Chance Flavors Of The Week

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The day has finally arrived. My first roundup of ‘cracking good’ articles that I enjoyed from other personal finance sites around the web.

Going forward I commit to publishing my favorite posts each Saturday. To borrow from the US Postal Service’s motto, “neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night will keep me from the swift completion of my appointed rounds…”

What do you think of the title? I was just sitting here thinking, ‘what am I going to name this?’ and like a lightening bolt it came to me.

We shall see if the name survives, I will wait for feedback from others.

Strength in numbers

Over the past month, I have become a big fan of many of the blogs that make up the M-Network. Originally I wrote a review of Moolanomy (back in November) and through Pinyo’s site I came to know many of the M-Network sites that now dominate my blogroll.

I’m still acquainting myself with the nuances of each blog, but from what I can tell, the network provides thought-provoking, practical ideas that come from the unique experiences of each member.

I promise you there is something for everyone there, and we can all apply some of these helpful tips to our everyday lives.

I’m learning with you

For me, I’m so glad to have come upon this group because I’m learning so much about the different areas of personal finance that I have little experience with. I’m excited to put a lot of their ideas into action.

For instance, I’m currently working to get out of my cell phone contract, then, get a new phone, cable, internet and digital phone package, all because of something I read on Cash Money Life. If everything works out I’ll save about $150 in termination fees and reduce my monthly bills on everything else by about $100 a month.

The M- Network

On the M-Network page it reads. “…the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts…” True to that statement, they put together group projects that run over the course of many days, where members are responsible for writing about the topic at hand.

Currently, the M-Network is writing a series of posts called Money Matters for All Ages. They have asked me to take part in this series and I gladly accepted. My piece called, ‘ The sixties and beyond’ will air on Thursday January 24th, so look out for that.

I thought that series would be a great starting point for highlighting my favorite flavors of the past week:

Financial Strategies for Infants and Young Children - there’s a great list here of financial strategies you can put in place, for infants and young children, that will get them started off on the right foot.

Preschoolers- some interesting thoughts about teaching your kids the value of money and how to take care of it and use it wisely.

Personal Finance for Children and Pre-Teens - should children’s allowances be tied to the chores they complete? Also, moving your kids from an allowance to a salary, it sounds like a great way to teach them fiscal responsibility.

Teach Your Teen the Basics of Money Management- this post builds off the last and talks to teaching your kids how to become responsible. He talks about the importance of having a checking and savings account, setting up a budget and helping your kids find a job.

Money Advice to My Teenage Son - Ana offers some practical ideas that she fervently hopes her son will listen to. Ana learned bad money management techniques from her parents and through her experiences with getting out of debt is making sure her son knows the rules of the game.

College Money Matters- this post is hot off the presses, like a warm loaf of a bread on a Saturday morning;) Some excellent tips about how to keep your expenses down and not bury yourself in debt, which many college students do.

Great advice

Well, that’s all of I have on the Money Matters series for now. It’s all really good stuff that I think should (almost) be mandatory reading for parents. If parents were more vigilant about taking the time to teach their children a lot of the lessons discussed, we wouldn’t be a generation riddled with debt.

Next week I will cover the rest of the posts in this series and look forward to what everyone comes up with. The pressure is mounting, as the bar has been set high, to come up with something good. I feel inspired and am looking forward to writing about those in their 60’s, aka the Sweetspot.

A few more flavors from outside the M-Network:

The 401(k) Debt Card: Probably One of the Worst Ideas Ever - Much like Jeremy I am shocked by this. I totally agree that this is one of the worst ideas ever, and Jeremy does a great job of explaining why. What’s next an IRA debit card? Geez.

Stop Waiting for Tomorrow- And Get Informed, Honest and Focused - Great little piece about springing into action now, not tomorrow or next week or next month…

Surprise! Here’s Your ETF Capital Gain Distribution - the facts are the facts. There are ETF’s that have capital gains distributions but they tend to be the more exotic sector or specialty ETF’s. I thought this article was important to include, because it paints ETF’s in a negative light, remember beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. The majority of ETF’s used to build core client portfolios are extremely tax efficient and very liquid.

The “Magic Quadrant” of the Personal Finance Blogs - Hank examines a unique way to rate and categorize personal finance blogs, including yours truly. He brews up his own Magic Quadrant formula, using soft and hard metrics, to come up with an interesting distribution.

In Conclusion

That’s all for the maiden voyage! If you want to see more of what I found interesting this week, check out my StumbleUpon page. Enjoy the rest of your weekend…

btw, this morning Roger Federer the #1 tennis player in the world, survived an epic third round match at the Australian Open winning 10-8 in the fifth set. Great match!

Tags: Chance Flavors