Weekly Roundup
Another week has gone by and I realized today that my vacation is almost up. *sigh* I didn’t do much, but I did get quite a few home projects knocked out, which was good.
So, on to what I’ve been reading this week. There’s a lot of good stuff out there – as usual – so let’s jump right in to some of my favorites!
- Kelly @ Almost frugal has a bit of a cheeky post on the advantages of not having money. I say cheeky because some of the reasons are funny, but the reality is, frugality is a mindset and there’s a positive way of thinking about it. Kelly talks a lot about that on her blog!
- Richard @ Blue Jeans Millionaire has a great perspective on the stock market, no one knows anything!
- Joseph @ Debit vs. Credit had a fantastic walkthrough of Mint.com. I’m a recent convert to Mint.com and I absolutely love it!
- SVB @ The Digerati Life posed a great question for us: do we focus on earning more, or spending less? It was an interesting question…and one, if you’ve been following MYC, you know I posed to Kevin from No Debt Plan in my interview of him for Subscriber Swap Saturday.
- Dog Ate My Finances had an interesting discussion this week on merging finances. My opinion on the whole merging money thing is to get a pre-nup and keep a separate account that your spouse can’t access. It’s all well and good to share that you have the account if you want to be completely honest, but I’ve been in banking long enough to know that when feelings change, the bank account is the first to be drained. It’s sort of like your marriage emergency fund. If things go bad, you have something to fall back on. If they never do, great, go travel the world or whatever you want to do. It’s just like anything else in personal finance, it’s better to be prepared then not at all. But, some people don’t agree with me here. Be sure to check out the comments, too!
- FB @ Fabulously Broke in the City got the ball rolling on a discussion about what our parents gave us monetarily growing up. While FB had some challenges with her parents, it was interesting to read the comments and various other posts this one started. In some cases, I felt that certain bloggers were living on a sense of entitlement – I don’t think parents are solely responsible for paying a child’s college tuition, particularly if they can’t afford it. I think college is really where we start learning about finance (in most cases) and what the real world is like.
- Frugal Dad started a nice discussion on diversifying your assets beyond the typical Asset Allocation. Personally, I think some of the things he listed are pretty standard allocation beyond the stock market anyway, but he has a few suggestions that could be worth taking a look at. The point is, during uncertain times, it’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. This is good advice either way, but sometimes being creative and thinking outside the box yields the best results.
- Broke Grad @ Broke Grad Student told us how s/he successfully negotiated a lower rent payment. I’m fairly new to this blog, hence the reason for the “s/he” – I don’t yet know which it is – but I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve read so far. This article gives some great little tips for those in a position to renegotiate your leases, and now is certainly the time to do it.
- J.D. @ Get Rich Slowly has a great article on the “third stage of personal finance.” I’ve talked about this before – though not in these exact terms – and it’s not always received very well on personal finance blogs. But the idea is that money isn’t the goal…it’s merely a facilitator to a larger goal, which generally tends to be what you want to do in life. I highly encourage everyone to read this article and understand the perspective. The basics of personal finance are great, but once you’ve become debt free, built an emergency fund and savings, plus maxed out your retirement options, what’s next? Where do you go from there? It’s good food for thought. Check out the comments here, as well.
- Kevin @ No Debt Plan has a great article on the emergency fund basics. If you know me, then you know I whole-heartedly believe in and advocate an emergency fund. I like posts on emergency funds. And Kevin gives some great insight!
Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!
Related posts:
Thanks for including me in the list of links :)
I find the discussion interesting and I have to agree, parents do NOT have to pay for their kid’s tuition, but I am definitely going to try and save something for my kids so that I can surprise them at graduation. Or maybe at the end of graduation after their interest-free grace period ends lol..
@ FB – Of course I was going to include this one in the roundup! It was so interesting! In your case, I could see you being upset because your parents had led you to believe one thing and then went in the opposite direction. It was never about the money, more that they had lied. I would have been upset, too. But, some of the commenters I felt had a skewed sense of entitlement. Then again, that’s a lot of what made the discussion interesting, no? Hehe.
Thanks for the mention and to help clarify the confusion, it should be “he”.
Thanks for the mention and the awesome collection of links!
@ Broke Grad – Ah! Thank you for clarifying. I thought you were a ‘he,’ but I didn’t want to offend anyone, so I kept it neutral. LOVE your site, btw! Thanks for stopping by.
@ Joseph – You’re most welcome! Lots of good stuff out there, too much for just one post, but I like to give you guys a few! ;)