Over the last week I've been included in a pair of quality carnivals. The first is the Carnival of Real Estate hosted by Searchlight Crusade. The editor disagreed with my recreational approach to real estate I called House Lust. I agree that it can be dangerous, but if you are conscientious I think cruising the open house circuit can still be an informative and fun way to spend a pretty weekend.
One of my articles was also included in the Carnival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance. I've always thought it is important to recognize that personal finance is much less about numbers and more about our values, goals, and aspirations. Check out the carnival for some great reading.
One last thing I want to include in today's round up is the creation of a new category of post on Aspire 2 Wealth. Recently I've written two posts on the topic of Behavioral Finance. I am a big fan of this area of research and so over the next few weeks and months I will hopefully continue to cover more aspects of this neat (financially powerful) science. Check out Your Brain Make Building Wealth Hard and More Ways Your Brain Tricks You if you missed them the first time.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Carnival Update
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Hump Day Round Up
I've continued to look into the inflation problem I raised in my post How High is Inflation Really? I found two good links that dig deeper into rising food costs and rising fuel costs. In general it seems like there have been a whole series of failed policies and broad economic mistakes that have all built up to give us a perfect storm for rampant inflation. It may not be too late to fix some of the problems but there is the potential for very bad things.
On another note, Aspire 2 Wealth has been included in a whole slew of carnivals over the past week. I have gotten behind with sharing them, but today I sat down and read through many of the posts and came across a lot of great information. Here they are:
Money Hacks Carnival #2 hosted by beingfrugal.net
Money Hacks Carnival #4 hosted by Amatureist Financial Journey
Ethics, Values & Personal Finance hosted by Money and Values
Monday, February 25, 2008
The 123 Book Meme
Over the weekend I was "tagged" to make my contribution to The 123 Book Meme. Here is the low down:
"Grab the nearest book that has at least 123 pages, open it to page 123, and count down 5 sentences. Then, type the next three sentences here. Then 'tag' 5 other people/blogs."
Credit Withdrawl was kind enough to tag me so here goes. My closest book is The Only Three Questions That Count
"The PSR [Price to Sales Ratio] tells you, in the event the name didn't give it away, a stock's price relative to its per share sales. It's just like a P/E but uses annual revenue or sales where the P/E uses earnings. A stock selling for $25 with $25 in sales per share has a PSR of 1."
There you have it. You have now learned a new metric by which to value stocks! Now I'll tag five new blogs (in no particular order).
Today I was also featured in the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances hosted this week by The Frugal Law Student. I'm going to spend some quality time this evening going through the carnival and commenting on some posts. It will be time well spent.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Round-up: Cupid Edition
Last night my wife and I had our special evening together for Valentine's Day. I cooked a red wine fondue. It involved a lot of chopping veggies and cutting meat into cubes that were put onto skewers and cooked in a boiling mixture of wine and beef stock. Very yummy.
I also gave her two sets of coupons as a gift. The first set of 13 tickets are redeemable for "Blog Free Nights." My wife supports my blogging, but there are times that she needs me to pull myself away from the computer. Blueprint for Financial Prosperity posted recently about the Five Languages of Love. I know my wife needs attention to know she feels loved and that isn't always my strong point so this way she can remind me when she is feeling short changed on my affection.
The other coupon book I found online, I've lost the link now, and each coupon is an activity for us to do together. One is a day of cuddling, another is a picnic, and another is a romantic dinner out. In all there were about 15 of these activities. Some are going to be nearly free and others will be fairly expensive. The total value of all of the coupons may even be $500, but used over the course of the year it will be a great way keep up the romance.
There were a ton of great posts around the blog-o-sphere this week about Valentine's Day so I'll give a quick round up of some:
- Cheap Way to Say "I Love You" from Get Rich Slowly
- 6 Tips to a Frugal Valentine's Day from Consumerism Commentary (slightly tongue in cheek)
- Of Love and Money from Wise Bread
- Every Day is Valentine's Day from Clever Dude
Aspire 2 Wealth was also featured in the Carnival of Homeowners this week. You should check it out. Thanks for reading. Enjoy your President's Day weekend!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Blog Roundup - Adfecto's Sick Edition
I've been sick all week. It started with some sniffles on Sunday and by Tuesday morning I couldn't get myself out of bed. I spent two days of sick leave from work (Tuesday and Wednesday) but today I had to drag myself into the office. I don't really feel up to writing anything new and original but I have spent a good deal of time reading my long list of favorite blogs (while drinking gallons of hot tea).
Here are some of the posts that caught my interest the most:
J.D. at Get Rich Slowly wrote about The Value of a College Education. I completely agree with his thoughts. When I sat down to write a post about my money decisions, I immediately knew that my educational choices were far and away my best. I got a BA in Computer Engineering and then took a job with an employer that paid for me to get a MS in Software Engineering. To get here it is/was a lot of hard work, long nights, and Red Bull but it has paid off. This path is really only for those who enjoyed taking apart electronics when they were kids, begged for Legos and erector sets for Christmas, and would rather learn C++ than Spanish. My total bill for education was near $100k but 2.5 years out of school I’ve made back every penny.
Free Money Finance added a helpful post about How I Paid Off My Mortgage. I can only imagine what it would be like to be totally debt free. The debate of paying off a mortgage early versus investing is explicitly left out of the discussion, but reading the post made me question my current plan to hold a mortgage up until right before I retire. Right now it seems like it would be nearly impossible to have the type of house I want, with enough room for a family, in the right neighborhood, and so on for an amount I could pay in cash.
Lastly, Plonkee Monkey wrote a great set of posts about Planning for Retirement: Buy-to-Let vs Pensions. This analysis (for those in the American market) compares the overall retirement income produced from rental property compared with investing in stocks and bonds. While the numbers and assumptions differ from what I estimate for my local market, the conclusion ends up being the same. Rental real estate is a valid way to invest your money and CAN beat the stock market. However, it is not for me! Renting out homes and apartments requires a high initial investment, high risk, poor diversification, and worst of all... a LOT of work. I've mulled over the decision to become a landlord dozens of times and every time I decide that the payoff just isn't worth it. You should still check out the articles yourself and see if it could work for you.
Now I am going to drink one last mug of tea and get to bed. Hopefully I will shake this germ and be back to my old self soon.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Holiday Blog Roundup
The season is upon us so I thought I'd scan the blog-sphere for the best money tips for the Holidays.
Gather Little by Little compares the strategies of buying multiple moderately priced gifts or a single expensive gift. My family has historically done a hybrid where each kid would select one large gift that would be about 1/2 to 2/3 of the total spending and then we would each get about ten other smaller gifts. This year we tried a significant reduction in the number of gifts and it looks like it will be a better solution (especially now that I'm older and get less of a thrill from the unwrapping process).
Being Frugal gives us a tip on an easy and frugal Christmas breakfast. Our family had a Christmas breakfast tradition that I remember fondly today. I'd recommend finding something that works for your family and making it your special Christmas tradition.
Free Money Finance looks at Christmas spending in a new way. How many hours (or days) do you have to work to pay for your Christmas spending this year? I think my total for gifts and travel will approach a week worth of take home pay; roughly 2% of my spendable income. Is that a good amount? My wife tends to think I'm a bit of a Scrooge but I don't think so. Feel free to chime in with your comments.
Cash Money Life has a great issue of the Carnival of Financial Goals - 2008 Resolutions Edition. I think writing resolutions and goals for each year is a great practice. I haven't written mine yet but look for them to be posted in the near future. I do know that paying down my debt and increasing my Roth IRA contributions will definitely be near the top of the list.
Housing Panic give us a reminder of the recent real estate turmoil and how it may be a harsh wake up call for many this year at Christmas. The real estate ATM is closed for business. Check out the article to read more about how it is going to effect everyone this year.
Thanks for dropping by for this roundup. I'm taking off this afternoon to spend a few days with family. I hope you are able to do the same. Happy Holidays!
