linklings, money writers edition

I’ll launch into the roundup by formally announcing (not that it’s a surprise to most readers by this point, although some subscribers who don’t visit the site may not have noticed) that I’ve joined The Money Writers network. The network has been around for a year and included The Sun’s Financial Diary, Money Smart Life, The Digerati Life, and Generation X Finance. They decided to expand and added Million Dollar Journey, My Dollar Plan and Brip Blap. You won’t notice a specific change in the content of Brip Blap or any big changes in general. It’s a great group of blogs, with different focuses and audiences, and keeping up with all of them is going to be a challenge for me. And that’s a good thing! We have a site at The Money Writers where you can see all of our posts consolidated in one location.

This week I also had a post on the Prosper blog, How to Undo Investment Paralysis. If you want some free money to sign up with Prosper, click here.

I also participated in the latest Carnival of Personal Finance: the Baby Education Edition. I enjoyed the baby theme since we are now down to a few weeks before Brip Blappette arrives. My post was an editor’s pick, and as always I am very grateful to have my submission highlighted out of so many. As always there were a lot of great articles to read besides mine, too.

On to the links. First, from the Money Writers:

Is Generation X Responsible for the Real Estate and Mortgage Problems?

• Jeremy has a good question: did Gen X cause any of the current problems in real estate or are we just deer in the headlights? I personally think the Boomers are to blame, but that’s because as an Gen Xer I blame the Boomers for everything. That’s how we roll.

Who Offers the Best Gas Reward Credit Card?

• Sun runs down the best gas reward cards. I know some people don’t like credit, and stay away from credit cards like they were newborn baby diapers, but I think reward cards are great. Pay off your balance in full each month and you’re basically giving yourself a discount all the time.

StickK to Your Goals

• Lazy Man talks about a new goal-setting system called StickK. I won’t steal his thunder – go see what it’s all about – but I’ll just say that if I used it, I’d have to designate the Bill Belichick Genius Fund as my recipient.

Free College Tuition To Soothe the Middle Class Pinch

• “Free college tuition” is the hot new thing for those sassy Ivies (and near-Ivies) to do these days. SVB is talking about it in this piece. If you’ve been reading here you’ll know that I’m a product of public schools from my first day of kindergarten through my last day of graduate school. I think if any of these schools offering free tuition to people coming from families making less than $60K per year want to put their money where their mouths are, let them make tuition payments voluntary. If it’s worth it, people will pay, right? It’s a gimmicky idea and it once again is biased against East Coasters. Someone making $60K in New York City is poor. Someone making $60K in Tennessee is comfortably middle class. And on an unrelated note, I get mad at somebody in the comments on an unrelated topic.

Saving Strategy: Avoid Upgrading Your Housing | Million Dollar Journey

• Frugal Trader talks about a mistake that everyone makes – so maybe it’s not a mistake at the end of the day. I have seen very few young families – with young kids, particularly – who would willingly downsize. At some point it can’t be about saving, saving, saving. You need a comfortable house to come home to after a tough day’s work – one that energizes you to do other things. Not to mention finding good houses in good neighborhoods with good schools so you can save money on private schools, or long drives to “good” areas.

Personal Finance Review – When’s the Next Black Monday? » Money Smart Life

• Over at Money Smart Life you can make yourself a little sick thinking about the next Black Monday. I’m betting it’s coming, and coming soon. When it comes, it’s going to be devastating, but it’s also going to be a real test of the “buy low” philosophy for many investors.

Investment Club Portfolio and Returns

• Madison, though she doesn’t know it, helps me expand a little on my piece. And investment club is a great idea, although for some reason I’ve never really looked into one. I’m in a small one I guess, made up of Bubelah and myself, but developing a master mind means having a LOT of people contributing to things like investing strategies.

And a couple of posts from around the web:

My Final Post: Top 9 Lessons In Awesomeness

• Hunter – who has a really strong site with a lot of good resources – is wrapping up his blog with his final post, so it’s your last chance to see what he’s about. Truth be told it’s not his final post, but you’ll see what he means.

Is your high-powered job setting your kids up to fail?

• Jonathan has an excellent piece here on the needs for parents to just BE there. It doesn’t take much. I’m convinced that watching TV with your kid is better than having them read poetry without you. So much of what makes children comes from their association with role models, particularly their parents. A high-powered, long-hours job may seem important but your work is your work – it will always be there if you want it to be. Your children are only yours for 18 years (and the last 3 of those years they’ll be too busy with friends, activities, etc. to be “yours” anyway).

And – almost done here! – a few baby-related posts I thought were fun (and informative) reads:

• Funds to Form a Family: Adoption process begins. And so does the check writing.
• The Perfect Gift For A Newborn Baby (a must read – please!)
• 25 Ways to Simplify Your Life with Kids

And as a final, final point the good fellows at Smarty Pig have given me a $50 gift certificate that I am going to give away to a random commentator! Don’t know what Smarty Pig is? I’ve seen a lot about it, so you can read here, here, here or here to find out more (I tend to agree with Sun, who complained about fees and got the structure changed). If you made it this far in the post, you deserve it, and if you check out the other articles about it you could win even more to set up your Smarty Pig account. Just leave a comment on this post with “oink” in it, and I’ll randomly select a winner this weekend.

Final thought: ever wonder why I call this blog Brip Blap? You can read the about page, but Seth Godin describes my thought process accurately here. I still think Brip Blap is easier to remember than Personal Finance World.

Whew! Go enjoy the rest of the weekend!

photo credit: _StaR_DusT_ / photo credit: tanakawho

Tags: children, family, investing, life, linklings, money, saving