The Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #37

We’re trying a new format of the carnival today on My University Money and the new submission form can be found at bloggercarnivals.com. We’re doing this to simplify the process, as well as making it easier for others to host the carnival.  So if you’re using both bloggercarnivalhq as well, please don’t double submit because it just takes me longer to pull this together.

Editors Choice

Echo @ BoomerandEcho presents Declaring Bankruptcy Should Be Your Last Resort saying ast mistakes aren’t easily fixable but there are ways to climb out of the hole if you’re willing to do the work. Declaring bankruptcy should be your last resort.

Mike @ RewardsCardsCanada presents Mobile Banking And A Cashless Future saying mobile banking technology is making it easier for Canadians to do their banking on the go. More than 2.5 million Canadians have downloaded a mobile banking app on their smart phone.

Glen Craig presents What Do Bank Routing Numbers Mean? posted at Free From Broke , saying, Every now and then you need to have your bank routing number, like when you set up direct deposit. Ever wonder what the number actually is?

Mike @ RewardsCardsUsa presents the Best Frequent Flyer Rewards Program saying As you evaluate your options, it’s a good idea to consider what makes a good frequent flyer rewards program. Here some questions to ask yourself as you decide:

Jefferson presents How much does it cost to heat and cool a home? posted at See Debt Run. With energy costs on the rise, we take a look at what we are currently paying and examine ways to save money on electric and heating costs.

FamilyMoneyValues presents Financial Fables: A Mouse in the Cellar posted at Family Money Values. Readers, this is my first attempt at fable writing! I’m sure you got the moral of the story (it actually is a fable for kids). Is this too hokey? Do you think your kids would listen to a fable like this and learn from it?

Steven Zussino @ Canadian Personal Finance writes Is Buying a Condo the Right Decision for You? – The decision to purchase a home, any home, is a big one. It means more responsibility, less flexibility when it comes time to move, and a mortgage. However, financially speaking, purchasing is a better investment more times than not.

Emily presents Best (Intangible) Gifts for Grads posted at PT Money Personal Finance. The best gifts can be the ones that don’t cost any money. This post includes a few of those.

Carrie Smith presents How to Save Money on Your Daily Cup of Coffee posted at ReadyForZero Blog. With more than 50% of the population in America drinking a cup every day, the coffee business is booming. And at $3-5 (or more) per cup, that can add up to a lot of money for a morning cup of joe. If you just can’t live without that morning cup, check out these simple ways to save money it.

Sean presents How to Eat Right on a Budget posted at One Smart Dollar. Most people think that eating healthy has to be expensive. It is actually easier than you think to eat healthy meals while staying within budget.

Janet presents The Great Canadian Road Trip [Infographic] posted at Credit, Eh.  Summer is a great time to enjoy a family vacation. A road trip can be a great way to spend time together, and have a fun and interesting vacation. You can even stretch your vacation dollars with the right planning.

Jacob @ My Personal Finance Journey presents How to Reduce Your Business Energy Costs posted at My Personal Finance Journey. Often, businesses don’t benefit from the best energy deals from big companies. This post describes a few ways your business can change in order to ensure you are spending as little as possible on energy bills.

PK presents Have You Ever Been Dropped By a Company? posted at Don’t Quit Your Day Job…. I was caught by surprise when I was recently dropped from my home insurance for the mistake of owning a not-quite-purebred ‘dangerous’ dog breed. Go figure – just when you thought they should pay me for securing the house, haha.

Dividend Growth Investor presents My dividend crossover point posted at Dividend Growth Investor. The dividend crossover point, is the point where your dividend income meets or exceeds your expenses. For many dividend investors, this is the point synonymous with financial independence. After all, after years of sacrifice, wise investment and sticking to a plan, investors would finally be free from a nine to five job.

Forest Parks presents Buying in bulk can make you eat more posted at Frugal Zeitgeist. It’s possible that by buying in bulk you will save money but end up eating far too much. Here are some tips to help you avoid that.

Jeff Rose presents 6 Key Steps On How to Pass Your Life Insurance Medical Exam posted at Life Insurance By Jeff.  Before making a commitment to their clients, life insurance companies require you to take a medical exam in order to find out the best policy for you.

Jeff Rose presents My “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” Experience posted at Good Financial Cents. We all have them; those moments in our lives where we are presented with a crossroad. Where each path has the potential to lead us into a totally different result.

Deacon Hayes presents Do You Love What You Do? posted at Well Kept Wallet. One of the biggest tragedies is when people work in jobs they don’t like to just “get by.” Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are circumstances where people need to do this so they can pay their bills. But the tragedy is when they do it for 30 years. Why not find a career you would love and go after it.

Beating Broke presents Trying a Container Garden This Year posted at Beating Broke. This year, we’re giving a container garden a go. We purchased several (8-10) containers of various sizes and shapes, filled them with potting soil and topsoil and purchased all the seeds we thought we might need for the year.

Roshawn Watson presents Your Financial Crisis Manual posted at Watson Inc. Men don’t drown by being underwater; they drown by staying underwater. You can come out of hardship, and the best way to do this is with a plan. Here are 9 steps to navigating a financial crisis.

Squeezer presents The psychology of paying off debt posted at Personal Finance Success.Paying off debt requires motivation, hard work, and determination.

Green Panda presents Should You Work Long Hours For Someone Else? posted at Green Panda Treehouse. Is it better to work on your own projects or to devote those hours to someone else?

Best of the rest!

BUDGETING

Jason @ Live Real, Now writes How to Live Happily without a Budget – Three years ago, we sat down and built our budget. We spent 9 months adding the non-monthly bills that we forgot about when we created the budget. Setbacks and shortfalls almost killed the budgeting plan completely. It took almost an entire year to get our budget right. Now? I refer to the budget once per month. No more.

Matt @ Living in Financial Excellence writes Selling a House When the Market Stinks – Ok, I have to admit. To say the housing market in our area stinks is putting it lightly. I really don’t think it stinks. I think it flat out sucks. So when we made the decision to move to Iowa, we knew we weren’t exactly going to have a smooth transition. But we didn’t know what we were in for either.

Little House @ Little House in the Valley writes May Progress Monitoring – I can’t believe it’s already June! The years just seem to fly by. It’s that time again when I need to check my progress to see how I’m doing on my goals:

Everything Finance @ Everything Finance Blog writes A Review of Pear Budget: A Real Simple Budgeting Program – One of the best ways to control your money is to keep track of your spending. There are many different software programs that will do this for you. Today we are going to look at Pear Budget, an online budgeting program. You can try it for free for 30 days; after that, it is $4.95 per month to use.

BUSINESS

Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money writes The MonaVie Scam Exposed! – MonaVie has threatened legal action against me twice in an attempt to prevent you from reading this article below. Since I’m within my legal rights to criticize the company they’ve turned to gaming Google to push this article down the search results – an attempt to prevent you from getting the information you need to make an informed decision about the company. This article has been completely updated (as of June 2012) from the ground up to reflect much of the information found from the huge dis

Teacher Man @ Young And Thrifty writes Using Debt and Failure As Motivation – It’s all fine and well to be motivated by altruistic means, but I would argue that the top performers in most fields are fuelled by something other than the prize at the end of a rainbow.

CAREER & EDUCATION

Kraig @ Young, Cheap Living writes How I’m Achieving My Goals by Attending FinCon12 – After having started my blog just 6 months ago, I booked my trip this week for the 2012 Financial Blogger Conference in Denver. This is quite exciting for me and my career as I plan to use it to achieve my personal and professional goals. In this post, I talk about those goals and how the conference fits in with them.

A Blinkin @ Funancials writes How To Get A Job and Girlfriend – Have you ever been without a job? I have heard that, aside from losing a child, being unemployed is one of toughest experiences to go through. If you have been fortunate enough to have not experienced this anguish, lets find another angle.

JP @ My Family Finances writes Afraid of College? The Two Biggest Reasons Why Americans Don’t Get a Four-Year Degree – Why are so many Americans afraid to go to college? The St. Louis Fed presents two statistics that make going to college very scary.

Steve @ Brip Blap writes 10 Quotes on Careers – Consider these 10 famous quotes on careers, and my take on each one.

FINANCIAL ADVICE

Mr. Money @ Smart on Money writes Boost Your Deductible and Save on Insurance – While many people acknowledge the importance of insurance, no one likes to premiums. If you want to reduce your costs, one of the best ways to do so is to boost your deductible.

Jeremy @ Modest Money writes Leaving Your Heart Out Of Financial Decisions – Have you ever wondered why we sometimes rush into some financial decisions without properly thinking things through? Maybe we have weak willpower, but the reality of the situation is that we are letting our hearts impair our judgement.

FRUGALITY

Jester @ The Ultimate Juggle writes Myrtle Beach – The Perfect Affordable Family Vacation – The following are some of the reasons that my family like to vacation down in Myrtle Beach for our primary family vacation

Miss T. @ Prairie Eco Thrifter writes Reader Question: How Single People Can Limit Waste and Save Money at the Supermarket – The grocery store can be a treasure trove of food opportunities for the single person. You just have to look. Here are my tips for solo cooking and dining:

INVESTING

Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money writes Timing the Market with a Small Amount of My Portfolio – I’m a big believer in regressing to the norm, and I feel that guessing that markets at lows will go up and the those at highs will go down seems right. Perhaps this will help me make a little money if the market trades sideways as it has for quite a long time.

J.P. @ Novel Investor writes SIPC Insurance Coverage: How It Protects Investors – The SIPC insurance coverage is there to protects investors when their brokerage firm fails, assuming the broker is a SIPC member.

Invest It Wisely @ Invest It Wisely writes 5 Ways to Help Your Kids With Their Finances – This is a post by David Bakke, father of a young son, and contributor for Money Crashers Personal Finance, a blog focused on sharing tips on money management,

PPlan @ Provident Plan writes Are You Tied to Your Possessions? Is that okay? – Find out why your commitment to your possessions might be a good thing and why your stuff is not inherently bad.

Ryan @ Early Retirement Investments writes 7 Savings Steps to Take Before Retirement – It may seem far off now, but retirement has a way of sneaking up on hard-working consumers. And the earlier you begin planning for your golden years, the more money you’ll have saved up.

Jason @ Work Save Live writes How to Invest in Consumer Debt – How to Invest in Consumer Debt Many investors are familiar with investing in corporate and government debt through the purchase of bonds. Bonds are often attractive because they’re considered one of the safer types of investments. This is especially true of U.S. Treasury bonds which are guaranteed by the U.S. government.

Daisy @ Add Vodka writes Young People & Saving For Retirement – If you are still a relatively young person, or if you are just starting out into the working world, it is likely that you have given little or no thought to retirement planning.

Kevin @ Thousandaire writes Roth IRA Contribution Limits for Married People – When one spouse makes all the taxable income, both spouses are allowed to fund their Roth IRAs if they file a joint return.

Luke @ Learn Bonds writes Understanding Bond Mutual Fund Fees – An explanation of Bond Mutual Fund fees and expenses and how to minimize the costs associated with investing in all types of mutual funds.

Passive Income Earner @ The Passive Income Earner writes Discount Broker Overview for Dividend Investors – It’s always a pleasure to be featured in the Globe & Mail by Rob Carrick and this week he highlighted my RBC Direct Investing Discount Broker review. Since I have been investing, I have used 5 different discount brokers (not so discounted back in the day though) and it’s a competitive market out there.

Penny Thots @ Penny Thots writes 8 Ways to Survive a Volatile Stock Market – In order to reach your financial goals, you need stop yourself from giving in to your emotions and stay invested for the long term. Here are eight tips to help.

Don @ MoneySmartGuides writes Mainstream News Finally Joins The Investment Fee Bandwagon – Vanguard has been preaching about the effect of fees on investors for years. I’ve wrote about the effect fees have on your investments, and even on the new 401(k) regulations and how high those fees are.

Eddie @ Finance Fox writes The Found Money Dilemma – What Would You Do? – Good Samaritans come in all shapes and sizes, but what would you do if you found cash on the street or in the elevator. Share your finding story.

Robert @ The College Investor writes How to Roll Over Your 401k When You Change Jobs – When you change jobs (which many people have over the last few years), you may not quite know what to do about your old 401k. Depending on your old employer’s guidelines, you usually have these options:

Investor Junkie @ Investor Junkie writes Does Wealth Affect Your Investing Strategy? – Should conservatism always be tied to retirement dates, or is wealth a factor too?

OTHER

Tushar @ Start Investing Money writes Investment Club Strategies For 2012 – Ever heard of an investment club? If you’re not in the know, an investment club is simply a modestly sized group of private investors, and it’s generally made up of a set of friends, church members, a few family members, or neighbors.

YFS @ Your Finances Simplified writes 4 Ways To Stop Wasting Your Paycheck on Your Commute – Everyone has done the following calculation at least once: If my commute is 20 miles round trip and I work 5 days per week, how many days am I working just to get to and from work? The answer here is often frightening.

Jeremy Waller @ Personal Finance Whiz writes My Search for Residual Income – Over the last 5 years I have constantly had a number of side projects to earn an extra income. In most cases it wasn’t much, maybe a couple hundred per month. There have been a few times I did really well and brought in over $1,000 of extra income.

PITR @ Passive Income To Retire writes Pros and Cons for Full-Time Blogging – Have you thought about blogging full-time? Make sure to consider both the pros and cons before you make the leap of faith.

John @ Married (with Debt) writes Push Yourself, But Not Over a Cliff – If you’ve been following our debt payoff progress reports, you know that we are two months away from paying off approximately $100,000 in consumer and student loan debt.

Amanda L Grossman @ Frugal Confessions writes Why have Appliance Purchases Accelerated? – When discussing our recent washer purchase with my grandmother, something occurred to me.

Jon the Saver @ Free Money Wisdom writes 8 Surprising Ways People Waste their Money – Here are 8 surprising ways people waste their money and it can easily be fixed with proper money management and educating yourself!

Crystal @ Budgeting in the Fun Stuff writes If You Can Read, You Can Cook – Spice Review – When Edward over at If You Can Read, You Can Cook started a spice line that could replace McCormick packets for less money, I just had to try it out!

MR @ Money Reasons writes Striving for Income Diversification – Why have one income stream when you can have many? This is my attempt at creating multiple income streams.

Wayne @ Young Family Finance writes 5 Popular Unnecessary Expenses – Find out more about wants vs. needs as I list five common unnecessary expenses of the average family. Do you need to but that?

Corey @ Steadfast Finances writes The Hidden Costs of Owning a Smart Phone – Smart phones can be great to use, but they can cost an arm and a leg. Find out if it is worth the cost.

Suba @ Broke Professionals writes Professional Profiles: Sarah, the International Grad Student – My best friend earned admission to graduate school across the pond. Turns out, she’s not the only American flocking to Britain for business school.

Daniel @ Sweating the Big Stuff writes How Do You Budget Money for Emergencies? – My fiancee’s hairdry broke the other day. With prices of new ones up to $200, I’m glad I have an emergency fund!

Corey @ 20s Finances writes How to Prosper – Hopefully, you sat down and created your spending plan that I outlined in the spending plan post last week. It doesn’t take a lot of work, but will go a long ways to helping you prosper. Let’s focus on a bigger picture now. Follow these three rules and you will be on your way to financial success.

101 Centavos @ 101 Centavos writes What You Know Ain’t So – Or rather, what you know may not necessarily be so. Conventional wisdom has a conventional way of being frequently turned on its head. Myths get bust…

krantcents @ KrantCents writes The 3 S’s of Success – The 3 S’s of Success is the nineteenth in a series of articles to help you reach your goal.

Aloysa @ My Broken Coin writes A Rebel in Blue Jeans – Blue Jeans were unique in Russia, and to have a pair was considered rebellious. Read my story!

Sustainable PF @ Sustainable Personal Finance writes Staycation: Better for Your Wallet and the Environment – By staying home during your time off you save money and the planet.

Kyle @ The Penny Hoarder writes 9 Ways for Slackers to Make Money Playing Games – Nothing is better than making money from something you already love doing and after two years of writing for this blog, I’m starting to believe it’s possib

Jen @ Master the Art of Saving writes Spending Money: iWant vs. iNeed – There were so many things I could use the new Ipad for, so I kept trying to convince myself that I needed it. It could help me get closer to my goal of…….

ETZ25 @ Entertainment Timez writes Hiking – Hiking is a lot of fun. You should try it. This tells you about my hike.

Hank @ Money Q&A writes Killer Stock Characteristic #3 – Dividend Yield – I love stocks that give dividends to investors. I often prefer to buy stocks that offer a dividend yield as opposed to regular stock.

SFB @ Simple Finance Blog writes Battle of the Bulk: Costco, Sam’s Club, & BJ’s – I’ve broken down the membership costs of some of America’s biggest bulk retailers for you.

SB @ One Cent at a Time writes 101 Ways to earn extra money from side hustle – An extensive list of 101 ways to earn extra money on the side by doing small hustle. See what fits for you. This post is to give you the possibilities, it’s up to you to implement.

Have a good weekend!