If you're new here, subscribe to my RSS feed to easily see all the latest money management tips, tools and resources. Thanks for visiting!

Welcome to the Best of March 2008. Here you’ll find the best articles, posts, tools, resources and news about money, finance and investing from the past month.

News & Analysis

New five dollar bill put into circulation
The new five dollar bill entered circulation on March 13 ,2008.

Opensecrets.org
A guide to the money in U.S. elections. Want to know how much the 2008 presidential candidates have raised and spent so far? Open Secrets can tell you. Who says you can’t buy an election?

Top 10 cheap green cars
A list of the top 10 “inexpensive” hybrid cars.

Emerging Credit Score
Experian launched a credit scoring system for consumers with little or no credit history. To develop the scoring model, it uses data such as demographics; internet, catalog and direct-marketing purchases and payment; trades, inquiries and public records; property and asset records; telecommunications and utility data; and; industry specific and custom scores.

Business Week’s Top 50 performers
Business Week announced its annual list of the 50 top corporate performers. Coach was #1, up from #2 last year.

Money Tools & Resources

Carbon Footprint Analysis
What to know how much CO2 your car belches out each year. Check out this handy tool and then drive on over to my other blog, Energy Saving Gadgets, to find cool and useful gear that saves both energy and money.

Wide Open Wallet: 50 Awesome Open Source Financial Tools
A list of free, open source software to help you manage your money.

The Excel Magician: 70+ Excel Tips and Shortcuts to help you make Excel Magic
I recently ran across this helpful list of tips and tricks for Microsoft Excel.

40+ Alternative Income Ideas and Resources
Here’s a list of 40 ways to make a second income.

Get Your Stimulus Payment!
Here’s a tool to help older Americans who are not employed but received income determine if they are entitled to a stimulus rebate check. The AARP also as an article on this topic–Advisory About Economic Stimulus Payments

Smart Spending

Tightwad Tuesday: Homemade Laundry Detergent
Want to make your own suds? Here’s how.

MyMoney.gov
I ran across this site recently and thought you might find it of interest. It has links to numerous articles about budgeting, spending, investing, and so on. Here’s one of the links that’s interesting–Beginner’s Guide to Financial Statements

Gasnearu
Here’s a nifty tool to save you some money in the face of rising gas prices. This website claims to know where you can buy the cheapest gas. Just plug in your zip code, and it brings up a list of filling stations near you listed by price from lowest to highest.

Smart Moves To Lower Your Health Care Costs
Some good tips on how to make the most of your health care dollar.

Articles and Studies

Generation X and Y not saving enough
The findings in a detailed study should be a real wake-up call for the younger generation. Young adults recognize that they should be saving more, but don’t save enough. Four out of five have some form of non-mortgage debt. Many are unfamiliar with basic investment concepts. Here’s the 63-page study (pdf format).

Iraq by the Numbers
Here’s a chart showing whether Iraq is better off now than it was five years ago. You be the judge.

Source: Via Cool Infograhics

1 marshmallow or 2? A study on the benefits of delayed gratification
Delayed gratification is a key to financial success (and stockpiling marshmallows).

A Practical Illustration of the Power of Snowflaking
Behold, the power of the snowflake. Here’s a great example of how to make a big difference in your finances with small amounts of money.

How I Earned $4,100 Without Working - The Beauty of Passive Income
Passive income is the holy grail of financial freedom. Here’s how one blogger netted $4,100 for doing “nothing.”

A Surprisingly Large Number of Things can be Lived Through
This is a good reminder of how good most of us have it as compared with others throughout the world, and that even with difficulties, you can prevail.

10 Ways To Reduce Clutter And Clean Up Your Act
Boy do I need to study this article!

Uncommon Lifestyles and the Truth About the 4-Hour Workweek: An Interview with Tim Ferriss.
Here’s an interview with Tim Ferriss, which ties in nicely with Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week: Fact or Fiction

The Case Against Roth 401(k)
Here’s an interesting take on whether you should invest in a Roth or Traditional 401(k). I think several good points are made here that are worth considering. Source: My Money Blog

2008 Social Security Trustees Report
I’ll let the report’s summary speak for itself:

Annual cost will begin to exceed tax income in 2017 for the combined OASDI [social security] Trust Funds, which are projected to become exhausted and thus unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2041 under the long-range intermediate assumptions. For the trust funds to remain solvent throughout the 75-year projection period, the combined payroll tax rate could be increased during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent increase of 1.70 percentage points, benefits could be reduced dur­ing the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent reduc­tion of 11.5 percent, general revenue transfers equivalent to $4.3 trillion in present value could be made during the period, or some combination of approaches could be adopted. Significantly larger changes would be required to maintain solvency beyond 75 years.

Study: Payday Loans Cause More Bankruptcies
In last month’s “Best of. . .” article I included a link to a study performed by George Mason University suggesting that payday loans can actually help certain people in financial distress. Now Vanderbuilt has released a study showing a correlation between payday loans and bankruptcy filings.

A reader recently brought a website to my attention and asked what I thought of it as a money management tool. The site is called PriceAmbush, and it purports to allow you to search the Internet for the best deals on stuff. But I have very mixed feelings about this site. First, it appears to find deals only through Amazon.com, at least based on the searches I ran. While this is not a problem, per se, the site doesn’t disclose this fact (at least that I could see). Second, because Amazon’s prices on products can change by the minute as can availability of product, I found PriceAmbush’s product availability and pricing information to be inaccurate on several occasions. There are, however, two features about the site that make PriceAmbush worth considering.

Read the rest

Yesterday MSN Money featured my article on Slow Motion Retirement. It was linked on the front page of MSN, and generated a lot of visitors to this site. I want to thank the folks at MSN, who have been wonderful to work with over the past few weeks. In addition, MSN’s Smart Spending money blog features an article from The Dough Roller ever Wednesday. All of this is good news, but now on to some not so good news.

The price of a Berkshire Hathaway B share keeps rising. At the end of October, the B Share closed at about $4,414. Yesterday it closed at $4,750, up $336. At the same time, I only increased my cash to buy a B share by $120, all from blogging income. So last month I lost ground. What would be really nice is if the B Share could actually go down for a change.

A word about blogging income. For purposes of the B Share, I count blogging income once I receive it. In November, this blog generated more than $120, but some of that revenue was received in previous months, and some of it won’t be received until December or even January. In November, The Dough Roller earned about $260 from PPC, PPM and affiliate revenue. Hopefully I can make some positive progress toward the B Share in December.

This past week has been very exciting around here. On Wednesday The Dough Roller became a partner blog of MSN’s Smart Spending Money Blog. Each week you’ll be able to see one of my articles over at Smart Spending. This past Wednesday they published Stop Frittering Away the Fruits of Your Frugality. To add to the excitement, MSN Money then added a link to the article on its front Money page. Needless to say, it’s been a busy week here, and I encourage you to visit MSN’s Smart Spending Money Blog and the Smart Spending Message Board.

Now here are some links from the past week or so that I thought were interesting or helpful:

M-Network

• Frugal Living the New Trend? And How Our Paper Missed the Mark [@ beingfrugal.net]
• Save money on car depreciation [@ ChristianPF.com]
• Credit is a disease you won’t catch here [@ Gather Little By Little]
• The Internet Coupon Saga [@ Paid Twice]
• Paying off debt makes you feel….. [@ Single Guy Money]
• Money Mistake Monday - I Waited Too Long To Get VOIP Syndrome [@ My Two Dollars]
• How to live on your own frugally [@ plonkee money]
• New Car, Used Car, Leased Car, Bought Car [@ DebtFREE-Revolution
• 22 Money Maximizing Moves You Can Do Today [@ Moolanomy]

Other PF Blogs

• Gray Friday? [@ Smart Spending]
• How To Avoid The Stress Of Christmas [@ Rich Minx]
• Counting My Blessings and Not My Pennies, For A Change [@ The Digerati Life]
• Becoming Thankful: Learn How Much is ‘Enough’ [@ THE FINANCIAL PHILOSOPHER]

I enjoy playing games of strategy. Chess is one of them, and so is The Settlers of Catan. The Settlers of Catan is a great way to teach children about strategy, negotiating, planning, risk taking and so on. We played Settlers last night with friends until midnight. Lots of fun! If you’ve never played and like strategy games, I highly recommend it.

With that said, here are links to some great articles of the past week:

• Choosing An Asset Allocation, Step 1: Deciding On The Stocks/Bonds Ratio (@ My Money Blog). This post begins a series on asset allocation that looks to be very good.
• A Target Shopping Strategy That Worked (@ Paid Twice). I may try this approach with Home Depot.
• 10 Simple, Sure-fire Ways to Make Today Your Best Day Ever (@ Zen Habits). Some great reminders about what makes a really great day!
• Loyalty Is Dead, It’s Better To Be A New Customer (@ Moolanomy). Saving money always gets my attention, particularly when it involves minimal effort.
• a Dave Ramsey success story: interviewing Steven (@ plonkee money). I love a success story, and here’s one worth reading.

Enjoy!