Carnival of Personal Finance #24

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble. Welcome to the 24th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. As most of you settle in from a long weekend, I hope you find this week's Carnival full of enlightening information!

Budget Breakdown: Dawn at Frugal For Life drills down the essential information on budgeting. "D" is something I definitely need to do better!

How Much Money is Enough?: Jon from Smart Money Daily wonders aloud about how much money he needs to feel like he has enough.

The Typical American Millionaire: FMF over at Free Money Finance takes a look at some of the qualities that define the typical American millionaire.

Poor Money Management: Cathy at CFO (Chief Family Officer) highlights a problem with poor money management and her solution in her financial tip of the week.

Too Much Future, Not Enough Present: Nina from Sitting Pretty Financially discusses how we can let finances define us which is the force behind modern day consumerism or how we can view money with the same sacredness usually reserved for inner calm.

Microsoft's XBox 360 Strategies: Flexo at Consumerism Commentary takes a look at the strategies Microsoft is using to sell the company's newest game system, the Xbox 360. The device sells at a loss, so how will the company make money, and what's in it for the consumer?

Budgeting Made Easy: Another basics of budgeting discussion is provided by Retire At 30.

Discount Plans Debunked: Henry over at InsureBlog provides a realistic assessment of the pro's and con's of so-called "discount plans" for medical services.

Games Lenders Play (Part IV): Dan from Searchlight Crusade provides us with a lengthy post on the games that lenders play.

Auto Insurance 25 Year Milestone Analysis Revised: Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity invites us to view his revised look at how his auto insurance changed when he turned 25.

A Cool Way To Give Cash: Mighty Bargain Hunter wants us to overcome the crass factor of giving cash by dressing it up a little!

10 Year Plan: What's your 10 year plan to be financially independent? Financial Freedom 4 All outlines his!

The Week Ahead: Tom Hanna at Financial Options gives us a summary of economic indicators and other scheduled information releases that investors should watch in the coming week.

Unclaimed Property That’s Rightfully Yours: Steve Pavlina shows us how to search and find for unclaimed property that as he says is rightfully yours.

How Taxes Affect Your Returns: Clint at Million Dollar Goal gives us a look at how taxes affect your returns, and what you should do about it.

Cost of Celebrating Thanksgiving: Jane Dough (what a great moniker!) of Boston Gal's Open Wallet totals the cost of celebrating Thanksgiving this year.

New Job: Brian wife's guest posts on Financial Reference giving her perspective of him taking a new job as a teacher and the impact it will have on their family finances.

S&P 500 Earnings Estimates For 2006: The Real returns looks at the earnings estimate of the S&P 500 index for next year and considers that the index is not priced terribly undervalued or overvalued.

You Are a MACHINE...: ncn at No Credit Needed elaborates on a comment from a reader and highlights some of the secrets to his success!

Carnival of Personal Finance #23

The Carnival of Personal Finance for this week is up at Frugal for Life. Check it out when you have time.

I will be hosting next week's Carnival of Personal Finance. Email your submissions to financialfruition @ my GMAIL account. Have a great week!

Personal Finance Podcasts

I've listened to podcasts before the big slingshot to the mainstream that iTunes gave this new medium. However, I never really listened to any investment or personal finance podcasts. Over the last couple of days I have listened to some of these that grabbed by attention when reading through the ever expanding catalog at the iTunes Music Store. I thought I would report back on what I've been listening to:

1) Dave Ramsey Show Podcast: Hmmm, where do I start. As far as a podcast, the advertisements for Ramsey's endorsed or own products is lame. The show is about an hour, however almost 15 minutes of it is ads. It also isn't his whole show. It's an edited down version of his daily 3 hour show. But, I wouldn't want to listen to 3 hours of Dave Ramsey in a podcast, so that might be a good thing.

2) Pro Money Talk: This is a pretty good podcast. The audio is more often than not, pretty bad. However the content is some of the better out there. One of the shows I listened to was an interview with Ed Slott, the self-acclaimed IRA expert. Some of the other shows discussed Diversification, as well as the function and future of the Financial Planning Association. Don't be wary of the title, this podcast is fine for all ranges of financial education. There was one ad for a discount brokerage firm.

3) Sound Investing: A weekly podcast that gets pretty down and dirty regarding investments, taxes, and overall themes of personal finance. However, it is more detailed regarding the markets and for those of you who are index fund (or etf) investors, you might want to pass of this podcast.

4) On the Money: A podcast from NPR in Florida, this is a decent show that is very factual. The main speaker is pretty boring to listen to, until he talks with guests. I don't know if every story is regional, however he had an insurance expert speak about the after effects of Hurricane Wilma, which passed through Florida.

5) The Market Guys: Strict stock trading podcast whose ultimate goal is to sell you their presentations and tapes. Lots of discussion regarding the technical analysis of indvidual stocks. Not very good for the Personal Finance novice or amateur.

Do you listen to podcasts? If so, are there any Personal Finance podcasts that you would recommend? Let us know.

Cubs Fan, Sox Win

It's still a little surreal that the Sox won the World Series. I wasn't really pulling for them, and it just seemed like a team from another state was playing in the WS for the American League. I guess that's because I live in Wrigleyville (on the North side of Chicago), where this picture kind of sums it up for me as Cubs Fan. Hey a little off topic, but entertaining nonetheless.