The Best of the Best in Money and Personal Finance #9

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Welcome to edition nine of The Best of the Best in Money and Personal Finance, where every featured post is an Editor’s Pick!

Last week, the Honeybee and I took part in our annual Yuletide spectacle, I mean, tradition where we put up the Christmas lights on our humble home.  As usual, the neighbors came out in droves to watch the holiday fireworks as the Honeybee and I heatedly argued yet again over ridiculously mundane “issues” such as the angle of the lights and whether or not we should also decorate the shrubs and trees.  As things deteriorated, neighbor Mike started taking side bets from the crowd on whether or not the Honeybee would be filing for divorce and the date the papers would officially become, well, official.

I love the holidays.

Anyway, the top selections for this edition of the carnival were based upon those who came closest to guessing the total number of neighbors and passersby – including police officers – that pulled up a lawn chair to enjoy this year’s, um, festivities.

The correct answer: 13  (But it was 24 if you included those who were standing to get a better view.)

Hey, here’s something you can deck the halls with: For the month of November I received 105 articles for consideration, excluding the prodigious amount of spam, and other flotsam and jetsam that I typically receive every month.

As always, it was a pleasure reading everyone’s submissions again. Thank you all for contributing and if you didn’t make it this month, please try again next month!

Here now, in no particular order, are the best of the best in money and personal finance for November 2009:

Peter presents 4 Ways to Develop a Thankful Heart Before Thanksgiving, posted at Bible Money Matters, saying, “A little gratitude goes a long way.”

Although Thanksgiving is officially over, before we leave it for good this year, I think you need to read this very inspirational guest post by Craig Ford, who happens to be the proprietor of Money Help for Christians.   Of all the things we are truly thankful for, how many of them come from money?

Soo-Young presents 10 Things Zombieland Taught Me About Stock Market Investing, posted at the Bullishness Dot Com blog, saying, “Applying Zombieland rules to the stock market.“

Maybe Soo-Young knows I’m a big movie buff.  Then again, it’s no secret – after all, I have an entire blog category here that contains my weekly movie reviews.  This makes Soo’s clever strategy of submitting such an informative and well-written post that ties stock market investing to the comedy-horror flick Zombieland the equivalent of shooting ducks in a barrel.  Bonus points for doing it all without revealing any spoilers either!

Jason Hebert presents Making Money… Employee VS Boss Mindset, posted at Abstract Thoughts, saying, “A look into how changing your mindset from ‘avoiding mistakes’ to ‘realizing potential’ will ultimately increase your wealth.”

According to Jay, an “Employee” mindset only thinks of avoiding things that would be considered “wrong.”  On the other hand, the “Boss” mindset realizes that the biggest mistake you can make is actually not making a mistake.  Which mindset is better?  Jay admits that if you use money as the primary measuring stick, his decision to go with the “Boss” mindset for all of his life decisions could be considered a failure by many – but he has no regrets.   Check out Jay’s short but sweet article and find out why.  He makes a lot of sense.

Jim presents Ten Resume Mistakes You Must Avoid, posted at Bargaineering, saying, “Part of career week, this post talks about the ten mistakes you have to avoid on your resume.”

One thing I do know is that bosses – and prospective bosses – hate to see a rotten resume.  I know I’ve reviewed more than a few resumes in my day and some of them had some really egregious errors on them.  Needless to say, those resumes immediately went into the round file.  Lucky for us, Jim has put together a terrific primer highlighting ten mistakes that should be avoided at all costs.   One of his suggestions: get a professional-looking email address.  As Jim notes, don’t give an employer a reason to ignore you when he sees your address is something like hotboi1976@yahoo.com.   I couldn’t agree more.  Using more than three digits in your email address is completely unprofessional – instead, try something like hotboi777@yahoo.com.  

Debt Kid presents Getting Out of Debt Is Lonely, posted at Debt Kid.

Uh, oh.  Somebody needs a hug.  In this poignant post, Debt Kid gets on the psychiatrist’s couch and opens up a little bit.  Look on the bright side, Kid – if you think you’re lonely, try sitting in a movie theater that’s showing Ace Ventura Jr. Pet Detective.  (That theater would have drawn a bigger crowd if they had used it to administer 20 lashings at a buck a pop.)

Peak Personal Finance presents 5 Financial Rules for Women, posted at Peak Personal Finance, saying, “Great advice for women, and men also!”

I enjoyed reading this post from one of my favorite personal finance writers, Miranda Marquit, who advises women on five key financial rules that they should be sure to follow.  In the spirit of fair play, I have a one-word rule for us men that I would like to add: Prenup.   Whoa, people!  I’m only kidding…  Please, please – don’t jam my in-box again with your prenup protestations.  

Sarah presents How to: Save over $10,000 on Your Honeymoon, posted at The One!

After the prenup ceremony and wedding comes the honeymoon and Sarah, who will soon be going to Hawaii on hers, has put together some very interesting and clever ideas for saving money on it. Best of all, I even think Sarah’s calculated savings are on the conservative side – at least when it came to her breakfast suggestion: I don’t think it is possible for two people in Hawaii to eat a nice breakfast out for $10 per person after tax and tip.  One of her best suggestions: tell everybody you are on your honeymoon!  You’d be surprised what kind of unexpected gratuities you might just be afforded.

Mike Piper presents 11 Tips for Selecting Mutual Funds, posted at The Oblivious Investor, saying, “Given that most of us have a large portion of our assets invested in mutual funds, it’s important to know how to choose them.”

Once again, Mike has written a very clear and concise post that deftly passes on investing tips that even beginners can understand.  This is one of those posts where a bonus nugget of wisdom resides in the comments.  It is there that Mike reveals that tax-sheltering your tax-efficient assets rather than tax-inefficient assets is a bad idea.

Wisebread presents The First Step to Budgeting, posted at Wisebread.

In this post, Nora Dunn tells us the reason why so many budgets fail is that people neglect to do the first key step.  What step is that?  Well, I’ll let you read her article to find out.  On a side note, I noticed after reading the article that Nora is – get this – a professional hobo.  It looks like an awesome job, to tell you the truth.  To find out more, check out her interesting web site.  Hey! Who knew bums could write so well?     Nora did such a good job, next month in this space I may have to post a pithy personal finance article from a professional couch potato – assuming I can find one, that is.  Wait a minute – maybe Wisebread already has one of those on their writing staff too. 

Emily Simmons presents How to Make a Budget That Works, posted at Prosper and Be In Health, saying, “A budget is the foundation on which financial freedom is built. Learn the basics here.”

What separates Emily’s article from the 2,349,487 personal finance Web posts already written on how to make a budget, is how she explained why you should do it.  And I know what you’re thinking here: Is Emily in agreement with Nora-the-professional-hobo when it comes to the budget’s first step?  Heh heh heh.  I’ll let you see for yourself.

Steven and Debra present Policemen or Bandits? It is Becoming Increasingly Difficult to Tell the Difference, posted at The END TIMES Hoax.

Finally, being the Libertarian that I am, I am a sucker for articles like these.  This is one heck of a well-written and nicely-researched piece on the use of asset forfeiture laws to seize property without due-process, especially on innocent individuals, when there is insufficient evidence to file more formal criminal charges.  There are some spot-on observations here, perhaps the best of which was this one: “If the carrying of large sums of cash is so evil, why aren’t the counterfeiters at the U.S. Treasury arrested for printing so much of the evil stuff?”

Bravo!

And with that the November edition of the Best of the Best in Money and Personal Finance is officially over!  I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season and a very Merry Christmas!

Please send your entries for the December 2009 edition of the Best of the Best in Money and Personal Finance using our carnival submission form. For more information, check out our carnival index page.

As a friendly reminder, please please please stick to the carnival guidelines. I receive several excellent articles every month that have to be disqualified because they were posted in the wrong month. Submissions for the next carnival should include only posts written during the month of December 2009.