Carnival Highlights For The Week #13 - Self Employed Edition

In reading the Carnivals this week, I looked for articles that were related to home businesses, being self employed or earning side income. Here are my picks for the week:

The Personal Development Carnival is hosted at Live The Power.	My Carnival selection is Attitudinal Service, at Trusted Advisor Associates, which writes good customer service is intellectual. However, great customer service comes from the heart and soul.
The Carnival of Personal Finance #99 is organized by Money, Matter, and More Musings.	My Carnival choice is by Tips for Running a Successful Seasonal Business by GreatFX Business Cards. The secret is managing three areas: budget, revenue, and time.
The Investor's Blog Network (IBN) Carnival #6 is hosted by The Digerati Life.	My Festival pick is by Online Stock Trading which covers Online Stock Trading Mid-Day Trading. It provides a few tips and insights to help reduce the chart watching stress during the day,
The Carnival of Family Life #53 celebrates is one year anniversary at it's founder, An Island Life.	My Carnival choice is Family Business: Cons To Beware posted at Inklings, which gives a quick overview of home business pitfalls and ways to combat them.
The Festival of Frugality #73 is presented by Money Smart Life.	My Festival pick is Save Money While Still Dining Out at Saving for Wealth, which shares money saving gift certificates to reduce the cost of business dinners. OK, this one is a bit of a stretch for the theme:-)
The Cavalcade of Risk is hosted at Getting Green.	My Carnival choice is Managing Risk in a Home Business at Families.com, which shares that they are multiple risk in a home business, including financial, business model, hiring and time management.
The Carnival of Taxes #18 is hosted by Don't Mess With Taxes.	My Carnival choice is Estimated Taxes and Avoiding Underpayment Penalties posted at Five Cent Nickel. How to pay estimated taxes is another "learning opportunity" of being self employed.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding ideas you can use.

This marks the final edition of Carnival Highlights for the Week. Based on a discussions at Money, Matter, and More Musings on what readers do not like in Personal Finance blogs, I am discontinuing this segment for now. It seems many regular personal finance blog readers dislike round up articles because the readers have already seen many of the highlighted articles. My site analytics also show these articles have relatively low readership.

My apologies to those readers who have enjoyed this segment. I hope you will equally enjoy the new segments that will replace Carnival Highlights for the Week.


Check back on Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnival Highlights For The Week #12 - Lessons for Life Edition

In reading the Carnivals this week, I noticed that several had personal finance insights that were also relevant to life in general. This week's highlights were selected based on this theme.

The Carnival of Personal Finance #98 is published at We're In Debt.	My Carnival pick is by Ardini which looks at 3 Steps Towards Solid Financial Freedom Planning. A great concise post summarizing the three steps: Setting Goals, Behavior Change and Regular Communication. This approach resonates with me and also can be applied to other areas of life. If you only have time to read one post in this Carnival, I recommend this one.
The Festival of Frugality #72 is hosted at Frugal for Life.	My Festival choice is Don't Be Afraid to Ask for a Discount, The Sequel by Five Cent Nickel. This post reinforces the concept of if one wants a lower price, one should ask. As a colleague once told me, the worst thing the salesperson can do is say "no." This is another concept that can be applied to other parts of life - e.g. asking for a raise.
The Carnival of Family Life # 52 is at Parenting Toddlers.	My Carnival pick is by Inklings which gives us a run down on the pros to owning a family run business with Family Business: Pros to Embrace. The pros include: Time Together, Experience, Overcoming Hardship and Personal Development. The points are also valuable to other parts of life. The author noted that an upcoming post will discuss the cons of a family run business. Since I am now intrigued by the pros, I plan to check back on the post on the cons.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding ideas you can use.

Check back on Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnival Highlights For The Week #11

Here are some of the posts I like from Carnivals of the past week.

The Investors Blog Network (IBN) Festival #5 The Investors Blog Network (IBN) Festival #5 is organized by The BioHealth Investor.	My Festival choice by Breaking the Shackles of the 9 to 5 on the Anatomy of a Stock Trade: Entry Techniques. This is a good post on the technical trading aspects on buying, managing risk and exiting a position in a stock.
The Festival of Frugality #71 is hosted by Money, Matter, and More Musings.	My Festival pick is Frugal vs. Cheap posted at Money Walks. This post is an excellent discussion of the concepts with examples showing the difference.
The Cavalcade of Risk # 24 is at The Digerati Life.	This is an excellent Carnival, with many great articles. I narrowed my Carnival selections to the following two. The first is by Brazen Careerist tells us that You Don’t Need To Love Risk-Taking To Start Your Own Business. I like the key points in this post: Start with existing skills and assets, be flexible, find a partner (mentor), focus on what's important and have a positive attitude. The second is by Personal Finance Advice which tells us about Understanding Disability Income Insurance. This post is an excellent detailed introduction to disability income insurance, which is more likely to be needed more than life insurance during one's working years.
The Carnival of Financial Planning #2 is hosted by The Skilled Investor Blog.	My Carnival pick is Stocks Vs Real Estate, Winning Investment Strategies posted at The Digerati Life, which compares six areas of consideration when comparing the stocks to real estate. Her post convinced me that the real estate investment practice of personally buying and renting property to a tenant should be considered a small business instead of an "investment," since it may require frequent effort to have a positive return.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding ideas you can use.
Check back on Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnival Highlights For The Week #9

Here are the Carnivals from this past week that I am reading :

The Investors Blog Network (IBN) Festival #4 is organized by My Wealth Builder.	My Carnival choice is Save Time with the Stock Market Search Engine by Investors Trip. The Stock Market Search Engine (SMSE) was created because of frustration with links unrelated to the stock in Google Search. The SMSE solves this problem because the search index lists only websites that are related to the stock market. In addition, the portfolio by the Investors Blog Network for the CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge is shared. As of April 13, 2007, the portfolio is worth $1,058,000 and is in the top 21% of contestants. The current leader has $2,860,000.
The Tax Carnival #16 is hosted by Don't Mess With Taxes.	My Carnival pick is 7 Tips On Claiming Your Tax Deductions for Business and Charitable Contributions at The Digerati Life. For those of you still doing tax returns (like me), here are a few additional tips on deductions, especially if there is a business involved. The article reminded me that business owners get a number of deductions that employees do not. The tax breaks can help a lot when running a business.
The Festival of Frugality #69 is at The Digerati Life.	My Carnival selection is Right Turns And Other Simple Tips To Save Money And Environment by Money, Matter and More Musings, which highlights 51 saving tips from Time Magazine. An excellent tip is making right turns to go to and get back from one's destination. It can save a lot of time and gasoline over the long term. I'll be trying this tip on my errands this weekend.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding ideas you can use.

Check back on Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnival Highlights For The Week #7

Here are the Carnivals from this past week that I am reading :

The Carnival of Personal Finance #93 is organized by Tired But Happy.	My Carnival choice is Early payoff: The great mortgage debate, posted at Frugal Zeitgeist, I have been evaluating what I need to do to retire in my forties. My analysis shows that a key enabler will be to eliminate all debt, including my mortgage. I will likely be in the camp of paying of my mortgage in the next few years.
The Investors Blog Network (IBN) Festival #3 is hosted by One Guy's Investments.	My Festival pick is by The Israeli Speculator which presents Where Are The Customers' Yachts?, which revisits the 1920's question of why brokers were getting rich and not their customers. The reason was that brokers made their money on commissions and not stock picks. The same question applies to all the newsletters and blogs that recommend stocks. Friends sometimes ask me about stock investments. I generally preface the discussion with, "If I were really good at investing, I'd be doing it full time, " which is the truth. True, I've had my moments, such as Dell rising 6X in 18 months and Intel calls growing 28 to 56 times in 4 months. However, I am not consistently this good, which requires me to keep my day job:-)
The Carnival of Family Life #47 is at More4Kids.	My Carnival choice is How To Pay Cash for College posted at Thrifty Mommy, which shares some excellent strategies a student can use to keep avoid using loans to pay for higher education. I have one additional suggestions for parents. Start a college saving account when one's child is born and let the power of compounding help.
The 67th Festival of Frugality is presented by Debt Hater.	My Festival pick is Don't Budget to the Penny by Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, which is a devil's advocate post on how detailed to make a budget. I confess, I don't keep a budget. My strategy is to put 25% of our income into savings at the beginning of the month and spend the rest. When I run out of money, I stop spending. Has worked for me for quite a while:-)

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding ideas you can use.

Check back on Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnival Round Up For The Week #5

Here are the Carnivals from this past week that I am reading :

The Carnival of Personal Finance #91 is organized by The Sun's Financial Diary.	My Carnival choice is by The Stubborn Capitalist who presents The "Get Rich Quick" Fallacy. The article makes the point that "quick" does not mean "easy." In fact, his main learning from trying "get rich quick" programs is that getting rich requires hard work.
The Investor's Blog Network (IBN) Carnival #2 is hosted by Investors Trip.	My Carnival pick is What do you make of a stock market sell-off? by The Digerati Life, which advocates that fundamentals are still good at this time and only traders should consider exiting. I guess I'm a trader:-) I closed out all my 2007 purchases in my personal accounts on March 2, 2007 and am waiting for a clear bottom in the correction. In addition, I am seriously considering opportunities to short stocks for the first time since 2004.
The Carnival of Family Life #45 is at Adventure in the 100 Acre Wood.	My Carnival choice is Great Ways for Kids to Make Money posted at Getting Green. He presents a list of jobs that can help children learn about earning money for work. I would provide the additional possibilityof leveraging the Internet, since age and capital are not as critical in starting a successful Internet business.
The Festival of Stocks #27 is presented by Fat Pitch Financials.	My Festival pick is Is Chico’s Turning the Corner? at One Guy’s Investments, primarily because I currently own Chico's. Unfortunately, I have lost money on Chico's and am hoping that his analysis is right. Hope springs eternal, especially when one's investment has declined:-)
The Carnival of Investing is hosted by The Skilled Investor Blog.	My Carnival choice is Gold As Investment: The Basics posted at Money, Matter, and More Musings, which provides an excellent explanation of a karat and why it is important to the value of gold. Gold always has appealed to me, but jewelry and mining shares are the only forms I have owned to date. The inconvenience and worry related to keeping it are the main reasons I haven't invested in gold bullion or coins.
The Festival of Frugality #65 is presented by The Festival of Frugality.	My Festival choice is Stop The Financial Leakage! by My Two Dollars, which offers good tips on eliminating postage for paying bills, reducing cell phone plan costs, and not wasting water. My additional tip would be to eliminate the cell phone completely as I suggested in Buy Only What You Need.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding ideas you can use.

Check back on Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnival Round Up For The Week

Here are the Carnivals from this past week that I am reading :

The Carnival of Personal Finance #87 is hosted by 2 Million - My Journey To Financial Freedom.	My Carnival choice is from Money $mart Life with Why We Should Save As Much Money As We Can since you don't know what the future will bring. I agree, the consequences of over saving are much better than the consequences from under saving.
The Festival of Frugality #61 is hosted by Hustler $$$ Blog.	My Festival pick is How to stop nickel and diming yourself into the poorhouse! by Kirby on Finance, which proposes a systematic way to eliminate $2-$3 "splurges." This is another good way to "buy only what one needs."
The Carnival of Family Life is hosted by Colloquium.	My Carnival choice is Kids And Money posted at No Credit Needed Blog, which describes the system used to teach their daughter about managing money. This system is similar to many others about which I have read. I will use a version of this when our daughter is old enough.
The Cavalcade of Risk #19 - Valentine's Day Edition is hosted by My Wealth Builder.	My Cavalcade pick is Tontines - A Way Out of a Pension Jam at Pension Risk Matters, which reports on a 350 year old risk management tool that can provide guaranteed income for retirees. Tontines appear to address the issue of potentially over saving or under saving for retirement. I like the idea and will study it further for my own retirement use.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding tips you can use. I have moved my Carnival reviews from Tuesday (Ideas You Can Use segment) to Saturdays since several Carnivals that I read publish after Tuesday. In the Saturday review, I will be adding a bit more commentary to the review to fit into the Reflections and Musings theme.

Check back every Saturday for the next Reflections and Musings segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

My Carnival Reads for This Week

Here are the Carnivals I am reading this week:

The Carnival of Personal Finance #84 is presented by Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.	My Carnival pick is Good Debt, Bad Debt, No Debt by Ask Uncle Bill. It's about a decision made by student to not use debt to pay for her education.
The Festival of Frugality #58 is hosted at The Simple Dollar.	My Carnival pick is Amazon Discount Shopping posted by Pro Bargain Hunter, which shows how to quickly find all the discounted merchandise on Amazon.com.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding tips you can use. Check back every Tuesday for the Ideas You Can Use segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Carnivals I Will Be Reading This Week

Here are the Carnivals that I will be reading this week:

The Carnival of Personal Finance #83 is presented by Young and Broke.	There were over 70 excellent posts in this Carnival. It was difficult to narrow down the choices to only two Carnival picks. In my first Carnival pick, FMF explains the biggest barrier to becoming wealthy at Free Money Finance. Hint: It's not how much one makes, it's how the money is being used. For the second Carnival pick, No Credit Needed shares his 2007 goals. NCN has a challenging goal of saving 60% of his gross income for 2007. Wow!
The Carnival of Family Life #37 is posted at More4kids.	My Carnival pick is Walking In A Winter Wonderland For $1,300 posted at The Digerati Life, which shows a frugal winter vacation alternative to Disneyland that was great fun also.
The Festival of Frugality #57 is hosted at FIRE Finance.	My Carnival pick is Top 25 Personal Finance Myths posted at Your Credit Advisor, which shares common misconceptions people may have about money, investments, debt, and wealth.

I hope you enjoy reading these Carnivals and finding tips you can use. Check back every Tuesday for the Ideas You Can Use segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC