linklings, July 20th, 2007

My usual roundup of some posts I read around the Interweb in the last week. Some good stuff out there in the pipes, people.

My Two Dollars has a brief post titled ”The Layoff – How an emergency fund is going to help a member of my family” which highlights a point I’m 100% in agreement with: “This is not the old days when companies took care of us; it is up to us to take care of us now. And part of that is being ready for anything.” When Bubelah and I got married we had a small amount of cash on hand, but as soon as we paid off our home equity loan we concentrated on building up a sizable emergency fund. We have six months of expenses in it now, and now that I’m a consultant it gives me peace of mind in the event my income ever slows down.

Get Rich Slowly has a guest post from Tim Ellis, author of Seattle Bubble, doing the classic comparison in “Renting vs. Buying: The Realities of Home-Ownership.” Read it, though, there’s a twist – he doesn’t come down on the side people usually come down on. This post made me think, and it’s worth a careful reading. And there has been a firestorm over there about this post.

“Observations From an Employer’s Benefits Fair Reveal Attitudes Toward Saving Money” from Generation X Finance is a good breakdown of saving habits into five categories. I fall into the “Saver” category, but what disappoints me is that there’s only one “good” category. There really needs to be more effort put into financial education in this country if people really think their brokers can beat a tax-advantaged employer-matched savings account.

Money Socket has “My Decision To Get Rich; A Complete 180”. I have always had a pretty good handle on my finances, but I wish I had made a few better choices at a younger age, so having this perspective at age 23 is admirable.

And finally, not really on a personal finance note, read Penelope Trunk’s “My own marriage and the myth of the stay-at-home dad” if you think it’s easy to be a stay-at-home parent. I know Penelope gets bashed almost nonstop at Yahoo! Finance but I really enjoy her writing style and her take on younger people in the workplace. This article and an earlier one, “My First Day of Marriage Counseling,” are cautionary reads about balance in your life. She and her husband did a lot of things people would say are smart moves: they moved from New York to Madison, Wisconsin to save money, her husband gave up a good career to be a stay-at-home dad, and she’s gotten a line of work that gives her a lot of flexibility. But despite these good moves, they are apparently teetering on the brink of divorce. A sad read but helpful to understand that sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that money and career are definitely not the most important things in life.