Recommended Articles

Here's my dilemma. I only have time to write one post per day. Some days I can't even get that done. In my one post I like to write original content about personal finance matters that interest me, and hopefully my readers. However, since I do submit articles to some of the regular carnivals out there, common courtesy requires that I link back to those carnivals, and since I am already doing that, I might as well recommend some of the fine articles that I find on those carnivals. My solution to this dilemma is this: from this point forward I will dedicate one post per week to recommend some articles. Typically, that post will be the one I post on Tuesday. So, without further delay, here are the recommendations for this week:

First up, this week's Carnival of Personal Finance is hosted by the Frugal Law Student, the carnival includes my post about the Allure of Lifestyle Funds. Here are some of the other articles in the carnival that caught my eye:

Don't Mess with Taxes pays tribute to the Simpsons with an article about the D'OH moments of personal finance. The article makes some good points, but for me it's all about the Simpsons. Cowabanga Dude!

Everyday Finance has a post about the easiest $1,000 tax-free he makes every year. It's all about those cash back credit cards. I am a big advocate of reward cards, for those of us that do not carry a balance and do not miss their credit card payments, that is. In fact, late last week I got a $344 cash-back reward from American Express on my Blue card. That's serious cash, right there.

Financial Dominance offers an excellent article about teaching your kids the value of money. The oldest of my three boys has just turned five, and my wife and I have started to teach him some financial concepts. He is a smart kid and gets most of what we talk about but the concept of saving is easier to understand when you are sitting at home than when you see something you want in the store. Teaching financial responsibility to kids is a long term proposition, but it is a very important subject that is better taught by parents than by the credit card companies, if you know what I mean.

The Festival of Frugality this week is hosted by Frugal for Life. It contains my article about Things I Don't Skimp On. Here are the articles I found most interesting:

Fire Finance has an article about a new way to sell your old cell phones. That's a great idea. Selling my old cell phones has never crossed my mind. I give my old cell phones to my kids, which enjoy them like no other toy on the planet. They walk around the house pretending to talk, just like they see daddy do.

Money Ning is a PF blog that I only recently found and that I really enjoy. The article they contributed is about the best places to find cheaper books and magazines. I used to buy all my books online, since this truly is a lower cost way of buying books. However, recently our local book store was shut down because they could not make ends meet. The community all came together and contributed to get this store back on its feet, and since it re-opened I began buying all my books there. I will probably write about this subject later this week, it's an interesting topic.

Finally, the Happy Rock has an article about a topic I have never heard of before: Hypermilling. Supposedly there is a whole bunch of people trying to drag a few more miles per gallon from their cars by doing some pretty ludicrous things. Does that stuff even work?

You should also check out the Carnival of Money Stories, right here.