If this is your first visit to brip blap, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and visit my about page. Feel free to send me an email by clicking here, too.

photo credit: Mike9Alive

With some eerie unseasonal winds this evening we lost power in our community. It’s quite unpleasant, even for a brief time. I thought it was odd how much I rely on electricity now. Growing up in a small town in the South it was a fairly common occurrence to lose power for an evening. During an ice storm we lost power for two weeks. Now I start grumbling when I can’t get internet access for 40 minutes. Ah, dependencies.

The links and the carnivals are below. The Big Book Giveaway is over and I’m tallying up the points and should be able to start contacting the winners shortly. Thanks to everyone who participated!

IttyBiz » What To Do When You Hate Your Job

• Speaking as someone who is not overly fond of his job, I appreciated this article. I’ve talked a lot about the benefits of consulting, and while I love the structure of consulting I get pretty durn bored with the actual stuff I consult ON. But this article hit home, because it made me realize that even though I feel a step further up on the self-actualization ladder since I switched from being an employee, I need to take it one step further and quit doing 9 to 5 work - which would make me much happier, I think.

peer to peer lending (p2p) lending is bad

• I’m going to highlight not one but two articles by glblguy this week, because I thought both were excellent. You may find that strange that I highlighted this post if you read the comments on this particular post, since I strongly disagreed with it.  But it was an excellent, though-provoking piece and unlike our political candidates I can actually understand an argument without starting to call the other party in the argument foolish. Read it and weigh in - it’s a good topic for debate.

the benefits of delayed gratification

• A second post from glblguy, also very interesting. Are you a one marshmallow person - or a two marshmallow person?

The Finwikian: a new personal finance wiki

• Mrs. Micah came up with an interesting idea - a personal finance wiki. I’ve got a page there and I’ll be putting more up on the wiki soon. I am hopeful this will be a useful additional resource for personal finance education, so head on over and set it up.

The Financial Blogger | Should We Ask For More Service From The Government?

• The Financial Blogger has a good response to my recent article in which I said it would be nice to have government-provided health care and retirement pensions. He says I’m way off, and has some interesting perspectives on the Canadian system. I’m still convinced it’s a better alternative - see the Digerati Life article in this roundup - but hearing about the downside gave me some perspective on my slightly idealized concept of universal health care and pensions.

The Leading Cause Of Personal Bankruptcy…You May Be Surprised!

• SVB has a post up on the Prosper blog (where I’m a writer) that should be frightening to everyone - the major cause of bankruptcy in this country is illness. Not poor money management or credit card debt or subprime failures, but getting cancer or developing heart troubles. Health care in America is a problem that is either going to get fixed by a miracle (and trust me, that miracle will not be wrought by any of the three major candidates still running) or is going to break our economy.

Carnival of Financial Goals IV - Investing Video Edition » The Dividend Guy Blog

• I participated in the fourth Carnival of Financial Goals over at the Dividend Guy Blog. He’s got some interesting videos up to accompany the carnival, so head on over and check it out.

Carnival of Peer 2 Peer Lending #5 | The Amatureist Financial Journey

• I also participated in the 5th Carnival of Peer-to-Peer Lending over at The Amateurist Financial Journey.

Carnival of Personal Finance #142 : Carnival of Personal Finance

• My post 38 Random Thoughts on Building Prosperity was an editor’s choice at the Carnival of Personal Finance #142 hosted at The Baglady this week. I should stop and count up the number of editor’s picks I’ve gotten this year and see if I can beat I’ve Paid For That Twice Already….

Popularity: 2% [?]