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I finished up my taxes but I’m waiting to pull the trigger to file since it’s going to be a rough year in the Blap household for taxes. I know it doesn’t make any difference if I pay today or pay in a few days, but somehow psychologically I’d rather hold onto it for a few more days. Plus, I am being distracted by The Empire Strikes Back on Spike TV this evening. Yes, I’ve seen it before, yes, I am wasting my time with TV but once in a while you have to watch the classics. I love the scene in Cloud City when Lando opens the door and Solo sees Vader sitting at the table - Solo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t say a word, doesn’t pause. He rips out his blaster and starts shooting and shooting and shooting, even though 2 seconds before he was chatting with his buddy Lando in the hallway. Focus, discipline - and almost instantaneous decision-making. Impressive.

Next, the big contest at Free Money Finance is over. Snowflaking from I’ve Paid for That Twice Already was the big winner, so at least I lost to the eventual champion! I know a lot of people are excited about the concept and I’m glad that a topic that could prove helpful to so many people is being further popularized. On top of that, FMF is doling out some big money to charities we all designated:

• $500 to the Make a Wish Foundation for Snowflaking.
• $250 to the runnerup, Being Frugal for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
• $100 to the American Cancer Society for The Digerati Life
• And $100 to the Russian Children’s Welfare Society, my choice.

On to the links! First, The Money Writers:

• Why You Won’t Read a SmartyPig Review Today

  Lazy Man rips into SmartyPig, which has been blanketing the personal finance blogs with giveaway cash. One or two bad reviews like this can really hurt a young company, but his descriptions of the headaches he faced in signing up were BAD. Why do they need drivers’ license information?

• College Sells Alumni Information to Credit Card Companies

  Ben is irritated that his college sold his contact information to credit card companies. Mine did this a while back, too, and it didn’t make me happy either.

• How To Invest Defensively In Down Markets

  What? We’re in a down market? When was someone going to tell me?!? SVB has some tips on how to get defensive in your investments. Just don’t get overly defensive - remain balanced!

• Stock Splits 101

  Often I assume that everyone has a fairly detailed knowledge of the operations of the market and finance and so on, but that’s not the case. Madison has a good introduction to stock splits if you are unsure about how they work and how they affect your investments.

• Stop All Junk Mail

  Sun has a post highlighting a number of services you can use to cut down on your junk mail. What’s not to love about cutting down junk mail? Better for the environment, fewer catalogs tempting you to spend money, and less paper clutter to ruin your productivity.

• The Best Time to Start is Now

  “How do I start” or “I can’t start my financial journey because I’m in debt”. FT says the best time to start improving your financial life is now. He’s mostly talking about people who are in trouble but it really applies to everyone - unless you are Warren Buffet there’s always room to grow!

• Woman Refuses to Roll Over 401k Saying She Would Lose Half of Her Money

  This is just weird. I just can’t understand the mindsets of many of my fellow humans.

And from elsewhere around the Internet:

• How We Managed To Survive Financially After I Left My Corporate Job.

  David tells us how he managed to…well, you can guess the rest. It’s a nice story, and certainly makes it clear that losing a corporate job does not have to mean an instant scramble for a new one.

• Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow - Counterpoint

  You hear a lot of career advice about following your passion - “if you follow your passion, the money will follow.” Not if your passion is teaching schoolkids in poor communities in the Mid-South, it won’t. It doesn’t mean you won’t be happy following your passion, but it’s tough to stay passionate if the money is really, really bad.

• What’s Wrong With Being in the Middle Class?

  Mrs. Micah has a post inspired by a comment on The Simple Dollar asking if there’s something wrong with being middle class. The answer? Of course there is! Only the agrarian and proletariat can properly seize control of the means of production in order to form a socialist state! The middle class is a vassal to the bourgeoisie and complicit in the enrichment of the capitalist imperialists. Everyone knows that! Sheesh.

• What is the Biggest Star in the Universe?

  Completely off topic from everything else I cover here, but I figure I’ll slip in tidbits from my other passion, space, from time to time. I thought this question, posed by the author’s 6 year old daughter, had a fascinating answer.

photo credit: karanj

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