Everyday Finance has posted the 166th Carnival of Personal Finance, where Funny’s piece on the threat posed by the astronomically vast US national debt appears. This week’s carnival has a commodities theme — EF having just finished an MBA, the content around the links is interesting and knowledgeable. And the links are great! My eye was drawn to No Debt Plan’s “Where to Store Your House Inventory Documentation”…mine is (ahem) in the file drawer next to my desk — yipe! Dividend Growth Investor has some much-needed positive advice about the likely future of equities investments, backed up reassuringly with some convincing figures. Blue Jeans Millionaire has a veryinteresting post, part one of two, describing an approach to investing in real estate. Money under Thirty has created an Excel spreadsheet that will allow you to calculate how much you need in your emergency fund. At the Digerati Life, SVB lists quite an array of routine, almost unnoticeable expenses and explains how they can help you diddle away $175,000 over ten years. This carnival contains many other useful and entertaining posts — don’t miss it.
Living Almost Large has posted the 73rd Carnival of Money Stories, and what should pop up among the Editors Choices but a tale near & dear to my heart, Finance Girl’s story about what it actually costs to entertain friends with a nice dinner! Meanwhile, at Value for Your Life Amanda is determined to have her cake and eat it, too: she argues that frugality doesn’t necessarily mean deprivation. At Penny Jobs, Curtis has an interesting insight on finding work that you like to do. Funny’s Big Brother story appears in this week’s carnival.
Our Four Pence Worth has posted the 139th Festival of Frugality. Funny’s worry about whether layoffs are coming to the Great Desert University and how to prepare appears here. Quite a few interesting posts are listed in this week’s festival. Daddy Financials presents ten tips for getting yourself in the habit of dining in. KCLau explains in detail how a couple rounding on middle age with middling earnings can prepare for retirement, and Penny Nickel holds forth calculating the true costs of transportation.
The 77th Making It from Scratch Carnival is up at Life on Both Sides of the Pond. This carnival gets better and better. Check out these two AMAZING recipesoffered by Your Mileage May Vary, one for a gorgeous watermelon (!) salad and one for a to-die-for smoked fish and cucumber specialty. Here’s one from Seabird Chronicles for peach salsa that sounds really delicious. Funny’s recipe for cucumber soupappears, flatteringly, in this distinguished company. I enjoy MIfS because it has such a wide variety of posts, from cooking to crafts to household tips and home improvement. Check out Money Blue Book’s description of the great roach wars: you’ll find a whole series of ways to beat back the little devils, with critiques of how each works. And (hope you’re ready!) check out this ingenious washing stick from HowToMe.
We’re starting to postdate this blog entry: as of 8/21, Living Almost Large has posted the 12th Finance Festival, where Funny’s report on the advent of The Copyeditor’s Desk was featured. Among the Editor’s Picks is Jim’s first installment of a new Blueprint for Financial Prosperity series, “Seven Deadly Sins of Personal Finance: Skipping Emergency Funds.” The Baglady has a very interesting rumination on allegedly recession-proof jobs. And whoa! Here’s a riveting piece on how to profit on domain names and websites from the Shark Investor; though I’m no expert on this subject (by a long shot), it looks like this contains some useful information and fresh insights. Good festival: check it out!