Moments of Fame

BankerGirl does an awesome job of hosting the169th Carnival of Personal Financeamid a frenetic schedule that includes planning a wedding, a big workplace project, and teaching. She kindly included Funny’s rumination on the real cost of an intellectual worker’s overhead. Among the amazing editor’s picks, check out what Bob is up to at ChristianPF: the guy isconverting his car to run on water. On a subject near and dear to my heart, over at Moolanomy Pinyo considers the benefits ofcollecting one’s Social Securityat the earliest possible moment. Harvesting Dollars wondersif you’ll really spend less in retirementthan you do while you’re working (IMHO: if you’re already frugal and you don’t have to buy special clothes for work or eat out for lunch, probably not). Quest for Four Pillars adds to the retirement discussion withan interesting rumination on the 4 percent rule; here, too, readers add some useful insights. If you like your cookies frosted, check out My Dollar Plan’s discovery that the $7,500 first-time-buyer’s tax credit is sadly misnamed. And speaking of financing real estate, My Two Dollars wonders how to go aboutgetting a mortgage when the largest part of your income is from freelancing; though I thought it was impossible, several of his readers offer solutions. Well, speaking of retirement dreams and mortgage schemes, it’s time for me to get up and go to work: don’t miss this carnival, ’cause it’s full of outstanding posts.
* * *

Frugal Babe hosts this week’s Festival of Frugality, where Funny’s squib on Ikea appears. My attention was instantly caught by Jacob’s post at Early Retirement Extreme about saving big bucks by moving into an RV; just last night while walking the dog I passed by the RV that usually appears in front of one of the neighbor’s homes this time of year and thought…that could be the answer…. Speaking of mobility, you have to see the amazing Thriftymobile at Miss Thrifty. The Happy Rock has decided to buy real food instead of processed & prepared gunk at the grocery store…oops, sorry. We shouldn’t call it “gunk,” it being against the law to slander foodstuffs these days. Hank at MiB has come up with an interesting hack involving Costco’s cash cards.
* * *

At Funny’s sister blog, The Copyeditor’s Desk, the 76th Carnival of Money Stories has gone live. My favorite posts there were FMF’s story about his kids’ views on paying taxes and Jim’s interesting remarks on Roth conversions and Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Since I wrote this carnival, I’d like to point out that several people who submitted posts to the Money Stories carnival also submitted the same posts to the Festival of Frugality. One managed to be included in both round-ups.

The rules to most carnivals specifically state that entries should be original and submitted to only one carnival. I can see why you would hedge your bets with the Carnival of Money Stories: so many people submit posts that aren’t really stories that a relatively small percentage of submissions are accepted. It really isn’t difficult to tell the difference between a narrated story and a list of tips, though. Why not simply submit the “5 Ways to Save” posts to a carnival that’s looking for them and leave it at that? If you think you have an actual story, send it to the Money Stories Carnival first; then if it doesn’t fly there, next week send it to the FoF or the CoPF.