Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Welcome to the 40th edition of the Carnival of Money Stories, the one year anniversary edition. To be exact, our first edition was last year on Christmas day, so the carnival is exactly one year and one week old.

I am really glad that it has made it this far, many great thanks to all the hosts and submitters for all their hard work and efforts. I want to take the time to recognize all the hosts that has contributed this past year including with all the posts and submissions from each carnival. Here is a recap of all the carnivals from the previous year, December 2006 – December 2007.

1. Moneywalks on 12/25/06
2. Moneywalks on 01/08/07
3. Save Money on 01/22/07
4. BinaryDollar on 02/05/07
5. DigeratiLife on 02/19/07
6. Money,Matter and Musing on 03/05/07
7. WiseBread on 03/19/07
8. MoneySmartLife on 04/02/07
9. FireFinance on 04/16/07
10. Young and Broke on 04/30/07
11. Sun’s Financial Diary on 05/14/07
12. Getting Green on 06/04/07
13. Money Walks on 06/11/07
14. The Frugal Law Student on 06/18/07
15. Retire Young and Wealthy on 06/25/07
16. My New Choice on 07/02/07
17. A Penny Saved on 07/10/07
18. Sushi Money on 07/16/07
19. Dough Roller on 07/31/07
20. Bryan C. Fleming on 08/07/07
21. Ask Mr. Credit Card on 08/14/07
22. Carnival of Money Stories on 08/21/07
23. Fire Finance on 08/28/07
24. Enough Wealth on 09/04/07
25. Tight Fisted Miser on 09/11/07
26. Paid Twice on 09/18/07
27. Money For Military on 09/25/07
28. Building An Empire on 10/02/07
29. Money Monk on 10/09/07
30. Free Money Finance on 10/16/07
31. Stop the Ride! on 10/23/07
32. Bag Lady on 10/30/07
33. Moolanomy on 11/06/07
34. Being Frugal on 11/13/07
35. Living off Dividends on 11/20/07
36. The Dividend Guy on 11/27/07
37. Loonies and Sense on 12/04/07
38. Cash Money Life on 12/11/07
39. Time to Budget on 12/18/07
40. Here on …today!

…and finally on to our 40th edition of The Carnival of Money Stories. Great selection of stories here so please take your time to look over these articles. Theses are in order from the time it was submitted. Enjoy!

1. My Dollar Plan
2. Millionaire Neumes
3. Credit Withdrawl
4. Me Vs. Debt
5. Gather Little by Little
6. The Investors Journal
7. Free Money Finance
8. The Financial Blogger
9. Chief Family Officer
10. Free From Broke
11. Early Retirement Extreme
12. Money Blue Book
13. Singly Guy Money
14. Money Clipped
15. Paid Twice
16. Credit Cards that Pay
17. Ask Mr. Credit Card
18. Money Changes Things

So that was it, I really enjoyed reading through all these stories. If you have time, please highlight your favorite story or even your favorite carnival edition from the past since its posted all here. Thanks for taking the time to look over this edition and big thanks to all submitters and also once again to all the previous hosts. Lets hope we can have another successful year of Money Stories.

If you are interested in hosting a future edition of the Carnival of Money Stories you can either send an email to carnivalofmoneystories(at)gmail(dot)com or just leave a simple comment here to this post. To submit your stories to the next edition, you can use this form here. Have a great week everyone and Happy New Years! Cheers!

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Hello and welcome to the Carnival of the Capitalists. I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving weekend and a smooth black Friday. I want to start off by thanking Jay of Bizosphere for giving me the opportunity to host this great carnival. If this is your first time hearing about the carnival you can read the details from their main site and submit to their next edition, if you have an awesome article you would like to share, using this blog carnival form.

I had a great time reading through all the entries, 21 articles made it to this edition. Following the guidelines of the carnival theme, as long as the article was not older than 3 weeks and it was quality work it was included here in this edition. Okay, without further delay I present you the Carnival of the Capitalists.

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Capitalism
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Banks + Debt = Evil

http://www.pqinternet.com/94.htm

Buffet on Diversifacation

Most people end up di-worse-si-fying their portfolios by adding stocks in unfamiliar sectors for the sake of diversification

What Is A Cap Rate

The lower the cap rate, the more the market values the future appreciation of the area.

Estate Tax or Death tax?

Paying taxes is like pouring water down a drain. Yeah, some good happens (the drain gets cleaned and is kept functioning), but so much is wasted

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Personal Finance
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Will A Bank Sleep With You? Understand Credit As A Relationship

Do not try to lie to a women, they have a sixth sense for this kind of stuff. So do banks

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Business
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Business Investment Strategies That Work Every Time

The secret to investment success is the consistent application of time-proven strategies, not the use of complex, hard-to-understand investment vehicles created by investment bankers out to take your money

Five Powerful Techniques to Help Your Business Stand Out

It is impossible to know how to brand your company if you don’t have a clear vision of what you offer, why it is different from others who may offer similar concepts or products, and how to convey all of this to your customer

Business Cards:A Valuable Investment or a Waste of Paper?

Business cards don’t work in all cases though. They will only work as well as you do

Interviewing Employees: Avoiding Problem Workers

Beware of any job applicant who badmouths their previous employer. All they are saying to you is that you will be the next evil one on their list

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Management
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The illusions of superior professional mutual fund manager performance

If investment mutual fund managers were truly skilled at beating the market, then you would expect mutual fund manager performance prowess to persist over time

The Startup Team or the Startup Idea:What’s More Important?

If you surround yourself with great people, the great ideas will flow like good wine.

Please, Lord, Not Another Trademark Leadership Concept

We don’t need more “creative” ways to write about leadership. We need more good leaders we can use as role models, examples and mentors

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Marketing
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Get Demographic Market Research For Free

Don’t rely on visual cues such as “oh I saw at least 10 old people in the pharmacy.” Be scientific and be cost effective.

The Psychological Effect of 99 cents

Manipulating the price to make it look like a bargain is a powerful psychological strategy used in marketing for the best ROI

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Economy
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The Most Anticipated Recession Ever

households in the lowest third of the income distribution have experienced a ‘devastating impact’ from high fuel and food prices, with 60% reporting a worsening financial situation.

Ron Paul Wants to Abolish the Federal Reserve

abolish the Federal Reserve and replace it with a computer

So Now you know

The Fed’s 3-year-ahead inflation forecast also surprises me a little, in that the highest inflation rate that any member anticipates for 2010 is only 2.0%

Good News on the Declining Dollar, Savings & More

Many people who denounce our national savings rate do not realize that the savings rate statistic does not include most investments nor does it include assets in retirement plans or even home equity

Informations and the Commons

Today in Professor Rustici’s class, we discussed the tragedy of the commons…

What is the Bank of England Base Rate and Why is it Important?

The Bank of England interest rate is the rate at which the Bank lends money to high street banks

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Sales
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Don’t Let your Car’s value Go Down “Like a Rock”. Buy the Vehicle that Keeps it’s value the Best.

Its 2008 Best Resale Value Awards found that Volkswagen produced vehicles will keep their value the longest.

So that concludes this edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists. If you are interested in submitting or hosting in the near future you can stop by the carnival home site and learn more on how you can contribute. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

There was an article that made it to the front page of yahoo that linked to an article on The Wall Street Journal about a homeless man, John Wesley Jermyn, who is often seen either on roller skates or dancing, inspired a new brand name of clothing line called “The Crazy Robertson”. If you have 98 dollars to dash out, you could have one of his graphic hoodies.

What caught my eye was that he now also have an agent and a manager, to manage his profits of his clothing line. At this point I’m thinking wow, a manager and an agent, I guess he suddenly made it pretty big and has a pretty nice stack of money in some bank account somewhere but thats far from the truth. Although its not much money, Mr. Jermyn has specific ways he wants to be paid. Interestingly, he doesn’t want any cash or anything that is of any value, at least our definition of value. All he wants is food, liquor and some paper for his art projects.

“But so far he has refused to accept much cash, preferring to be paid in food, liquor and paper for his art projects, according to Teddy Hirsh, one of the label’s founders.”

In order words, he only wants what of any value to his life, which happens to be food, liquor and art projects. Not a new Ipod, or a computer, or some expensive unnecessary gadget from Best Buy. He basically lives his life according to his own lifestyle that he is used to and doesn’t like to involve any money in his daily life and therefore does not depend on society for anything. I like this article because I like that he values his life style and won’t change even if he had money. It is evidence that show it is possible to live without all the extra stuff we have and long for.

Mr Jerymn and I live on the same planet but apparently two completely different lives. So much of our daily lives involves monetary issues and we strive to perfect our social order, but sometimes I wish I was in an environment somewhat similar to Mr. Jerymn’s shoes, or roller skates rather and skate along freely. When we see Mr. Jerymn, we see him as being trapped and being extremely limited. But in a way, it’s quite the opposite, we’re the only ones who deal with all these problems we deal with money. It’s a interesting concept but really, money is the only thing that limits us and clearly, because Mr. Jerymn does not reply on money, he is free and unlimited.

Keep on dancing Mr. Jerymn, you rock!

This week, there was well over 50 submissions and 37 made it to the festival. I had a great time reading these articles, they were awesome, but in order to keep the festival’s theme consistent, I had to omit articles that had no relevance to frugality. But I want to say that I tried my best to fit each article in this edition. First off, I want to share with you the definition of frugality from wiki:

Frugality (also known as thrift or thriftiness), often confused with cheapness or miserliness, is a traditional value, life style, or belief system, in which individuals practice both restraint in the acquiring of and resourceful use of economic goods and services in order to achieve lasting and more fulfilling goals. In a money-based economy, frugality emphasizes economical use of money in meeting long term personal, familial, and communal desires

I think this is a great definition of frugality. That is why I have chosen this definition as a baseline for this festival and have broken down into 7 strategies for frugality. This way, reader can pick what part of frugality they want to read about. But before we start, I want to thank all the contributors for their submissions, I learned so much from reading all the posts. I hope you can get out as much information out of this festival just as I have. Many great tips and suggestions here, also I made an asterisks(*) on the ones that I particularly enjoyed.

Okay, without further delay…

Welcome to the Festival of Frugality #83
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1.) Changing costly habits and/or suppressing instant gratification

Lower Your Cable and Internet Bill Today

Cutting The Cable Cord

Cut your Spending Today

2.) Reduction of wastes and bartering

House obsession

“Found” Money

Save Money by Using Less than Suggested Amounts

The Cost Of Living With Pampered Pets In Luxury And Some Really Weird Pet Products

3.) Seeking efficiency

7 Habits of Highly Effective Money Managers

Present Simplicity

*Ten Commandments of Frugal Living*

Resourceful West Virginians

*Are Poor People More Frugal Than Rich People?*

4.) Defying expensive social norms

Day 435: Riding the Rails

Clean your whole kitchen with baking soda and vinegar

Comfort and Style on a Cheapskate’s Budget

*Trash to Treasure: My Flower Power Pants*

10 Ways to Pay for College with OPM (Other People’s Money)

Save Money and Eat Healthier: Buy Frozen and Canned Produce

5.) Embracing free options

Libraries Are Not As Bad As You Think

*5-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water*

Frugal Fridays: The Library is More Than Books

Why MyPoints Is Worth Joining And What I Have Gotten From Them

Free or Low Cost Entertainment Ideas for Families

6.) Staying well informed about local circumstances

Buy American – Frugality Strategy?

For the Frugal Mind: Cheapest days to shop

Staple Rewards – How to Save Money at Staples

10 Ways to Save on Travel Expenses

7.) Market and Products

The Dollar Store

Don’t fear the warranty

Eco-friendly consumerism is still consumerism

Frugality, Morality & Harry Potter

Free Software Roundup: Not All Freeware is Created Equal

Frugal Way to Save Money on Lipstick

Do My Frugal Ways Harm Workers?

A Great Alternative to Buying Expensive Cameras, Lenses and other Photography Equipment

Clean, Safe, NonToxic Cleaners

Cost Effectiveness of Homemade Laundry Detergent-A Reader’s Question

Well that’s it. I hope you had a great read here, take with you as much as you can. If you see any articles here you enjoyed, please share it with your readers. Also, if you do not see your article here and think that it should be, please email me and let me know. I’ve been known to make mistakes every once and a while. Once again, I want to thank all the authors for their fantastic articles and don’t miss out on the next edition over at The Frugal Law Student.

First of all, I want to thank John of Might Bargain Hunter for giving me the opportunity to host this edition. I was really surprised to see the number of submissions to this edition, it was really low.

As always, there were really good articles submitted so please take your time to read these posts. I made some comments on the articles and also took out a quote from each just to give a small idea on what each article talks about. I hope you have a great time here and take a lot out of these great tips with you. Without wasting any more of your time, here are the articles for edition #92:

These articles are in order in which they were submitted

Personal Finance Blog Articles on “Getting Money to Finance Your Purpose in Life“.

Editors Note: This is a nice article on how to get into the right mind set into helping you get out of debt. “No matter how much you earn from these financial streams of income, you must manage your money effectively….
You can have as much money as you want because money is an energy. You may need to change the way you think about money”

3 Debt Consolidation discusses “When Is Your Credit Card Debt Too High?“.

Editors Note: Also shares a nice list of ten indications that shows you carry too much credit card debt. “You know your credit card debt is too high when you have to spend more than 20% of your take-home pay towards paying off the interest + original principal balances on your credit cards”.

Stewart Hsu shares his experience on “Advice from a Billionaire“.

Editors Note: Stewart’s right, its not everyday that you get the chance to hear a billionaire speak about their experiences and their success stories. This article points out some useful tips from a billionaire. Stewart says “Sitting in the audience, what made him so compelling was the genuineness and warmth in which he spoke; I personally felt he was speaking from his heart”.

Family Finance Blog tells us “How to get out of debt – one day at a time“.

Editors Note: “Debt is one of the easiest things in the world to get into and one of the hardest to get out of. There are thousands upon thousands of tips for getting out of debt whether it be slowly or quickly”. FFB is right, debt is so easy and so inviting with hard temptations and once you’re in debt its so hard to get out of. Like what FFB says, take it one day at a time.

The Happy Rock posts, “Having Goals Is Great, But Having Purpose Is Better“.

Editors Note: Happy Rock gives us two situations in which deals with getting out of debt and explains that having purpose is the key success in becoming debt free. “Having goals is very helpful, but having purpose will change your life.”

Golden Fleece Blog on “Bundling Cable, Phone, and Internet Costs More“.

Editors Note: The title says is all. Read on to get some advices on how you can save money on cables, phones and internet costs. “One advantage to bundling is that you can periodically call your cable company and threaten to cancel, citing the low promotional rates offered by its competitors.”

Might bargain Hunter explains that “A mortgage is still debt that needs to be reduced”

Editors Note: Amy has a debt of 72,000 and she wants to pay it off by April 2009. Now that’s a great goal, shes going to have to pay roughly 3,000 each month to pay that off in time. MBH says, “I wonder why there’s not the same urgency for people to pay off their mortgages”.

No Credit Needed says he prefers “Creating The System Versus Doing The Work“.

Editors Note: NCN has many tips here on techniques for building better systems. “First, you need a budget that you can setup, modify, and actually use. Elaborate, fifty-page, multi-screen budgets only work for a select few. Create a budget can and will actually use”

That about concludes this edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction. I hope you will take many tips from these articles and apply them somehow in your life. I hope you will have a great week. Submit your articles for the next edition of Carnival of Debt Reduction here.

Clever Dude hosted the 103rd edition of the carnival of personal finance. He has an awesome theme based on the big time tv show 24 and basically sums up all the articles in an 24 hours story line. If you have not visited the carnival yet I strongly suggest that you go and visit. Here are some articles from the carnival that caught my interest.

1. A Penny Saved submited a piece called The cost of not doing yard work.
2. We’re in Debt wrote an article called Love and marriage: The joint account.
3. Tricia from Blogging Away Debt performed a Personal Finance Interview.

David from My Two Dollars hosted the 77th edition of the Festival of Frugality. Don’t forget to check out the editors choice! Again, here are 3 more articles that I liked from the festival.

1. Paul from Wise Bread shares 10 Frugal Things to Try Before you Die.
2. Free Money Finance explains How to Have a Wedding for Under$200.
3. Bill from AskUncle Bill posts How to Save a Million Dollars.

No Credit Needed Network hosted the 90th edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction. The carnival is broken down into simple sections so it is really easy to follow.

1. Ben from Money Smart Life wrote How to Talk your Way into Debt.
2. My Money and My Life presents To Pay Off or Not to Pay Off.
3. Credit Card Lowdown shares How Credit Card Rate Jacks Actually Works.

Don’t forget to check these carnivals out, there were so many great articles I couldn’t post all of them here. Have a great week.

1. iPod nano (2GB)
2. iPod shuffle (1GB)
3. USB Microdrive (5GB)
4. Encyclopedia of Financial Planning
5. Time is Money

He has laid out simple rules for contest and you can enter just by submitting a comment on the post(don’t forget to tell a friend). Aside from entering the contest, his site offer tremendous amount of good valuable content. Definitely one of my favorite blog sites. So if you have not been to his site, take this opportunity to visit his welcome page and subscribe to his feed. The deadline for the contest is may 11th.

• Money for Military wrote an article titled, Military Taxes Refund. He makes a very good point, why should we let the government keep our hard earned money and let them invest in it, while we could be using that for our own purposes and own investments. Although huge refunds always results in huge smiles, we need to realize…that’s our own money. Key point: try to pay just enough taxes to come out even!
• PfAdvice explains why she Decided Not to Buy a House. Owning a home is definitely something that is looked upon as a great life accomplishment and a goal for many. However, buying a home is a great way to go but is not for everyone and in some cases, renting more secure and a safe play. “I also might miss out on losing a ton of money by buying at the peak of a market that so many people think is about to crash (or already in the process of crashing, or at least leveling out”
• Digerati Life posted an article today called 5 Money and Currency Facts your History Teacher Never Told You. Fact #5: Do you know how the dollar sign ($) got invented?”Most people think the symbol for the US dollar is derived from the initials U and S superimposed on each other. Well this is false. It’s from the Spanish dollar sign. The US decided in 1782 that its basic unit of currency would be the Spanish dollar or peso. Its symbol was even then written as $, which was supposedly an ancient Phoenician sign indicating strength and sovereignty.” Fun facts are always welcome, thanks Digerati

Have a great week, keep up the reading!

First off, I would like to start off with a nice poem from Market Poetry, Now’s the Time to Trim.

Stock Tips and Tricks:

The Skilled Investor Blog says No Financial Software or Calculator can Predict the Future

WorldWide Sucess gives advice on how to Succeed with your Investments.

The Financial Whiz’s Investment Strategy.

The Time and Money Group breaks down the Anatomy of Stock Trade:Entry Techniques.

Stock News:

Financial Pragmatist on The Return of Volatility.

Sox First explains What Happens to the Company’s Stock Price when the CEO Buys a Mansion

Fat Pitch Financials brings up Warren Buffets Response to Shai Dardashtis question. 

Stock Stats:

Please Don’t Take Me Seriously gives a general review over the Eagle Plains Resources (EPL)

Trader’s Narrative takes a look at the Monster Worldwide(MNST)  

And that will conclude this edition of Festival of Stocks. I hope you enjoyed all the articles here. Don’t mess out on the next edition over at Stock Market Prognosticator. Have a great week!

Carnival of Credit Card edition #9 hosted at CreditCardLowdown.

1. Grad Money Matters posted a piece called Stop Blaming Your Credit Card.
2. Wealth Building Lesson shows us How to Improve Your Credit Score by 100 Points.
3. 3DebtConsolidation writes on the Importance of Your Credit Rating & FICO Score.

Carnival of Personal Finance #95 hosted by Accumulating Money.

1. Cents You Ask tells us What You Can Buy With 23Cents
2. Advanced Personal Finance on Financial Records- What to Keep, What to Toss.
3. The Real Returns with Connecting Bottoms of S&P500

Carnival of Taxes #16 hosted by Don’t Mess With Taxes.

1. PfAdvice posted an article called When Should You Opt For A Professional Tax Preparer.
2. Getting Green asks, Tired of Being Taxed to Death?
3. FiveCentNickel on Roth IRA Income Limits for 2007

The Festival of Frugality #69 hosted by Digerati Life.

1. The Frugalist shows us 27 Fun Ways to Destroy your Credit Cards.
2. Frugal Upstate wrote a piece called Throwing a Birthday Party Fit For a Princess On a Budget.
3. Stop the Ride shows us how to make Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

Carnival of Debt Reduction edition #82 hosted by NCN.

1. Verve Coaching on Getting Out of Debt(Part 1)
2. MoneySmartLife brings us Should you Use your Emergency Fund to Pay off your Credit Card Debt?
3. Picture of Wealth writes When you Don’t See Eye to Eye on Finances.

Well that about sums it up. There were so many great articles this week from each of the carnival so if you have the time, please go visit them.

Also, don’t forget the Carnival of Money Stories #9 is coming up this Monday on the 16th over at FireFinance. If you have not submitted your money story yet, you can do that here. Have a great weekend!