Carnival Of Money Stories #7

Welcome to the 7th edition of the Carnival of Money Stories!

I enjoyed reading all of the entries and will probably end up stealing most of your ideas for my own blog. Because this carnival is about personal stories, entries with more of a personal touch were given more prominence.

Spotlight Selections

Paula from Queercents has a great cautionary tale about the perils of allowing romance to cloud your financial vision:

I learned the long and roundabout way that the rosy colored glasses of romance and first love really can create kinks in the relationship. In my case, I didn’t take into account the differences in family messages, current financial situation (loans vs. no-loans, car payment vs. none, etc.), or expectations around money. We simply did what we did and I paid for the bulk of it.

Rad from Financial Zero to Hero Husband and Dad shares the story of how he paid down the credit card debt he racked up as a reckless youth. His journey to financial herohood started out a little shaky:

I was under the impression that these big companies did not care about a measly $3,000 balance. if I ignored them long enough they would just forget about me and the debt would just disappear. If you got a summons in the mail from a collection agency later on, just ignore it, their trying to scare you.

Stephanie from Stop The Ride compares generic and brand name popcorn and discovers surprising results.

Personal Stories About Money

Mike the Clever Dude admits that even a smartypants like him can end up making stupid mistakes on a daily basis:

There’s a reason we Personal Finance sites have disclaimers. We make mistakes too. So, read my advice, comment on my advice, and maybe even use my advice. But, as I said in my About page and on my Questions About Clever Dude article, follow my advice “at your own peril”.

Rich from Queercents shares a story about dating a hot treehugger who was carefree but not careless with money:

He was in the moment, living for today. I couldn’t tell at first if it was a front, but he gave off the aura of one utterly carefree, engaged with life and happy with his place in it. But this didn’t make him careless about money and debt, quite the opposite. “If I can’t afford it, I probably don’t need it” was his motto. And if he did decide he needed something, he saved up and paid cash.

Matthew from Getting Green has helpful tips on how much should one spend on an engagement ring:

Personally I read two different books on engagement rings and diamonds just so I wouldn’t mess up the process. I highly suggest that any guy wanting to buy a ring picks up “Engagement & Wedding Rings” By Antoinette L. Matlins and Antonio Bonanno. This’ll take you through all of the different aspects of a ring, and about what you should pay for them.

Madeleine from Mad Kane's Humor Blog presents Taxing Times to help lighten up this otherwise dreary tax season:

Mark: We really should start doing our taxes next Saturday.
Me: You’re absolutely right. I’ll pick up Quicksand’s ShirkoTax this week.

By late March we’ve made impressive progress:

Mark: We really should start doing our taxes next Saturday.
Me: You’re absolutely right. I’ll pick up Quicksand’s ShirkoTax this week.

Praveen from My Simple Trading System tells us how getting married to the right woman made him a more frugal person.

Debt & Credit

Priya from Credit Card Lowdown presents 77 tips to help you get rid of your credit card :

62. Buck society. You don'€™t have to "have it all." If you're happy with your modest home and 10 year old car, keep them. You'll reap the benefits when they're paid off. Your neighbors, meanwhile, will be working 60 hour weeks for the rest of their lives to pay for their McMansion.

That's wise advice, though at first I misread "Buck" and confused it with another word.

Realtor Michael Emilio presents 8 steps to getting your finances in order for a mortgage. I especially liked the first tip which seems very sensible:

1. Develop a family budget. Instead of budgeting what you’d like to spend, use receipts to create a budget for what you actually spent over the last six months. One advantage of this approach is that it factors in unexpected expenses, such as car repairs, illnesses, etc., as well as predictable costs such as rent.

General Money Musings & Advice

Golbguru from Money, Matter, and More Musings shares some interesting facts about social security numbers. For example, did you know that:

078-05-1120 is the most misused social security number ever….some 40,000 people have claimed this SSN as their own.

Sagar from Debt Consolidation Lowdown presents a Young Person's Guide to Personal Finance:

Get money that’s owed to you. Don’t know how to do it? Read Assets Unknown: How to Find Money You Didn’t Know You Had, by David Folsom. Alternately, you could check out unclaimedassets.com.

Pushpa from Debt Consolidation Lowdown presents 100 Most Famous Quotes About Finance:

81. One dollar for eternal happiness? I'd be happier with the dollar. Monty Burns

89. I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart. E.E. Cummings

Walt from Walt Nation advises that if you want to be great money should not be the motivation:

No person who is great chased after money to become great. They became great because of the amount of love they had for what they did. Bill Gates didn’t chase money, he worked hard and dedicated his time and attention (love) towards technology and everything he could do to develop it.

Mr. Juggles from Long or Short Capital joins one of the most venerated of all PF blogging activities: calling Robert Kiyosaki a moron.

[Kiyosaki] advocates against cash, stocks, bonds, saving money, buying things, the US, real estate, etc etc. What is left? Brine shrimp futures? Short or long positions in abstract ideas like Perf?

Investing, Business and Making Money

Silicon Valley Blogger from The Digerati Life presents 5 Things I Learned From Casey Serin, The Guy Behind “I Am Facing Foreclosure”:

#4 Smile in the face of adversity and try, try again.
As I said earlier, I try to emphasize the positives: the guy is tough, ambitious, can laugh at himself and has a strong spirit. He’s got a genuinely thick hide to be able to take criticism like he’s been doing. How many people can continuously swallow their pride the way this guy does?

Steve from Getting Debt Free explains how the jitters of subprime lenders will create a sellers' market in real estate:

The result will be up to a million potential buyers, by some estimates, that will be unable to secure home financing. Even more optimistic analysis points to the evaporation of 250,000 – 350,000 buyers from the market. You know what that means, even if you flunked Econ 101. Lower quantity demanded will equal lower prices and longer time on market for sellers.

Dan from China Law Blog shares an excellent article about new rules affecting foreign ownership of real estate in China. If you are thinking of expanding your portfolio to include Chinese real estate, this article is a must read:

I am also aware of a number of foreign residents who are violating Chinese law by buying more than one property. They tell me they feel safe in doing so because the Chinese government does not effectively track foreign real estate ownership. These people are taking large and unnecessary risks. The risk is unnecessary because all they need do to buy multiple properties legally is to form a WFOE and make the purchases through it.

Tracy from Fraud Files provides a warning against Usana Health Sciences, which looks a lot like a MLM scheme. While the report is specifically about Usana, it provides many good tips about how to spot MLM scams in general:

As with most MLMs, the products are overpriced because of the commissions that must be paid out to several levels. While MLMs often tout that they offer savings to consumers of their products by reduced advertising and distribution costs, the fact is that the multiple levels of commissions usually require the products to be priced unreasonably high.

Bryan C. Fleming examines whether 6 percent online savings accounts are for real:

Companies with online savings accounts offer promotions from time to time to get your business. As we talked about before, they rent your money and pay you for the privilege of doing so. Some of them have offered 6 percent interest on your money but there’s almost always a catch

Zechary has a good tip about how to help people just by chatting online.

David from Worldwide Success believes you can become a millionaire with Agloco. Fair disclosure: I didn't have a great experience with All Advantage, the prior incarnation of Agloco. I have, however, heard nothing but praise about Confederated Products.

Stock-Net presents ETF’s driving small-cap stock volume: Trading Opportunity?

Robinson presents Gootube - The Controversy.

Networth

BurstCreativity presents How to Change Your Money Fate? (Warning, music plays after the jump.)

One of the biggest things we are going to have to change about our selves is how we view money. If our attitude about money is negative (i.e. we look at it as a “necessary evil”, something that is against our nature but a must if we want to survive in this life) what do you think are chances of you being fantastically wealthy?

Bdurfee from Thinking Rich performs a salary striptease, saying:

Americans often consider their salary information to be a very private thing ... watch as I expose my perceived worth and give clues on what I'll reveal next.

Phil from Phil For Humanity presents Money Cannot Buy Happiness.

Other Stories

Kay from Don't Mess With Taxes is getting tired of sorting through snail mail spam. However, Kay does have a soft spot for the mailman....

I came to look forward to the mailman's visit. The mail, be it letters from family or friends or bills or flat out junk mail, was my contact with others.

Alan from Made To Be Great asks how do you handle rejection when you start making positive changes in your life that sets you apart from your friends and family?

This concludes the lucky 7th edition of the Carnival of Money Stories. We hope you enjoyed all the entries.

If you have money stories of your own to share be sure to submit them to the next carnival by clicking here.

Thanks Andy for giving Wise Bread the opportunity to host this carnival. The check is in the mail.

Photo by David Wilmot.