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There are rumors of snow, but no snow. Everything has had that desperate, washed-out post-holiday season feeling to it - cold, gray, tired. I’ve been feeling particularly down this week. I don’t think it’s any one thing in particular, although one of my young relatives is quite ill, I have stayed long enough at my current client that I’m getting inexorably sucked into office politics (meaning it’s time for me to go) and my temper has flared out of control multiple times this week just from being tired and cold and feeling cooped up. It’s another one of those weeks where I wished I lived elsewhere - in California or Mexico or Florida - and had a little warmth and sun. Winter is so tiresome, and definitely not my season. Time to pop the rubber band. Then again, I got a bump up in my consulting rate - which given the current economic conditions is nice. On with the links…

Planning To Be Wealthy

• One of my regular contributions to the Prosper blog went up this week. I’m definitely enjoying learning more and more about the world of peer-to-peer lending, and I’ll have more to say about my experiences with Prosper soon. I’ve also opened up a Lending Club account and it will be interesting to see how that differs.
  
  

Earn Smarter, Not Harder | Personal Finance Hacks

• At pfhacks, there’s a point that I am beginning to think needs to be made more often and more forcefully to most people (including me) who earn wages for a living: the tax code favors investment income!
  
  

The Carnival of Peer-to-Peer Lending: 2nd edition

• And in case you missed it the first time around, I hosted the second edition of the Carnival of Peer-to-Peer lending.
  
  

2007 Passive Income Summary | The Suns Financial Diary | A Personal Finance Blog on Saving and Investing

• Sun summarizes his 2007 passive income. It’s an interesting list, and Bubelah and I have several investment overlaps here.
  
  

7 Things To Consider As A First Time Real Estate Investor

• Another area I plan to talk about more - while knowing very little about it - is real estate investing. SVB has some things to think about before becoming a real estate investor. Personally I have bought one house and never sold a house. I’ve been a renter my whole life up until a few years ago. So I would enter the world of real estate investor as a babe in the woods, so there are at least 7 things to consider.
  
  

Five Things I Think It Is OK To Spend Money On. | My Two Dollars

• David has a good list of five things where spending money is…well…OK. I agreed with all five of them, particularly food. There’s a lot to be said for not buying the absolute cheapest food you can buy. There’s a middle ground - maybe you can forgo the caviar and spread for breakfast most days - but still, you need to spend enough to make food enjoyable and more importantly healthy.
  
  

carnival of money stories: bedtime story edition : plonkee money

• plonkee hosted the carnival of money stories this week, and did a nice job of weaving all the submissions together into, well, a story. A bedtime story, no less.
  
  

Confessions of a personal finance blogger | Gather Little by Little

• My favorite post of the week, and one of the best I’ve read in a while … Glblguy has a very personal and heartfelt post about not living up to his own standards and ideals that he proposes in his blog. I feel the same thing from time to time - I certainly don’t live by everything I give out as advice, either. The important thing - and this is true for anyone - is just not to be a hypocrite. If you give advice to others but ignore it yourself, that’s not good. If you give advice to others and fail to do it yourself - but realize you failed to do it and plan to do better in the future - then you’re, well, human. I’m confident Glblguy will turn things around.

(photo by piotr zurek)

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