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carnival of personal finance: photo quiz edition

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Hello, and welcome to the carnival of personal finance: British photo quiz edition. You’ll notice that amongst the many splendid personal finance submissions this week, there are a number of pictures of British buildings and people. It’s your job to guess as many of these as possible. Answers may be provided at the end.

plonkee’s picks

As well as posts highlighted in this section, I’ve also picked out another 10 other posts that I really liked. You can find these as you go through the carnival.

Pinyo from Moolanomy presents 6 Easy Ways To Simplify Your Finance, this is a great list, and simpler almost always means better when it comes to finances.

Lynnae from Being Frugal.net presents How I Taught My Preschooler the Value of a Dollar, this idea is absolutely brilliant, enough said.

brip blap presents true diversification .Diversification is more than just asset allocation. Excellent thought provoking post.

Ciaran McKeever from Chance Favors presents 8 things you need to know about a Roth IRA for 2008 .This is a comprehensive post on Roth IRAs for 2008. Because they are for Americans only (Brits have the better stocks and shares ISA), I nearly didn’t put this as one of my choices, but decided that would be a bit mean.

Randall from Credit Withdrawal presents How to: Preventing Child Identity Theft. Who knew that children could have their identity stolen too? And I bet it would take you ages to realise, so this “how to” could come in very handy.

thoughts and musings

RacerX from Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Money presents A Most Important Key to Your Financial Future, and says, “Making just one percent more per year can have one of the biggest impacts on your finances. This article helps you do just that.”

moneychallenge from The Great Money Challenge presents Quality of Life… Now and Forever!. How should quality of life be defined?

Kent from The Financial Philosopher presents Dying to Live, remember to do the things that you want to look back on positively.

M from There But for the Grace of God presents Why Spend on Art When Time and Money Both Are in Limited Supply?. Thoughts on why spending on more than needs is important.

Mrs. Micah from Mrs. Micah: Finance for a Freelance Life presents How Would You Feel if Your Spouse/Partner Broke Your Budget. I get around this problem by having neither a spouse, nor a partner, but each to their own ;).

Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme presents What I would teach children about savings .Teaching them to save 50% of their income might be a little extreme, but what do kids need money for anyway?

Free From Broke presents A Journey Of A Thousand Miles ….starts with a single step, and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it. [great post]

taxes

Dog from Dog Ate My Finances presents A Frugal Person’s Guide to Fair Tax, click to find out how it might help frugal people if the Fair Tax was introduced.

M.B. from Be Thrifty Like Us presents Tax Time! Changes for 2007 Tax Returns find out some of the new things for Yank’s tax return.

Phil from Phil for Humanity presents Short-Term versus Long-Term Capital Gains.All about the different tax rates that apply to different capital gains in the US.

Art Dinkin from Moment on Money presents On the Fence, and says, “What income is included and what is not when determining eligibility for a Roth IRA? Would it help to change filing status?”

tips and tricks

Jon from On Moneymaking presents Stop Planning: 50 Ways to Improve Your Finances Today, tips and hints on ways to start taking action. [great post]

Laura from Green Panda Treehouse presents Rich College Student: 10 Tips to Save You Hundreds of Dollars, and says, “Ten easy tips for college students to use during the semester. ”

Ted from CampusGrotto presents Penny Pinching for College Students . 7 ideas for college students to cut costs – probably worth a quick glance by everyone else as well.

Sutocu from Personal Finance Budgeting presents 5 Simple Budgeting Tips . Sometimes we all need to be reminded of the simple things.

PT from Prime Time Money presents 10 Things that Bring Success in Personal Finance: #7 Automatic Savings and Bill Payment. Automagical is the key to a happy and successful budget. It absolutely works for me.

credit and debt

T.Pettinger from Mortgage Blog presents Consolidating Debt into a Mortgage, basic explanation of how to consolidate debt into your mortgage and some of the drawbacks.

Kimberly Palmer from Alpha Consumer presents Paying for Free Money. Lesson here people, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Simon from Realm of Prosperity presents The Search For My First Credit Card. A nice sensible credit card shopping exercise.

Amanda from Me vs Debt presents How to Increase Your Interest Rates, and says, “Proven strategies to achieve higher interest rates. I think I detect a note of sarcasm there.

Mr Credit Card from Ask Mr Credit Card presents Credit Cards in my wallet. Mr. Credit Card only carries 3. I have 5 myself - what about you?

jim from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity presents Cash Advance vs. Balance Transfer. If you’re stoozing, you want a balance transfer. In fact, you basically always want a balance transfer if you can get it.

paidtwice from I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… presents The Worst That Can Happen Is Thay Say No, all you have to do is ask for a lower rate on your card. [great post]

Megan from A Dollar a Day presents Credit Cards - Yay or Nay? .Credit cards have some staunch enemies in the sensible personal finance world, other people are more ambivalent. Where do you stand?

personal

1MansMoney from 1MansMoney presents A Look Back At 2007: Digging Out From A Negative Net Worth. Net worth post number 1.

The Financial blogger from The Financial Blogger presents Update on my $1,500 project, and says, “My goal is to increase my income or decrease my expenses in order to create $1,500 of free cash flow per month. This amount corresponds to my wife’s net income.

investing

Two Nickels from Two Nickels presents The one good thing about the falling stock market.

Dividends4Life from Dividends4Life presents Sometimes Things Aren’t As They Appear, and says, “I have C rated as a Strong Buy, while GE is rated as a Avoid. I sold C and bought GE. Why? Sometimes Things Aren’t As They Appear…”

Grace from GRACEful Retirement presents Grace, Vindicated, and says, “Grace doesn’t like bonds, and now Consumer Reports backs her up.”

Tina from Money Smart Life presents What is Peer to Peer Lending. A nice introduction to the growing investment area of P2P Lending.

Teaspoon from Teaspoon Finance presents Investing for Retirement: Aspire To Be Worth Your Weight In Gold! - not a bad idea, although, do you take your “fat” weight or your “thin” weight for this? [great post]

MM from My Personal Finance Journey presents How to Play the Dollar/Yuan Carry Trade looks kinda involved, but maybe helpful if you’re regularly in both China and the USA. Sadly, I get to neither place frequently, if at all.

Investing Angel from Stock Tips presents Common Stock Investing Mistakes .Don’t forget, these are posted so you won’t do them. [great post]

The Personal Financier presents 10 Tips and Truths for Successful Option Trading .The first sentence is “Household investors tend to lose at option trading.” Don’t do it unless you really know what you’re doing, and read the tips to make sure.

Babak from Trader’s Narrative presents IBES Valuation Model: Stocks Ridiculously Undervalued .Erm. Do your own research?

Market Breaker from Stock Investing Tips presents Getting An Edge On The Market .Or, accept that no one consistently beats the market for long periods of time, and go with the passive investing. Take your pick.

The Stock Teacher from Stock Investment presents Tips For Cutting Down On Trading Fees .Fees are one of the few things that you can control with investments, so you may want to give this advice some heed.

Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents I Make Thousands of Dollars Working Two Hours (or less) a Month.The clue is that this submission is in the investing section and not in the career section

The Dividend Guy from The Dividend Guy Blog presents Choosing Fixed Income Assets to Meet my Target Allocation .I’m at a 100% equities asset allocation at the moment, but I know that I’ll have to look at fixed income at some point in the future.

banking and managing money

Colonel Cash from Money and Credit presents The Promises and Pitfalls of Courtesy Pay. It looks like courtesy pay is like an agreed overdraft by the way.

J.C. from J.C.’s Money Blog presents How much is Bank of America’s Keep the Change program costing me?, one experience with this product - with calculations .

John from Queercents presents Track Financial Goals vs. Expenses with the MoneyPants Budgeting Tool tracking expenses *shudder*. Not something I’m good at, which is why it’s nice to see someone else doing the hard work of reviewing software for me.

glblguy from Gather Little by Little presents What to do when your debit card gets stolen. Some ideas from a guy that’s recently been through this himself.

dmh from Daily Money Hack presents Easiest $25 Ever: Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Settlement. Note that this is for Americans only.

Raymond from Money Blue Book presents Is My Money Or Broker Account Safe If E-Trade Fails And Goes Bankrupt? .What protection is there for people that have been using E-Trade as a broker?

spending and consuming

Patrick from Cash Money Life presents Cancel Your Cell Phone Contract Without Paying Fees, how to cancel your cell phone contract without paying the early termination fees.

David from My Two Dollars presents Money Mistake Monday - Buying The Extended Warranty Syndrome.. Most of the time, signing up for an extended warranty is like saying “yes, I would like to pay more for exactly the same thing”.

Vixen from Vixen On A Budget presents Textbook Prices: Professors To Blame I’m not sure whether I agree. At least where I live, University lecturers and the like aren’t exactly paid a great deal of money.

The Cheap Diva presents Understanding the True Cost of Things .For me, this means that if it’s dryclean only, I should consider the maintenance costs infinite – I’m always too lazy to take it to the drycleaners. [great post]

CouponFetcher from Coupon Fetcher.com presents How To Find The Real Price Of Things .Examples and ways you can keep from getting ripped off.

FrugalTrader from Million Dollar Journey presents Building a Home Gym.Something I’ve never thought of doing, but if I did, I’d want to build it frugally.

Kyle from Rather-Be-Shopping.com Blog presents 5 Things I Bought New and Wish I Hadn’t .Some things are just as well bought used I guess. I’m not really a second hand goods person, but I love second hand CDs.

goals and resolutions

Neumes from Millionaire Neumes presents If My Millionaire Goals Were SMART My Net Worth Would Suck, and says, “Lots of bloggers are posting their 2008 goals, many using the SMART acronym. I challenge the premise that a goal has to be SMART to be a real goal.”

Matthew Paulson from American Consumer News presents How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions tips and ideas to keep you on the straight and narrow.

The Happy Rock from The Happy Rock - Change Yourself, Change Your Wealth presents Top 5 Reasons The New Year’s Resolutions Fail, and says, “A look at way New Year’s resolutions might not be the best way to change your money habits.”

random

FMF from Free Money Finance presents Is Tipping an Option or an Obligation?. I’m British, we don’t tip so much, so I think it’s just to try and make us Limeys look like skinflints to Americans. Feel free to disagree. [great post]

vh from Funny about Money presents “How to Bamboozle a Buyer”, and says, “This is about the weird psychology of pricing. Very strange!” and I agree. [great post]

JS from Smart Money Daily presents How NOT to make money online: A free Guide, and says, “Here I offer, straight from my own experience, step by step instructions for how NOT to make money online”. It’s actually great advice if you’re looking to not accomplish anything.

Nigel from Salt Lake Real Estate Blog presents Starbucks as a Leading Indicator . Starbucks is a prime indicator of gentrification over here – I guess if it’s closing a store down, that might mean the area is declining somewhat.

Ryan from Millionaire Money Habits presents The Power of Compound Interest. Compound interest is indeed powerful stuff. If you think you know all about it, go and check out Ryan’s post for the graphic alone – very cool.

Madison from My Dollar Plan presents Deal or No Deal: Gambling With Math! .Rational, and “Deal or No Deal” don’t seem to go together, as Madison shows. [great post]

Vahid from Work at Home Business Solutions presents Keep Your Personal Financial Life Out of Your Business .Never mix business and personal finances. Well, at least that’s what I’ve always been told. I don’t want any half-baked business ideas that I come up with to damage the rest of my life.

Tracy from FRAUDfiles presents Test your Scam Alert skills .Scammers are after your money. Be aware.

InvestorBlogger presents What should you do when you strike it rich? - 7 ways to benefit from windfalls, bonuses, and other ‘found’ money! .A few ideas for what to do with your next windfall. Mine tends to go into Zopa, Kiva, and my stocks and shares ISA.

Living Off Dividends presents How The World’s Cheapest Car Is Bad For Your Wallet .It might be bad for your wallet, but I’m not sure that there’s anything you can or should do about it other than use less petrol (gasoline).

insurance

Bob Vineyard, CLU from InsureBlog presents Phantom Insurance and Other Ways to Waste Dollars. This submission might be a bit harsh - I’m not familiar with health insurance (yeay for the National Health Service) so let me know what you think.

Curtis from Real World Finance$ presents The US Health Care Crisis, and says, “A classical economic perspective of why we have a crisis in the US Health Care system and why the Presidential candidates don’t have a clue how to fix it.” I’d offer you my own suggestions, but I’m trying to avoid politics this year.

property

Dan Melson from Searchlight Crusade presents Buyer’ Markets Are A Great Time For Moving Up. Is now a good time to buy? Lots of calculations for the maths geeks in this submission.

jason from All About The Ben presents Your Home Is Not A Good Investment And I Explain Why, and says, “In light of the current financial market & mortgage crises, I explain why one should not consider their primary home an investment.” I agree, if you’re living in it, then it’s not really an investment you can count on.

Four Pillars from Quest For Four Pillars presents The “Myth” of Weekly Mortgage Payments, how weekly mortgage payments pay down your mortgage faster only because you are making extra payments, not because you are paying more frequently.

MoneyNing from Personal Finance Blog by Money Ning presents Considering Your Primary Home as an Investment, and says, “Do you consider your house as an investment? Come join the discussion!”. You can vote in this post. Cool.

Melissa from A Penny Closer presents The Reluctant Landlords? . Should they rent out their property, or try to sell it?

career

FIRE Finance from FIRE Finance presents 2008’s Hot Career Trends in US - Some Contemplations!. If you’re looking for a career change you might want to check out these ideas.

Justin from The Daily Compass by Lightship Mutual presents Self-Employment: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly, self-employment is not for me, what about you?

J2R from Journey 2 Retirement presents Recession and the invincibility complex. Maybe there might be a recession, maybe not, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for all eventualities.

calgirlfinance from calgirlfinance - to financial freedom presents How I Increased My Salary by 37% in One Year Without Changing Jobs. This is something I would (ideally) like to do. I’ve taken note of the ideas accordingly.

Blubba from Fat Man…Skinny Wallet presents Dealing With a Layoff. Career don’t always go smoothly upwards, you might want to find out what to do if one of those (temporary) dips happens to you.

Christine from Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France presents Finding the Right Job for Your Teenager .If you put them out to work, you shouldn’t need to subsidise their college career quite as much, and they can’t get up to mischief if they’re at work. Sounds like win-win.

retirement

Bob McDonald from The Platinum Years Network presents The Benefits of Delaying Social Security, should you take your free money now, or later?

plonkee from plonkee money (yes, that’s me) presents planning for retirement: pensions vs buy to let part 2. How does investing in the stockmarket compare to investing in rental property? Read to find out.

Tim from Canadian Dream: Free at 45 presents The Other Way to Retire, and says, “A look at what happens to a couple in Canada who doesn’t save anything for retirement. It isn’t as bad as I thought!”[great post]

f.f. from Feminist Finance presents Roth 401(k) For Women.Things to consider when thinking about whether to contribute to a Roth 401(k), a regular 401(k) or another retirement plan.

Single Guy Money presents Take Advantage of Your 401k . Make sure that you use your retirement plans effectively.

Answers to the quiz can be found at this page.

Images by stevecadman, elyob, jon hanson, jimbowen0306 , david wilmot, opendemocracy, the new no. 2, stoked fish, sfbrit, peter pearson, ian muttoo, paul holloway, jon’s pics, p_c_w. wwarby,

Similar Posts:

• what is good to do in New York?
• overpaying the mortgage or investing for retirement part 1
• sadly, we don’t have time machines, but we can start now

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