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Update #2: Ack! There were a few code errors that meant some posts were skipped (gotta love HTML). I’ve fixed the code and the articles are correctly appearing below. Please accept my apologies… and check out the new articles!

Welcome to the 117th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. I’m Kevin, the interim managing editor of this fine institution for this week.

As always there were a multitude of submittals for this edition. The final count came in to 76 entries. Please note that not every entry was included. Some were not on topic, others were obvious product pitches. I hope you’ll find this edition to include the best of the best. Content for this week has been broken down into various topics. Investing and general money discussions are the thickest section of the carnival this week. I haven’t used fancy graphics or anything like that. I am going for a streamlined, easy to read Carnival this week. (That and my hard drive on my desktop went caput and my graphics generating abilities are severely limited.)

Please feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed. Additionally, you may enjoy some of my more popular posts (full list on the right sidebar), including Selling Your Cell Phone: A Look at Your Options and Setting Goals.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy!

Edit/Update: I critiqued a couple of articles I disagreed with. I did this not to be mean, but I wanted to include the posts in the Carnival. Discussion is what the web is about, right?

To start, here are the major headlines from this week:

My pick for best article of the Carnival goes to:
Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog - How to Not Overpay When Buying a Home. This is a very detailed post from a real estate professional. Highly recommend you take a look.

Other solid articles:

The Digerati Life - Surefire Ways to Shrug off Market Slides

KCLau - Dissecting Leona Hemsley’s Will

Gather Little by Little - Personal Finance is like Driving a Car

Honorable Mentions:

Saving Advice - 25 More Money Confessions

The Tao of Making Money gives a thorough analysis of 0% credit card offers drying up.

Moolanomy - Does Dollar Cost Averaging work?

Consumerism Commentary - 5 Romantic Outdoor Day Dates Under $30. The old saying, “A happy wife leads to a happy husband” (or something along those lines) applies here. Props to Consumerism Commentary for being the only romantically related post in this Carnival.

…and now for the rest of the festivities!

Home Ownership/Mortgages/Moving:

Make Your Nut ponders, Am I subprime? Obviously not, and neither are we! (Although we are getting an 80/15 loan).

Don’t let your home remodeling project financials run amok, says Finance is Personal.

A Penny Closer reminds us that A New Home Costs More than a Mortgage. We’ve more than doubled our budgeted utility expenses for when we move into our new home.

Fiscal Musings wants us to Consider the Cost of Living when searching for a job.

Investing:

Four Pillars warns us to Ignore the Last Ten Years.

At the same time, Home Finance Freedom wants us to Ignore Average Annual Return Rates. I found this article very interesting. It really shows off how mutual funds market to us. Returns are not always up, up, up even though the ads are all so positive.

DaxDesai tells us how to Set up a self directed IRA so we can invest in different types of assets.

Growing Money wants us to be Emotionless When Investing.

Should your investments dance like Elaine from Seinfeld? Dough Roller thinks so.

The Dividend Guy argues for International Diversification when Dividend Investing.

Teaspoon Finance reminds us Why you should have a stop loss on your trades.

I’m sort of shocked by this one. My Retirement Blog shares that Ben Stein Advocates Variable Annuities. Of course he means only in certain situations. I’m still shocked!

The Amatureist Financial gives us the skinny on Options, Options, Options.

Should you invest in Index or Actively Managed Funds? Just Ask Mr. Credit Card.

Everyday Finance offers an Unusual Way to Get in on IPOs.

Trader’s Narrative points out why Insider Buying/Selling is important.

The Div Guy shares How to get started with dividend investing with DRIPs.

One post I disagreed with is from StockTradingToGo - Extreme Trading. The author argues that if you put in enough effort, you can “play the game and become rich.” I disagree solely on the basis that investing is not a game to play. It is not betting.

General Money Thoughts:

Money Consciousness - Attribution Theory

MoneyNing - Procrastination

Agonist - The Last Wave of This Expansion - a very detailed, in depth look at the economy

Fund Mastery Blog discusses Mutual funds sharing more of their secrets than expected.

Blogging Away Debt gives us some pointers on How to verify it is your credit card company calling.

My Wealth Builder wants to Get the Monkies off His Back.

Debt Free 4 Ever takes it to the big man with Gas prices and disparity.

Ask Dong if you want to know What’s Next?

Another post I wasn’t convinced by was from Advanced Personal Finance - Sports Betting and Investing. Sports betting and investing are so different I can’t find words for it. Sports betting — any gambling — is designed to take money out of your pocket and keep it for the house. In sports betting, you are betting on a group of individual performances with little information on what to expect from performance. (That is unless you work for a team.) Investing in public companies you have a wealth of both company and industry information. You will never have a complete picture, but you are much better equipped to make a good decision. Take Return on Invested Capital. Generally, companies with high ROIC are solid investments. Occasionally they will lose value in stock price due to circumstances, but are overall good values. Is there something equivalent in sports betting?

Budgeting/Money Management/Emergency Fund:

Paid Twice tells us to Give Yourself a Payday Advance.

Queer Cents - Three Tips for Tracking Expenses Online

There were 3 articles on making time to manage your finances:

No Credit Needed - Make time to manage your finances

The Happy Rock - Marriage and Money - The Budget Meeting

We’re in Debt - Scheduling Financial Sit-Downs

Passive Income:

Edith Yeung - The Money Series - Steps to Creating Passive Income

Disputes:

My Money Thinks - 10 Tips for Resolving Financial Disputes

Save Money:

Rather Be Shopping gives some tips on How to reduce your summer cooling bill.

FILAM Personal Finance shares some Gas Tips and Myths

Looking for an online savings account? Five Cent Nickle has a solid Online Banking Roundup.

Debt/Repayment:

Seems simple enough… Quest for a Million details out Why its better to earn interest than pay interest.

Lazy Man and Money is stopping his Prosper Contributions.

Blunt Money is nervous about credit cards. Is he in The Danger Zone? (Negative, Ghost Rider. The pattern is full.)

Bargaineering asks if we Should You Take That 0% Financing Offer? My vote is no.

Frugal Underground gives us a way to get an estimate of our credit score with a Review of FreebieCreditReport.com.

Work/Career:

Million Dollar Journey compares Full time vs. contract work.

The Financial Blogger is finally Quitting His 2nd Job.

Cash Money Life continues his MBA series with MBA Options: Part 3

Planning for the Future/Estate Planning:

How I Will Be Rich gives us 8 Steps to Getting Rich

BFU Journal - Estate Planning

Frugality:

Being Frugal - …on being … frugal. Living up to your blog’s title, eh?

Everything Financial shares How to Save Money on Lighting. CFLs are the easiest option, in my opinion.

Extreme Perspective says he is Saving $456k on Cars - I don’t buy the math, but the core issue is solid.

Giving:

Millionaire Mommy Next Door - Giving is addictive

Shopping:

Hustler Money Blog is saving money by using Shopping portals.

Free Money Finance is irked at Wal-Mart. W is for Wait, C is for Come on Through.

My Two Dollars runs the math on hybrid vs. regular with Civic vs. Civic Hybrid.

Mighty Bargain Hunter points out that technology prices always go down with iPhone Price Could Go Down Even More.

Rocket Finance has had it with iPhone whiners.

Basics:

Finance 123 - what is a Credit Score

Blogging Community:

FIRE Finance - Top 100 PF Blogs. Sadly, I am tied for last. Pity me

Insurance:

InsureBlog shares some Thoughts on Long Term Care Insurance.

Self Investors talks about Credit Card Rental Car Insurance. This is a decent article, but please use paragraphs!

Latecomers I Didn’t Get to Categorize:

The Sun’s Financial Diary - Gold Climbs Back to $700/ounce

Online Savings Blog - The Only Thing I Hate More than ATMs

The Frugal Law Student - Should Professional Students Use Welfare?

Moment on Money - Harvesting Taxes

Financial Dominance - Should you listen to financial gurus?

Brip Blap - Pirates of Personal Finance

Well we did it. I found a 1978 BMW 320i on eBay. It is in fantastic condition for being 29 years old. We came up with how much I could spend as a couple, so this isn’t me just running off and buying a car without having open communication about it.

So I tried that coveted eBay strategy called sniping — I’m not ashamed — and it was a few tense seconds. I put in my bid with about 30-45 seconds left in the auction. I watched the second highest bidder adjust his high bid to no avail. We won! It is up in Nashville, so a 3 hour drive for me. We’re going to pick it up on the 28th. Fun, fun, fun.

Was this a wise financial decision? Probably not. But my wife asked me, “Honey, how many poor decisions have you made in your life?” I’m not trying to be cocky, but I’m not that wild guy that just goes off and spends all of his money. I’m conservative. We have money that we can free up for this cause. We’ve talked about it — which is key, because this will be sitting in the garage in my spot. It’s her garage, too!

So that’s been the excitement around here the past few days. I got ill at work yesterday, so haven’t had time to blog a lot. Thanks for sticking around! Anyone else have the car itch?

This is the final update for my Selling Your Cell Phone series. You can see the other posts here, here, and here.

I finally received my check! It took several e-mails harassing customer support, but I finally got my check from CashMyPhone. I received it this week after the check having been ‘issued’ on May 5th. They tried to give me the run around, but I had all of my e-mails handy. I also quickly pointed out that if you search “cashmyphone” on Google, this blog is the #6 entry.

Would I recommend CashMyPhone in the end? It depends. Are you going to be really ticked if you send off an old phone and never say payment for it? Then it might be a bit risky. However, they do pay the best it seems. And I did get my money in the end.

I haven’t been posting as much lately for a few reasons. One, I have been super busy at work. It’s a good thing, but not for my writing. Second, we have decided to stay in our current city and buy a house. Phew!

So I am soliciting advice.

What are the best resources you have found on the web to guide us through buying a house?

What are some of the best blog posts you have read about the subject, or about people’s experiences in general?

Your help is greatly appreciated. I’ll put another post with all of the links people send in. Just leave a comment on this post. Seriously. I greatly appreciate it.

Update on Suggestions:
From the comments…
Links:

Realtor.com - obvious

Bankrate.com - loved it already

FamilyWatchdog.us - National Sexual Predators List

Shop around for mortgages - Doing that tomorrow. Regions won’t call us back. Grumble grumble.

Creditboards.com/forums - Need to check this out.

Cyberhomes.com - Similar to Zillow; take with a grain of salt

Zillow.com - take with a grain of salt

Suggestions:

Get a realtor you like and trust

Figure out how much you can really spend

Research neighborhood (crime, etc.)

Home inspection: Get one

Keep ‘em coming!

I’m still waiting on my check from selling my cell phone. CashMyPhone is dragging their feet. My check was ‘issued’ on May 5th. I haven’t received it, so I sent them another e-mail asking where it was.

The response, straight from the e-mail:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your interest in CashMyPhone.com as your used cell phone(s) recycling service. According to our record, we have issued your check, but haven’t sent it yet. It usually takes a few days to mail the check out after the “Issued Date” due to we mail them by batch. We will mail the chek tomorrow. If you didn’t receive the check by the end of next week, please contact us.

Thanks for your patience. If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. Have a nice day!

Sincerely,

Customer Service
CashMyPhone.com

Note the typo of check. I’m thinking more and more this is a one or two man operation. I’ll let you know when I do finally get my check. This process has taken about two months.

Bank of America and American Express have recently touted the benefits of two of their programs. BoA’s Keep the Change and AMEX’s One Card. Let’s take a better look at these programs. Are they worth your time and money?

Overview
Keep the Change: Goes with Bank of America’s check card. They put the change from every purchase into a savings account. The first three months they match your change 100%, the next 9 months they match 5%. Example: You go to the grocery store and spend $45.74. BoA deposits 26 cents into the account ($46.00-45.74), plus whatever match you are eligible for. To sign up, you must have a checking and savings account with BoA. The savings account has a minimum deposit of $100. The catch here is the savings account only pays 0.20% APY as of 5/1/07. Each of the accounts could have additional fees. You are limited in the amount of match you can receive at $250 per year.

One card: AMEX deposits 1% of eligible purchases into a savings account that pays 5.00% APY. After your first purchase, AMEX deposits $50 in the account to get you started. The first year is fee-free. After that, you pay a $35 annual fee. Then you have your typical credit card risks. Getting hit with a late fee or even paying interest will negate the effects of this card.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation where a person spends $6,000 spaced out evenly over six months. Your average change you receive is 50 cents from every purchase, and you make 50 purchases each month.

With your Bank of America check card, this is what your savings would look like:

…and with the One Card:

As you can see, the Bank of America card is the winner in terms of money it allows you to save. However, this is based off of multiple transactions with an average “keep the change” of 50 cents. The interest on the savings account is terrible as well. The One Card is better in terms of savings rate, but then you’ll get hit with a $35 annual fee the second year.

The accounts look very similar if you lower the number of transactions to 25, and the average change back to only 25 cents:

The one card looks better in this light, as it isn’t based on the number of transactions, but how much money you spend. You also are not relying on having a high amount of ‘change’ from each transaction.

Keep the Change
Pros: Opportunity to get to keep a lot of change if you make a lot of purchases with totals in the $x.01 to $x.25 range. Pick up a cup of coffee every morning that costs you $4.01? You’ll get 99 cents back, plus that 100% match the first few months. Also good for those who make a ton of transactions each month.
Cons: Incredibly low APY of 0.2% on the savings account. If your transactions usually end in the $x.75 to $x.99 range, you won’t make a lot back with that extra change. Requires a lot of transactions each month to get true benefit, which encourages spending. Is a debit/check card — if stolen or lost, you might not get your money back.

One Card
Pros: Same percent back, no matter what you spend, or how many transactions you have each month. Strong savings APY of 5.0% trumps the Bank of America savings account. Credit card benefits - if lost or stolen, the amount you owe is usually limited to $50.
Cons: If you don’t spend a lot (good for you), you don’t earn as much back. Annual fee of $35 kicks in the 2nd year which will negate some of the benefit. Is a credit card - interest and other charges could dig into your benefit.

Conclusion: Neither of these cards are worth having, in my opinion. The BoA card requires a lot of transactions and the ability to somehow force your purchases to get you a lot of change back. The AMEX card is slightly better thanks to the savings account APY, but then the annual fee kicks in.

You can find a better deal with other credit cards. Get a cash back card like the AMEX Blue Cash (I have one) and earn better cash back (1.5-5%, depending on the tier). Take that money you get back and save it yourself in an online savings account like ING.

I have uploaded the Excel file if anyone is interested in playing with the numbers. Let me know if this is useful!

Goal setting is crucial for just about everything in life. If you have a goal you can track, you are more likely to reach the goal (or at least make progress towards it).

J.D. over at GetRichSlowly loves goals.

But how do you know what a good goal is?

I learned what a proper goal consists of in college in a management class. Goals must be SMART. Smart stands for:

Specific - action words such as develop, build, etc.; the goal should be easily understood, pinpointing exactly what you want to accomplish.

Measurable - specific criteria that allows for easy measurement to track progress towards the goal

Attainable - a goal cannot be completely out of your reach, but also cannot be so easy that no effort is made. A goal should stretch you, not break you, and not bore you.

Realistic - this one is pretty simple, and goes along with the goal being attainable. This means the goal is do-able. The tools for you to reach the goal are available, and the goal is not unrealistic or ridiculous.

Timely - this is often forgotten in goal setting. Your goal needs to have a very specific time or date for it to be met.

You can also make goals too wordy with all of the SMART criteria, so don’t write a novel.

Here are some examples of goals first in non-SMART wording, and then in a SMART variation. Let’s assume we are setting the goals from today, March 28, 2007.

1a. Get out of debt.
1b. Reduce credit card debt from $10,000 to $9,000 by June 1, 2007.

Analysis: The first version is very broad, and has no specifics at all. The SMART version is specific — reducing the debt by $1,000. It is measurable: dollars are measurable. You can track what your current debt is. Attainable and Realistic: This goal would stretch you. $500 per month for two months to reduce the debt. Attainable, not easy, but also not out of reach (such as eliminating all $10,000 in two months). Finally, it is timely: there is a specific date that the goal must be reached by.

Combine all of these together and you could track your progress towards June 1st, what the balance on the debt is, and what progress you have made.

2a. Get a job.
2b. Find employment as a financial analyst with a Fortune 500 company by August 1, 2007.

Again, the first goal is too broad and not specific at all. There is no timeline or criteria. The second goal is very specific — a specific job, at a specific type of company (you could go more into detail if this were your goal, say a Fortune 500 company in the banking industry). Whether or not it is attainable and realistic kind of depends on the person setting the goal. Do you currently work at a burger joint with no college education? Or do you have a finance degree from a four year university? It is also timely, with a specific date.

The best thing about goals is that you can break them down into smaller goals. Let’s use the two goals above.

Goal #1 could be broken down from reducing the debt by $1,000 in two months to a monthly, or weekly goal. Sub-goals would be reduce credit card debt by $500 by May 1, 2007, or reduce credit card debt by $125 each week. Tasks can be developed from these goals — setting up automatic payments to the credit card based on the goals.

Goal #2 is a little more difficult to break down, but here are some options. Sub-goals could be writing a resume, having resume critiqued by a career center, doing company research to target a company, etc.
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