I’ve been to entrepreneurial gatherings before, and attended more corporate events than I can count, but this event reminded me how different the energy is between the two. And I’m not bashing corporate types out of hand; even though I’m not a corporate employee I’m still firmly embedded in corporate life, and consider myself part of corporate culture rather than entrepreneurial culture.  I was impressed by the people I met and made a resolution to start spending more time at networking events for entrepreneurs and less mixing with corporate types, even though that’s where I get my work. Sometimes it’s about inspiration, not trolling for clients.

On to the links:
Census Pre-Notice: Government Waste At Its Finest.:  This letter absolutely appalled me, as well.  This letter, in fact, is the type of thing that makes me sympathize for a few seconds with the ’small government’ crowd.  Whoever the moron is who decided to send out this letter
Implementing PAYGO Rules For Personal Finances:  Don’t buy something until you either make more money or save on something else.  Radical concept.  I don’t approve of the politics behind the recent shenanigans to block the extension of unemployment benefits, but why this is such a radical concept for DC explains a lot about the mess our country’s in.
How to Negotiate Remote Work With An Employer:  This is the holy grail for me.  Sometimes I manage to convince clients to let me do this, but more often than not they are stuck in “facetime” mentality.
How to Waste $55 in Washington D.C. (Hint: Take a Bus Tour):  I have to be honest – all of the monuments and memorials and whatnot in Washington bore me, with two exceptions:  the Vietnam War memorial (which is deeply moving) and the World War II memorial, which – for me, at least – was “off-the-charts” moving.  Seeing that and seeing the eternal flame outside the Kremlin, which honors the dead of what they call “The Great Patriotic War” is overwhelming when you think of the number of Soviet and Allied forces who died defeating the Axis.  Chilling stuff, particularly given that my head is stuffed full of World War II stories from my mother’s father, ranging from the noble to the horrific.  My father’s father refused to speak one bit about it – being a German-American, speaking German at home and being sent to the German front was apparently not something he ever felt like discussing with anyone.

A few other good reads:

• Preparing for the Income Tax Deadline (2009-2010): Personal Taxes | Million Dollar Journey
• Medical Expenses & Income Tax Deductions
• Passive Income Distractions– What You Need to Watch Out For! | Passive Income Now
• How To Remove Spyware, Malware or Any Computer Virus? (My tip: get Linux!)
• Teaching Your Child to Save Can Be Fun

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linklings, small business energy edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Needless to say I was soaked. Traffic accidents on I-95 extended my cold, shivering wait in the car to two hours.  After spending 20 minutes in the gym locker at work with a hair dryer on me, I felt more or less OK.  Then…. bam.  About 24 hours later, I felt sick.  I visited the urgent care clinic and got some help.  24 hours later, with my blood pressure soaring, severe sinus pain and serious weakness, I was off to the doctor.  I had to get a CAT scan to rule out a stroke, but apparently it was just my body’s reaction to the infection.  My blood pressure’s been normal for 7-8 years, and was just checked about 3 weeks ago so the surge was weird, and made the doctor double-check with the CAT scan.  Not a fun experience.  On the bright side, with some antibiotics and a brief course of blood pressure medicine I’m back to feeling more or less normal today (120 over 70 type blood pressure, and sinus pressure greatly reduced).

Too much information?

Well, just wait til you see the boatload of links I’ve got:

• Running Up Debt:  Never having been in debt other than mortgage debt in my life, I’m always slightly fascinated by other people’s stories of debt spiraling out of control.
• Are Over Half of Workers Really Dissatisfied with Their Jobs?:  Doesn’t surprise me, simply because most of us believe our job should pay a bit more, the boss should be a bit nicer or the guy in the next cubicle shouldn’t tap his pen all day long.
• Do Something You Love, Before You Have To Do Something For Money:  Amen – which is why you should go to an inexpensive college, preferably public, and get out of school without needing to go to work immediately to pay off $80,000 in student loans (or more).
• Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe for Under $15 – Easy and Frugal:  We just got a Crock Pot (actually the exact same one Jeremy has in this post) so I’m going to have to give this a shot.  Nothing like pork for healthy eating!
• To Succeed Financially, You Must Know Yourself and Know Thy (Financial) Self:  Closely related articles, and both worth considering:  you need to understand yourself before you attempt to change yourself.
• What Happened to Patrick? A Few Thoughts About Blogging Anonymously:  I’ve written about my struggle with anonymity before, and Ryan (who is the “real Patrick”) over at Cash Money Life finally gave up on anonymity, giving out his full name right there on the blog.  Not a bad idea.  You can find my real name without much trouble, but I still haven’t just slapped it up on the blog.  Patrick Ryan’s probably right – anonymity won’t do much for furthering your online “brand.”
• The Curse Of Making Too Much Money And Not Pursuing Your Dreams: I sympathize with Lyndon in this post. I make enough money that dropping my current lucrative career seems insane, even to follow my dreams (which aren’t that firmly defined, but that’s a separate question).

Some more good reads, but now I’ve run out of steam to comment…

• Overtime Exempt Employee vs Non-Exempt Employee
• The Key To Living Frugally
• Unemployed Tax Deductions Provide Tax Relief
• Best Gasoline For Your Car Engine? Not Always Premium Gas
• How To Get Health Insurance When You are Self Employed
• Happiness, experience, and memory – Daniel Kahneman’s TED lecture

americas-richest-counties: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance: And finally, a nice little bonus read on a statistic that always kills me. “Highest income” is a radically different concept from “richest.” I had a high income in New Jersey, but my expenses were proportionately higher. If you want to get a true look at “richest” you’d have to incorporate some sort of cost-of-living metric.

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linklings, sneezing leads to a CAT scan edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

If you had to rank the biggest rewards from blogging, #2 would definitely be the recognition of your peers (#1 is communicating directly with readers – I love getting emails, even if I’m Mr. Procrastination in answering them). But in the #2 category I was surprised to hear from Flexo over at Consumerism Commentary that I’m one of the nominees for “Best Personal Finance Blog for Careers.”

I’m doubly surprised considering the quality of the other nominees:  Bargaineering,Brazen Careerist, The Digerati Life and Squawkfox.  I’ve appeared with Jim (and Lynnae of being frugal – another nominee for “best frugality blog”) on Marketplace Money.  SVB of The Digerati Life is a blogging friend and a fellow member of The Money Writers network, who has a far better employee-to-problogger/webguru story than I do.  Kerry from Squawkfox has a fantastic blog that, like mine, goes all over the place (and has written some great pieces on resumes).

And if you’ve read this blog for any length of time you know how much I like Penelope Trunk’s writing; she’s amazing.  I also owe her a lot; she and Lazy Man were the first two big-time bloggers to get in touch with me, link to brip blap and – most importantly – encourage me.  Without the two of them I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be doing this today.

So given all that I’m actually not even going to ask you to vote for me, though feel free to go here and vote.  With all sincerity I can say that it’s just nice to be nominated.  I’m very grateful.

And if you’re interested, #3 is making some money.  #4 is the simple enjoyment of creating something outside yourself.  And here are my Marketplace Money appearances:

• Fourth appearance
• Third appearance
• Second appearance
• First appearance

Off to the links:

• Writing a Financial Mission Statement: I have a mission statement for this blog – if you were around for the first 3-4 months of brip blap you saw it. I haven’t had it up in a while, but I may dust it off soon and repackage it as my financial mission statement. To summarize it? You need to have just enough to stop worrying. More is too much, less is not enough.
• Ten Things Millionaires Won’t Tell You: The only item I take exception to: “I shop at Wal-Mart.” I’m having a bit of Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus thinking about Wal-Mart these days. I have justified buying things there in the name of saving money, but Wal-Mart’s an economic menace: they are on the wrong side of the debate on unions, health care, buying American, supporting local communities and even – in the long term – frugality. Buy products from there, and see how long those crap products made by non-union child labor in Malaysia last you. I’m still going to be a millionaire, but I’m not going to do it shopping at Wal-Mart.
• Square Foot Gardening: How To Grow Vegetables In Your Own Backyard: Awesome. If you didn’t see it the first time around, check it out. I spent the last weekend prepping the herbs for the garden. Next weekend? Citrus trees. The next? Veggies. Did I mention it’s in the 70s here in Florida?
• Credit Card and Debit Cards No Longer Have Automatic Overdraft and Over Limit Protection: That’s fine with me. Keep track of your spending.
• Selling Wine – Almost Like Blogging: I like the concept of limited networks: networks with an optimal size that would suffer from growing. I’m in the network with Lazy Man, of course, so I know what he’s talking about. I was lucky to make it in on one of the last couple of rounds of expansion of the neighborhood, and I’ve enjoyed being in the network immensely – but I’d be slow to add new members, too, considering how well we interact right now.
• 10 Ways to Save Money on a New Car: I know it’s not popular to buy new, but I’m very much in the “buy-new-and-drive-for-10-years” category of car buyers; I’m simply not comfortable buying used, and I’ve had very good luck buying new so far. Please knock on wood for me.
• Graduate School Costs & Options: Side note: graduate school is a more cost-effective career investment than undergraduate, but due to the fact that you can’t get the one without the other it’s actually less effective as an investment. Discuss!
• New Credit Card Laws to Protect Consumers Begin: By and large, good news.
• Free Online Tax Filing, Tax Preparation Services & More: If the kind souls at TurboTax would accept me into their affiliate program I might promote their software – that I’ve used for about six years – but they don’t, so check out these alternatives
• Those Who Don’t A-S-K Don’t G-E-T: Absolutely true.
• Dear President Obama: We Need Healthcare Reform Right Now.: I restrain myself – again – from political shrieking, but yes, ram it through and be done with it. American health care is broken. I’m not voting for anyone who doesn’t at least TRY to do something.
• Being Frugal is Foolish: I know Jim’s doing a Devil’s Advocate post, but to a certain extent I agree.
• Online Tools for Mindful Consumerism: Check out GoodGuide – I was quite surprised about some of my favorite “good” products.
• Independent Contractor vs. Employee: What’s the Difference?: It’s a distinction that most people don’t get, but if you have someone who works IN your household, they are an employee, not a contractor. How did that come up? Read the next article…
• How I Made My Peace with Hiring a Housekeeper: I agree. I hate cleaning, and it’s one of the activities I’m willing to outsource to simplify and improve my life – much like I enjoy outsourcing the maintenance and upkeep of my cars.
• On The Brink by Henry M. Paulson Jr.: I had a few choice comments about Mr. Paulson. I am, to put it mildly, no fan.

photo by hiperia3d

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linklings, plutus award nomination edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

I’ve struggled recently with topics. I started brip blap writing about many “typical” personal finance issues:  money management, frugality, economic issues, and so on.  I’ve also written about health, careers, productivity and family.

So here’s the survey, and I would sincerely appreciate any input: would it help or hurt brip blap to add additional writers (I’d stil post as much, but add a post or two from another writer each week)?  And would it help or hurt to focus in on a narrower range of subjects, or do you just enjoy my random outbursts?

If you don’t want to comment, email me at bripblap@gmail.com or catch me on twitter @bripblap – or even call me if you want:

If you’re an RSS reader, launch up the site.  I’ve got a new theme.  Love it?  Hate it?  You love it, because I worked on it and don’t plan to change it back, OK?  I’m not Chad Ochocinco, promising to change my name if I get locked down on Revis Island (and he DID get locked down, and he’s not changing his name back to Johnson).

Sorry for the NFL reference that will elude a lot of you… on to the links…

Michael Lewis: Wall St. Is Done:  No, it’s not.  It’ll be right back.
Want to Work for Free? Start a Business:  I started off slow, earning money with this blog (and others) and haven’t advanced my earnings to the level of the “big” bloggers; but I do try to remind myself that I’m doing fairly well compared to 90% of the other bloggers and online “webpreneurs” out there.
Pros and cons of being wealthy: I really enjoyed Felix Dennis’ book, and it should be a must-read for anyone who dreams of being “superwealthy” as opposed to merely rich.
How To Create A Blog For Fun Or Profit:  I recommend “for fun.”  You won’t profit for a while, and if you don’t enjoy the subject you’ll have trouble with keeping it up.  I’m bored with personal finance, for example, so writing about it is a struggle.  Frugality is even harder to write about.  Career and life issues are a lot more important to me these days, hence the question above.

…oh wait, a few more…

• Common Income Tax Problems
• 9 Tips to Stretch the Life of Common Household Items
• Why You Should E-File Your Taxes
• Test: Is your life happy or interesting?
• Signs of a Bad Economy
• Frugal Living Could Change Your Life
• Fun Gift Ideas for the Book Lover in Your Life
• The Room that Craiglist and Yard Sales Built
• What My First Job Taught Me

photo by Eleaf

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linklings, informal survey edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Do Kids Inherit Frugality?:  Yes, they do.  I inherited my ideas about money and most importantly my abhorrence for debt from my parents and grandparents.  I didn’t learn it through sad experience, like so many personal finance bloggers.  I never had debt, never touched it, never thought about it.  That wasn’t through my own experience, but through the lessons I learned from the elders of clan Blap.

Underachieve Your Way to Retirement:  An interesting thought that compliments what I wrote about the salt mine.  The highest achievers may not be the first to retire, in my opinion, because they are high achievers who don’t WANT to let off the accelerator.

Credit Terrorist or Twisted Genius?:  I hate anyone who doesn’t pay unsecured debt.  If you run up credit card debt, pay it.  I don’t have as much of a problem with secured debt; if your house is underwater, give up the debt and return the house to its “owner”, the bank.  Technically, they owned it all along and you’re just returning their asset to them.  Credit card debt’s different.  Unless you plan to give Megabank back that dinner at Outback and the Wii, you ought to pay them, or you are a bad person.  Period.

• How to Get a Raise in the Worst of Times
• Lifestyle Inflation Or Economic Inflation – Which Harms Us The Most?
• Social Security – What You Need to Know About Benefits, Coverage, and Eligibility
• Nearly $1000 Spent in Baseball Tickets… I need Denny’s Free Breakfast
• A Frugal Valentine’s Day
• Best High Yield Savings Accounts
• Become Master of Your Financial Domain
• Thousands of “Insider” Tips from Reddit
• Be Careful What You Say and Do at Work
• Frugality is a career tool

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linklings, who dat edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Links:

• My Thoughts on Frugality vs. Earning More:  Right along my own thought pattern.  Listen, be frugal.  Pay off your debt, and adjust your spending to less than your earnings – and then forget about spending and focus solely on increasing earnings.  There is no secret to wealth that says “make the same wage the rest of your life and live within it.”  In today’s economy, you have to learn how to earn more.
• 4 Ways to Soften the Sting of Unemployment:  These are desperation tips, but you know what?  You’re unemployed.  Be desperate.  I was mildly desperate when I couldn’t find consulting work after the crisis, and you know what kept me from doing things like this?  An emergency fund – but that having been said, I should’ve imagined I had no emergency fund and lived a bit more…well…frightened.
• Poll: What Would You Do If You Had a Million Dollars:  Hire a night nanny.  Seriously.
• Do You Overlook the Indirect Costs?:  I do.  It’s a weakness of mine, particularly in regards to home ownership.  It’s always easy to overloook the “extras” that will be required for any project.
• Hired a Cleaning Service (and Personal Finance Links):  To quote Larry the Cable Guy:  Git ‘er done.  We had a cleaning service for years in Jersey, and while we don’t have one yet in Florida I remain convinced that this might be some of the best money you ever spend.  Certain people can do certain tasks.  I, for example, do not mind washing dishes.  I really don’t.  I get some satisfaction out of washing dishes by hand.  On the other hand, I detest vacuuming and dusting.  I don’t want to do it, I’d rather leave it for weeks than do it myself.  Hiring a cleaning service in this case?  Reasonable.

A few more good links:

• The Two Financial Measures that Determine the Health of Your Finances (AKA Two Financial Measures to Track Your Finances)
• Should I Save For Retirement While In Debt?
• Talking About Finances With Your Aging Parents … or Grown Kids
• New Roth IRA Rules
• How To Identify A Shopping Addiction, Poor Spending Habits

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linklings, sickness and productivity edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Pros:

• My teeth look MUCH better now.  With the new white fillings replaced the old uranium or whatever fillings, my teeth look good as new.
• Insurance covered about 70% of the cost.
• The dentist and his assistant did a great job, and other than the discomfort of having to hold my jaws open for two hours I didn’t feel much.

Cons:

• Anesthetic wears off, and as I write this I’ve got a dull throb going ka-chuk, ka-chuk right about at the gum line – on both sides of my jaw.  Ugh.
• What the insurance didn’t cover was over $400.  Nice to pay as much as I do for dental insurance and still have to kick in $400.
• The fillings were far enough back in my head that nobody other than me will notice, most likely.

Off to the links:

Democracy, Incorporated:  I have steered away from politics on this blog for a while – being, once again, disillusioned and nauseous about the whole thing – and things are just likely to get worse.
Why Do You Want To Be Rich?:  Easy question for me to answer – simply to have options.  It would be nice not to sweat the cost of health insurance, for example.
Saving for College – An Exercise in Depression:  Exactly hits on a point I’ve made before.  You will NOT be able to save enough to fund an expensive private college education for your kids.  Your time and effort is better spent on preparing your own retirement, so you won’t be a burden to your children.   If your kids want to go to a private school in 2026, it’s going to cost more than you could ever possibly save.  Be realistic, people.
No More Mondays And Why Everyday Is Friday Now: I like Dan Miller a lot, too – I enjoy his podcast a lot and I’ve started (slowly) getting into 48days.net, the social networking site inspired by his works. More on that in a future post.

• Rethinking The Latte Factor®
• Introducing Bundle – The Number One Source for How People Spend and Save Money
• Free Turbo Tax Software!
• 2010 Tax Brackets
• Work From Home Jobs: How To Find Legitimate Opportunities
• Dangers of Frugality
• State of the Union Preview

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linklings, my ache-y break-y tooth edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Ever since I first read about it I’ve been fascinated by the hedonic treadmill. In short, it’s the idea that people generally increase their happiness level when they achieve a goal, buy something, or otherwise improve their lives, but that the increase in happiness soon “resets” and requires that person to achieve yet another goal, buy something better, etc.  You buy a BMW and briefly you’re happy, but soon you wonder why YOU can’t own a Mercedes.

But I’ve tried to use my self-knowledge of the hedonic treadmill over the past few years to analyze whether some action or purchase is going to permanently increase my state of happiness or just give me a junkie’s quick boost. For the past couple of years, on this principle, we’ve only owned two small TVs – one old CRT 21″ and a 19″ LCD, which was our main TV, as it was the only one hooked up to (basic) cable.

So Bubelah and I finally decided to get a new 40″ TV – not huge by today’s standards, but big enough.  It was amazing for a few days – I could finally see the screen from across the room.  Football was vastly more fun to watch.

Where am I headed with this? I realized last night I already barely notice the big screen.  Not that I’m UNhappy with it – I simply noticed that the “happiness burst” I got when we purchased it is fading noticeably.  Worth remembering…

Plus, the payoff:  moving twice in a year (from Jersey to Florida, then from a rental to a home we own) has been quite hard, and we still are unpacking and organizing.  It’s been tougher being further away from family.  But yesterday it was in the low 70s and sunny and while the majority of the nation was shivering I was walking in shirtsleeves in the sunshine.  I’m quite dependent on the sun – I probably have seasonal affective disorder or something – so that makes me happy.  At least for now.

Links:

why I moved my money to a credit union:  I’ve heard about this movement over the past few days, and while I support it wholeheartedly and intend to do it in the future, I’m not doing it now.  We have so many automatic payments and linked checks and direct deposits that the idea of moving from MegaBank to a smaller bank makes me exhausted before I even do it.  But I am setting up business checking, and maybe I’ll go that route for the business account.

Score Free Stuff on Your Birthday:  Clever little list!

How to Save Money on Heating this Winter:  Just including this for all you cold weather folks!

AT&T Lowers Monthly Cost For Unlimited Talk And Data.:  I have to believe someday we’ll just pay a flat rate for phone service.   I’d just like to see free incoming calls like the entire planet outside of America gets…

Saving With Purpose: Short Term Goals:  $50,000 saved sounds like a medium-term goal for most people, but I agree – saving for retirement, college and so on is great but nothing lets you sleep at night like a big go-to-hell fund.

Other links:

• 10 Things Not to Buy in 2010
• Think Twice Before Doing a Roth IRA Conversion if You Are Using Account Assets to Pay the Taxes Due
• 3 Ways Being Organized Can Save You Money
• Best Tax Software for 2009 Returns
• Financial Risks and The People You Trust

photo by arturodonate

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linklings, payoffs and hedonic treadmills, oh my! edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

In case it hasn’t been obvious, I fell slightly behind on both the Wednesday link roundups (“the linklings”) and the blog in general. No one particular event caused it, but over the past week or so in the Blap household we:

• …lost our high-speed internet connection for four days, unbearable in this day and age. Love ya, Comcast. Three separate long calls with customer service, in which they profusely promised that my system would come back on (1) “within 30 minutes” (2) “within an hour” and (3) “within a couple of hours” – all in succession – were are revealed to be lies. Even the advice that my Comcast-provided cable box was dead was false, and made me spend a couple of hours running around to buy a new one for $75 (which I will keep, to avoid paying the $5 per month “rent” on the Comcast cable modem). When the service tech guy came out to our house he said that each time I had called the customer service person simply noted “problem solved” in the case. They just put me off each time by telling me it was a bad modem. It wasn’t.
• …watched my laptop lock up – for good. Thanks, Vista. After I did some research, it turns out Vista gets confused trying to launch an infrared driver and locks up the system. Funny thing is, I don’t have any infrared on my PC. Why that driver is there, and trying to launch, I don’t know. Fortunately frequent backups of all of the files on my laptop to my standalone hard drive made this more of an annoyance than a tragedy. But spending what little free time I have reinstalling Vista and then reinstalling everything – wireless drivers, software, hardware drivers, etc. – would have been bad enough, but I didn’t have access to the internet at home to get all of that stuff.
• …kept unpacking, like Sisyphus. I believe (not joking) that we’ll still have unpacking to do for the rest of 2010. In a new house you have, at any given time, 50 things to do.
• …got Roku. I had wanted one of these for a while and finally decided to splurge and see if it takes us one step closer to freedom from our cable provider (see item 1, above). It does. I hate to go all fanboy here, but the Roku is fantastic – simple to operate, minimal in controls and tiny. I had it up and running in less than 5 minutes. And it’s not just movies – we’ve enjoyed having Pandora stream through our TV and I even have Mediafly (my non-Apple iTunes equivalent) linked up so I can scan through my synched-up podcast list at any time. All that having been said, wasted some time on that.  Did I say some?  Netflix increases the quality of TV viewing (you watch what you WANT to watch) but if you aren’t careful it can increase the quantity, too.  And trust me, I appreciate the irony of buying a Roku after my last post…

Throw in starting back to work at my client, clearing up our rental house to turn it back over to our landlords and making a ton of calls for this service/that service and voila…no posting.

And yes, I WOULD like some cheese with my whine.

But I am grateful, as I often try to remind myself to be, that these are what pass for “problems” in Chez Blap. Many people, including people I know, have infinitely greater burdens to bear. I’m grateful that the most painful problem I have to deal with is a connectivity issue.

• Revive the Personal Boycott:  Oh, I wish I had the fortitude to do this more often.  I’d like to buy responsibly, but the following chain usually triumphs:  buy good things, buy frugally, THEN buy socially conscious things.  I still weigh cost and health before the environment or corporate governance, and I worry much more than is healthy that I shouldn’t.
• The Value of an Elite College:  I’ve said it before – the cost/benefit ratio is skewing worse every year.  You can get more for your dollar at a state school.  Private education is pointless unless you aspire to “mega-money careers.”
• Access The Wall Street Journal for Free?:  Nice workaround, if you don’t have a WSJ subscription.
• Do You Have a Financial Problem? You Could Receive Professional Help and Become a Reality TV Star in the Process:  Give it a shot.  Look what reality TV’s done for Balloon Boy!  And Jon Gosselin!
• Workplace Culture Shock: Adjusting to a New Company Culture:  This has never, ever bothered me – which is one of the reasons I’m well-suited to consulting.  I can adjust within hours to a new company.  I’m a chameleon, workplace-wise.
• Get A Financial Education In Your Twenties:  I wish I had done a better job.  I did well, don’t get me wrong – but I could’ve socked away HUGE amounts of money that got frittered away (although, in all fairness, I was maxing out my 401(k) and putting as much as I could into IRAs while I was eligible to do so).
• Maximize Strengths or Minimize Weaknesses? Maximize strengths, in my opinion – you can only minimize a weakness so much, but the potential to maximize strengths is limitless.
• 35 Best Personal Finance Books:  Didn’t see Rich Dad, Poor Dad here, but otherwise a solid list.
• Your Spouse: Financial Teammate or Financial Enemy?:  I couldn’t imagine remaining married to someone who didn’t share my goals.  Doesn’t mean that the goals have to be 100% aligned, but an enemy?  No thanks.
• Get a New Job or Get a Promotion?:  Get a new job.  Easy question here in the 20-teens.
• Handling Two Financial Houses:  Glad I don’t have to deal with this.
• You can be happier by reading this post:  Not really, but an interesting take.
• Review: The Slow Down Diet By Marc David:  I have lost this altogether – with small kids, the act of eating often becomes “shovel it in and get back to feeding/cleaning/chasing them.”  I have to recover this mentality at some point.
• Best of Cash Money Life 2009 Edition:  Patrick writes one of my (short list of) favorite blogs – if you haven’t kept up with his blog, this is a great place to start.

photo by fuzzcat

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linklings, if it’s not one thing, it’s another edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Having moved twice this year, I’ll recommend you never attempt it.  I think it worked out well enough, but the stress of packing and unpacking twice in six months is significant.  Add on Christmas – albeit a low-key one – and it’s a hectic time for us.  At least I don’t have to worry about snow this year.

• Payday Lenders are Disastrous to Your Finances
• Marriage and Wealth
• Last Minute Holiday Gift Ideas For the Financially Challenged
• Plan Now to Make the Most of Post Holiday Sales
• Investment Club Benefits
• Last Minute Gifts For The Frugals On Your List
• Employment Discrimination, The Glass Ceiling & The Gender Wage Gap
• Is Investing Without Goals Like Golfing without a Putter?
• And even though it’s a roundup article, I’d like to mention Sunday Money Roundup – Food, Inc. Edition. I agree – if you haven’t seen Food, Inc., do so. Eye-opening. Tooth Fairy Economy

If you read brip blap via RSS, you might want to visit the site and see the new theme; if you like it, it's the frugal theme and if you buy it through that link, you help support brip blap.
linklings, propane edition is an original article from the website brip blap.