-Mine always jokes about how his retirement plan is the lottery only some how he doesn't think it will work since he doesn't invest in the lottery. (Don't worry he really has a pension since he works for Uncle Sam and fully funds his 403b each year.)

JB @ Get Rich or Die Trying shares my rant about Car Insurance with his post Auto Insurance Revolution.

After driving back to Valdosta today from Atlanta I very much appreciated Seb @ PinchingCopper's post How to drastically improve your gas mileage now I just have to figure out how to stop driving like a maniac :)

Don't forget to check out all the other blogs in the network. I've conveniently listed them all in the left hand column for your use.