This is my last announcement of this competition. Only entries received by 3 PM EST Feb. 21 will be eligible.
Yes, it's that time of year again -- Free Money Finance March Madness is upon us!
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here are some details from last year:
Well, this year, I'm doing it again -- though bigger and better. You can now win $500 for a charity of your choice!
64 posts in total will be allowed in the 2008 competition. Each one will be assigned randomly in a bracket set of "games" similar to the one used for the Men's NCAA basketball tournament. (If you want to see what one looks like, go to the end of this post and download last year's bracket.) Here are more details:
- If you're a blogger and have money-related posts you want to include you can email the following to me: 1. The name of the post you're submitting, 2. the URL of the post you're submitting, 3. two to five sentences on what makes this post so great (I'll be using this wording in the competition, though I reserve the right to edit it, so really "sell" your posts), and the charity you're playing for (see below for details on what this means.) I need to receive all this by Thursday, February 21.
- You can submit up to two posts, but if you do, be sure to list them in order of your preference. I'll start by allowing only one post per site, but if all the slots don't fill up, I'll start adding extra posts by sites already in the tournament. If I don't receive 64 submissions, I'll fill in the brackets with my own posts.
- Participation will be on a first come-first served basis. So if you're the 65th blogger to submit a post, you're not going to get a spot.
- The posts will "play" each other with the winner advancing and the loser being bumped. They'll "play" in this manner: 1) I'll post the competing posts, listing who's playing who, 2) readers can leave comments on which they like better, 3) I'll ultimately decide a winner between the two taking the comments into account, and 4) the winner will advance in the bracket to "play" again. Ultimately, there will be only one post left -- the "champion" for this season.
- Criteria for great articles is as follows: 1) practicality of the post 2) how interesting/provocative/unique it is, 3) the "personal-ness" of it and 4) its impact on net worth.
- I'll make a $500 contribution to the charity of the winner's choice. The charity has to be a registered charity to receive a tax deduction under U.S. law. In other words, I won't be giving $500 to a "charity" you and your brother come up with on the spur of the moment. The winner will also receive a Moose Tracks ice cream beach towel. You can see one here (at the bottom).
As readers, you get the chance to read some great pieces and help decide who wins this year's championship. It should be great fun and full of the best personal finance posts of the past year. Good stuff all the way around!
When do you think we will know which posts got included in the 64?
Posted by: R.J. | February 19, 2008 at 04:28 PM
The first "games" will be played on Saturday, March 1, so sometime before then.
Posted by: FMF | February 20, 2008 at 07:48 AM
Good idea.. but since March madness is played by college students, why not do it for posts most relevant and important to them?
Posted by: Denise | March 11, 2008 at 01:27 PM