UPDATE: Submission form link for next week’s carnival fixed. Sorry about that.
There’s nothing more depressing than people who talk about “the end of summer” when it’s not even mid-August. Do you suck the joy out of everything else too, or just the best season of the year? We’ve still got a few days remaining before that infernal equinox. Enjoy it while you can.
That being said, this is our final CoW of the summer. Not the final CoW of the summer, just ours. Next Monday we’ll be hosting the itinerant Totally Money Blog Carnival, which means the Carnival of Wealth will stop by Financial Uproar for the briefest of respites. You’ll be in for a treat. Nelson, the guy behind Financial Uproar, has almost as little patience for stupidity as we do. Plus he’s funny, and can spell and punctuate.
Original, non-stolen artwork ©Financial Uproar 2011, all rights reserved
Next week’s CoW will work the same way it always does: just submit by midnight Saturday. And to get in on the Totally Money Carnival, submit here. Now, on with the show:
Speaking of counting summer’s chickens before they’ve hatched, Jon the Saver at Free Money Wisdom points out that “One of the best times of the year for many families is the summer.” He’s right: most families rank summer in their top 4 seasons. He suggests 12 things to do in the 9 remaining days of summer, which means you’d need to do 1.3 of his recommended activities every day from here on in to cross them all off the list. He claims that a day of crafts (“Most kids love crafts”) is something your family will remember for many years to come. And he’s right. That day my brother and I made papier–mâché death masks in 1975 is something we still talk about.
Tim Fraticelli at Faith & Finance lists 12 things you don’t want to skimp on. We would have added jackstands, bullets, pet medicine and water filters. (Aside: “skimp” and “scrimp” are pretty close to synonymous. Why would anyone add an extra letter if they didn’t have to? Seems like a waste.)
Apparently Janet at Credit Cards Canada read that old piece of homespun wisdom about not grocery shopping on an empty stomach, and decided to share it with us. To save money on groceries, she also suggests that you USE A LIST. Also, BUY IN BULK if you can. She also helpfully suggests that you bring trail mix along when you run errands. The number of people who didn’t bring trail mix with them on errands but now will because Janet recommended doing so? We’re guessing zero.
At the rate we’re going, by 2022 the entire internet will consist of nothing but porn and personal finance posts about how to be frugal. Unfortunately we can’t showcase the former here, but Miranda at Financial Highway is helping us choke to death on the latter. Her 45 favorite parsimony strategies include: clip coupons, drink water from the tap, brown bag it…you get the idea. Of course you do, you have a functioning cerebellum.
Time for a good one. FMF at Free Money Finance test-drove a home safe, and interviewed an industry expert (alright, it was a representative of the safe company) about the pros and cons of introducing a cuboid metallic member into your family.
A: Of course not.
Q: Teacher Man at My University Money asks “Is a liberal arts degree worth it?”
How about post about frugality? We told you they were few and far between. Shawanda Greene at You Have More Than You Think gives her take on the topic, arguing for more balance. In fact, she says she lives by the motto “Big or small, I sweat it all.”
The couple behind Sustainable Personal Finance live in Canada, and like most Canadians, are a short drive from the United States. Tired of paying outrageously high prices compared to their American counterparts, SPF did the sensible thing: jettisoned their own commitment to buying local, and crossed the border to save money.
Again with the Canadians. Boomer at Boomer and Echo talks about the cheery topic of long-term health care insurance for the old and/or decrepit. (You mean Canadian health care isn’t free for everyone? No, it’s more complex than that. Who knew?)
Fanny at Living Richly on a Budget read and reviewed a book by some guy on TV. It’s called The Wealth Cure: Putting Money in its Place, and you’ll never guess what its message is. True happiness starts inside. If you are not truly happy inside, then you won’t be happy no matter how much more money you have. Another secret of the universe, uncovered right here in the Carnival of Wealth. Swish!
You’d never guess it from his picture, but Roger Wohlner of Chicago Financial Planner is a certified financial planner. It’s great to have a professional come in to the CoW once in a while and give a little complimentary analysis. Roger might not be a live wire, but information always trumps personality. Last February he posted what his Fidelity Freedom fund invests in, and this week he updates it.
Another post on frugality? Are you detecting a pattern? timw (pronounced “timw”) at Escape the Hum Drum says you should live modestly. timw’s own scrimping includes skimping on commas, which he used only 19 of in an 1100-word post. That’s not easy to do. We don’t know much about timw, but we’re flattered that despite being from the UK, he wrote his post for a North American audience by incorporating dollar signs into the narrative (yet tipped himself off by talking about living in a flat and saying “whilst.”)
The world would be a better place if more people wrote like Neal Frankle at Wealth Pilgrim. If you’re looking for some extra retirement income, you might be intrigued by the idea of a reverse mortgage annuity. It’s a way for you to tap into the equity of your home. You’ll receive that money for as long as you’re able to live in your home, and you won’t have to repay the loan. Since many people aren’t able to find (or are interested in finding) jobs in retirement, this could be a way to go.
Paula at Afford Anything doesn’t seem to understand that $ means “dollars” (“$1 million dollars”), but she does grasp the arbitrary nature of the base-10 numerical system and its psychological effects. Read her findings in “Who Wants To Be A $402,854-aire?” (number converted by us to base-12.)
Did Hurricane Irene do a number on your house? Maybe you suffered some mental anguish and can never go out in the rain again. Back Taxes Help shows how you can minimize the damage to your tax bill.
Finally, she missed the deadline but this post was so good we had to make an exception. Sandy of Yes I Am Cheap has a radical idea: maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t have kids if you can’t afford them.
Thanks for stopping by. See you in a fortnight.
