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Moments of fame

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w00t! The 164th Carnival of Personal Finance is online at Squawkfox. It’s vast: a whole galaxy of PF articles. And it’s really beautiful, with many wonderful photos of bucolic scenes. And a cool dog. Funny’s jeremiad calling on readers to shop local appears among the many offerings. I see iWeb (or possibly user error on my part?) has struck again in transmitting the homepage URL rather than the link to the post itself. So, since the Archive’s links are very iffy in the new improved MobileMe environment, I’m moving the post’s date from July 6 to today, so it will appear near the top.

Meanwhile, you’ve got to visit some of the excellent sites in this week’s carnival. I like Financial Reflection’s rumination on the actual cost of one’s car, mostly because it pretty much agrees with my opinion. And in the great minds in the same path department, GLBL brilliantly (IMHO) reviews the ten least-expensive-to-own vehicles and reveals that (lo!) nary a one is a hybrid. Not Made of Money explains how to decide what documents to spare from the shredder while you’re in declutter mode. Two bloggers raise questions about 401(k) plans: Generation X Finance explains how to tell whether your plan sucks, and No Debt Plan raises the possibility of discontinuing his 401(k).

My partner in crime and I were pleased to see that Squawkfox accepted The Copyeditor’s Desk’s first contribution to any carnival, a rave on the ideal job for liberal arts majors. Yay!!!

The 71st Carnival of Money Stories is up at Value for Your Life. This also offers a large selection of interesting and lively pieces, along with a great selection of travel photos. Funny’s rant about health insurance and US healthcare in general made Editor’s Pick here. It’s three in the morning and I’ve already started reading some of the entries. Check out Free Money Finance’s piece on the outcome of some of Extreme Home Makeover‘s projects–this one generated quite a slew of commentary! And did you realize that more than a third of Brits have only about 11 days’ worth of emergency savings? Yipe! Dorian Gray at The Personal Financier reports a survey to that effect; no parallel survey of Americans, though he found one saying 71% claim they have enough to cover unexpected costs like a car repair…that’s a lot different from having enough to live on for a two or three months if you lose your job. And finally, we were delighted to see my business partner’s first contribution to the Carnival of Money Stories, an essay at The Copyeditor’s Desk on how well editorial work fits the needs of a working mom.

Round-up: Hotter than a two-dollar cookstove edition

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We’re having a little heat wave here in the Valley of the We-Do-Mean Sun. Night before last it was 105 at 8:00 p.m., sunset having brought the thermometer down from a bone-baking 114. Arizonans have a summertime equivalent of Michiganders’ snowbound: I am not sticking my nose outside my air-conditioned box today…no way, no how. Instead, let’s catch up with the blogosphere, an entertainment I’ve allowed to slide a bit over the past couple of weeks.

First, two really neat new-to-me sites: Correr es mi destino, despite the title an English-language production emanating from Canada, and SmallNotebook.org, featured on Get Rich Slowly for the proprietor’s “Month of No Spending” and blogging about a subject dear to my heart, simple living. I love the design on each of these things! Both authors write gracefully and engagingly; don’t miss them.

Speaking of GRS, J.D. is taking time off to deal with an illness in the family, and so some guest writers are filling in for him. Appropriately enough for a Sunday, today’s post comes from an Oregon pastor, Steve Ross, who contributes a thoughtful–even profound–essay on how his congregation is dealing with a financial crisis and what money and work really mean.

Mrs. Micah and the Mr. have taken off for Michigan. This week I really enjoyed her response to a remark a commenter posted at The Simple Dollar, which she crafted into a lively discussion about whether it is unethical for banks to charge interest.

Be This Way mourns the loss of an innocent child to the unholy combine of vicious parents and a craven child welfare system. We as taxpayers have a moral obligation to see that our state child protective services are fully funded to hire enough competent caseworkers to deal with the huge workload social workers face, and to eliminate the temptation to cut corners. Pay more taxes? Yup: if that’s what stands between a child and the forces of unbridled evil.

Speaking of taxes (and on a lighter note) this is extremely good: Plonkee figures out what her taxes would be if she lived in the U.S. and then compares U.K. vs. U.S. costs and services. Awesome!

Paid Twice recommends tracking the per unit price of goods in your price book. This is an excellent idea, since items are packaged differently by different retailers. It also allows you to get a better handle on prices advertised in the weekly flyers.

Five-Cent Nickel reflects on some of the hidden hooks in great deals. Be sure you read the fine print and understand all the details before grabbing a bargain.

Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity won the free copy of Break Down Your Money in the Alpha Consumer challenge, edging out Funny by a percentage point. Because the contest was so close, he has graciously offered to share the book with me after he posts a review of it.

GLBL has posted a thoroughgoing discussion of how to create your own online store at Gather Little by Little. Looks suspiciously like work to me. Dang. Another source of “passive” income gone to seed.

Much, much more out there…my system has started to run with the speed of a stampeding snail, meaning the Mac wants me to close out Excel, Quicken, Word, Safari, iWeb, and the printer, shut down, and reboot. Time to stop. Enjoy all the great posts above!

1 comment left on iWeb site:

Rachel

Thank you so muchyfor including my site. I appreciate it.

Hank’s big giveaway at My Investment Blog

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Hey! Speaking of what we’d do if we came into a windfall (as we just were), Hank is giving away money at MiB Smarter Money. He wants to know what you’d do if you had $50,000. In exchange, you get a shot an American Express card worth $150, $100, or $50.

Check it out, and check out the whole blog. There’s a lot of interesting posts here, the one that jumps to my eye being a long and informative piece on how to publicize your blog. Currently, Hank is doing battle with Comcast, a story that’s developed some interesting ramifications. More than worth a visit!

1 comment left on iWeb site

hank

thanks for the props!And best of luck in the contest!

If I won a million dollars . . .

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All right. I confess: I succumbed to the impulse to buy a lottery ticket. A raffle ticket, actually, but the IRS regards it as a kind of lottery. For a hundred bucks, the Health & Wealth raffle gives you a 1 in 18 chance of winning something, most likely a $100 bauble. You get about a 1 in a zillion chance of winning a million bucks. The C-note you toss to the winds lands in the coffers of Barrows Neurological Institute, a world-class hospital specializing in brain and nerve injuries. So it’s far from a total waste.

Go ahead. Click on that link. I dare you to not buy a ticket. Just look at that Mercedes roadster, that stack of cash…hot dang! There are 106 cash prizes ranging from $500 to $1 million. Then there are the cars, which could be resold for hefty amounts. Some are so extravagant that even selling at a deep discount would leave you a nice contribution to the retirement fund: two Mercedes vehicles in one prize, a combined value of $154,000, a Jaguar, a Lexus hybrid. They’re giving away 24 cars plus a motorcycle and several other small contraptions.

There are also a couple of large TV sets that are probably worth a couple thousand. And all those trips. Questionable whether you could sell a Mediterranean cruise, but the contest rules allow you to donate your gift back to Barrows. Obviously, a $30,000 tax deduction would do good things for your finances. Indeed. That’s almost two years’ worth of taxes for me. All very nice. But what I’m going for is that $1 million bag of money. I want the million dollars.

So…let’s indulge our fantasies. What would you do if you won a million bucks? It would translate to about $500,000 net, after taxes were extracted.

Pour moi, five hundred grand would guarantee that I could retire and have enough to support a middle-class lifestyle through the end of my life-no matter how long I do live.

  • I could pay off the Renovation Loan instantly.
  • I’d probably keep my job for another two years, until I can collect Medicare, since I likely can’t get health insurance as an individual. But…that much cash in hand would allow me to take COBRA, which would carry me through 18 months. So I could quit about in December and go on COBRA until I can switch to Medicare.
  • I could sell my house and move to a better neighborhood.
  • I could move to Prescott.
  • I could move to Santa Fe!
  • I could pay off the mortgage on the Investment House and then sell it to my son, collecting principal and interest payments to support myself and then put in my will that the loan is forgiven when I die. This would guarantee that all he puts into it would come back to him as principal, should he decide to move…and then some, if he stays there until die.
  • I could send my son to graduate school.
  • I could give away one of those Mercedes Benzes as a gift on my blog.

Jeeminy. Light a candle to the Goddess!
Are you prepared for the day you win a million dollars? What’s your plan?

Cheap Eats: Cold cucumber soup

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I have an inordinate fondness for cold soups, especially in the summertime. This one is addictive. It’s a Middle Eastern concoction called xergis:

You need:
3 cucumbers
3 scallions or 1/2 small onion
1 clove garlic
5 cups good-quality plain yogurt
1 tsp. olive oil (optional)
4 tsp dill weed
1 tsp salt
pepper
blender
large bowl

Mix the ingredients together in a large bowl, and then purée about 1/3 cup at a time in the blender until smooth. Chill. Serve in soup bowls with a sprig of mint or a sprinkling of chopped dill, parsley, or coriander. You also can serve it in glasses as a drink.

The stuff is utterly delicious. As a side benefit, it delivers an enormous thwack of calcium, about 386 mg. per cup. You can cheerfully drink two cups without feeling at all put upon.