Carnival of Money Stories (Free Money Finance)

October 16, 2007

Carnival of Money Stories

Welcome to this week's edition of the Carnival of Money Stories.

For those of you who do not know what a carnival is, check out Best Practices for Driving Traffic with Blog Carnivals and How to Get Your Blog to 100,000 Visitors and Beyond, Step 13; Participate in Carnivals. This particular carnival is one where bloggers submit posts containing stories about money and a host (me) posts them. Then readers scan through the list and read the posts that interest them.

If you submitted a post to this carnival and don't see it here, it's because: 1) it wasn't a post that was a money story or 2) it was from a long time ago. I was asked by the carnival "owner" to exclude both of these sorts of posts.

I'm sticking with my usual method of hosting a carnival -- listing a summary of each piece with the author's reason for submitting the post to the carnival (for those that submitted one) and/or a bit of the post itself as a summary -- so you readers know what to expect before you get to the post. In addition, I am posting the entries in the order they were submitted.

With that said, here we go:

My Wealth Paradigm - In the beginning, I thought people who spent lots of money and owned expensive assets were wealthy. Over time, I learned that the appearance of wealth does not necessary mean one is wealthy.

Is The Key To Wealth Found In A Book? - If the answer to wealth is spelled out between the covers of the books proliferating in bookstores, why aren't more people wealthy?

Quality of Life is More Important Than Dollars - My wife and I took a $20,000 a year reduction in income. To put it simply - our quality of life was much more important to us than the money was.

Payday Loan Tips and Tricks - Working in the payday loan industry is a real eye opener. I use to work as a manager for a major payday loan call center and some of the stuff I saw made me sick.

New Tires - The Nitty Gritty | I've Paid For This Twice Already - Always ask for the discount! And be ready to walk.

Finding Missing Money - You know it’s a good when you stumble across money that you completely forgot about. The biggest case for me was once when I went to the bank, got $60, went home, and couldn’t find the money.

Investment Income: Figure it Out - The United States school system failed in educating me financially. If it weren't for the internet and my insatiable thirst for control over everything, I'd be missing out on a revenue stream that currently pays my rent.

The Benefits Of Run-Flat Tires Far Outweigh Their Expense - The reason I wanted to write this article was because of a conversation I had with the guy at my local tire shop.

Teaching Children About Money - My wife and I had always planned to teach our daughter about money at a very early age, and by the time she’s in middle school (or late elementary, even) we want her to be making most, if not all, of her financial decisions on her own.

Setting Up a Prepaid Virgin Mobile Cell Phone Account - Save money with pre-paid cell phones. Here is my experience in starting an account.

We Got Free Gift Certificates From TGIF - Overall, I would say we are still happy customers at TGI Friday’s - King of Prussia, PA. Kudos to all the staff there who worked so hard.

My Best and Worst Financial Decisions: They Might Surprise You - I asked my husband what he thought our best and worst financial decisions were, and right away he confirmed exactly what I was thinking. And my choices might surprise you.

My Best and Worst Financial Decisions - My best financial decision was marrying a wonderful woman who has managed to stick with me for 19 years and counting. My worst financial decision was reliving my childhood (I’ll explain).