Below are two special reports about raising money-savvy children. Topics covered include how to manage a cash allowance, getting (and staying) out of debt, establishing credit, creating a budget, and financing college, to name just a few.

When it comes to financial literacy, today's graduates fail to make the grade. Asked about basic financial concepts, high school seniors correctly answered only 48 percent of the questions, down from 52 percent in 2006, according to the Jump$tart Coalition's recent survey on financial literacy.

This is an appalling fact. Most kids don't know how to manage money. Period. It's about time we taught them, isn't it?

Six Essential Money Skills from Kiplinger.com
10 Tips to Raising Money-savvy Teens

Welcome to the August 28, 2008 edition of Kids and Money.

Crystal Nichols presents Kids Eat Free! posted at Living the Frugal Life.
We can all save some money right now with this one!

Concerning Kids presents Helping Your Children Stay Fit For Life posted at Concerning Kids.
Great stuff!

Sam presents Student Loans for College. Clear, Quick and Easy Info posted at Surfer Sam and Friends, saying, "How should you pay for your college costs? Before you consider which student loan is best, find free or cheap money for college. Instead of a college student loan, or in addition to a loan, look around for other sources of money. Here are your best sources of college money."
Excellent advice and a great resource for student loan information.

Erin Gifford presents 3 Ways to Save on Back-to-School Clothes posted at Coupon Cravings.
Back-to-school!

Sandy Naidu presents Emergency Fund Savings - Emergency Fund Tips | FutureNestEgg posted at Future Nest Egg.
Not so much an emergency fund any more -- rather, a contingency fund.

Tracy Gullett (ParentingCents.com) presents They're Listening! posted at Parenting Cents.


Jim presents 7 Deadly Sins of Personal Finance: Skipping Emergency Funds.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Saving Tips For New Parents: Get Ready For Baby!
You can save a ton of money using these tips!

rothira presents Roth IRA for Teenagers posted at Roth IRA Explained.
Betcha didn't think about this one!

Realm of Prosperity presents Frugal Textbook Buying Tips posted at Realm of Prosperity.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 8 Lessons I Learned From The Cheapest Family In The Nation posted at The Digerati Life, saying, "How a family lives cheaply and instills frugal values in their children."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
Kids and Money using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: kids and money, blog carnival.

Money isn't everything. Enjoy life. Spend time with your family.

Prime Time Money is one of the best personal finance blogs around. About two months ago, I ran across a blog post called 10 Ways to Simplify Your Finances which really hit home with me. I've talked about automating your finances before, but this came at the problem from a different angle: Rather than starting out simple, as I suggest, you start thinking off in terms of where you are and where you want to go.

Over time, each of us accumulates accounts we don't need. Why not just get rid of the ones you don't use any more? Except for credit cards, none of your other accounts matter in terms of FICO scores, so that bank account you have $1.62 -- take it out and close the account. Simple as that.

These really are great ways to simplify your finances.

Here's a chat between Luke Mullins of U.S. News' The Home Front and Armando Falcon, former lead regulator of Freddie and Fannie. The conversation covers the how-to part of the federal government taking over the two troubled mortgage finance companies and then the aftermath of winding them down out of virtual existence.

Armando Falcon: How to Nationalize the GSEs - The Home Front (usnews.com)

It's a very informative article on how the whole thing gets unraveled.

Here's one bank that's done very well (up 39 percent, market cap bigger than WaMu) in the financial sector -- HCBK.

The Bank That Dodged Subprime - Rapid Recap - CNBC.com


Says Hudson City Bancorp's CEO:

There are fewer banks to finance houses in the New York metropolitan area and that’s led to increased volumes for us.

He goes on further to say:

If you isolate 7 states Michigan, Ohio and Indiana which are auto related and Florida, Arizona, California and Nevada you pretty much have isolated where the housing crisis is centered.

I wonder what it feels like to be the only bank in the country who got this right? All hyperbole aside, it's refreshing to see a bank operate like in the old days, where the highs weren't nearly so high and the lows weren't nearly so low. The volatility in these companies (earnings, revenue, stock price) is enough to scare people off for a long, long time.

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Don't forget to take a look at the development of my soon-to-be-published eBook, Stock Investing Basics. I'm publishing rough versions of each chapter every few days.

I bet you didn't know that you could donate your house to a law enforcement agency and have the SWAT team demolish it for you, did you, as part of their training. Read more about this arcane provision of the tax code -- 

The Chuck Norris Home Deduction - The Home Front (usnews.com)

You gotta love this: Citibank Stole $14 Million from its Customers

In the words of a Citibank executive, “Stealing from our customers is a business decision, not a legal decision.” The same executive later said that the sweep program could not be stopped because it would reduce the executive bonus pool, Brown charged.

Wow.

Are you better off today than you were 8 years ago? That's a question that bears some reflection when you go to the voting booth this Fall. Median income is down and unemployment is up. It seems that "trickle down" isn't trickling nearly far enough.

Sure, Conrad Hilton's wealth has trickled down to Paris, but where does it go after that? After all, how many jobs has Ms. Hilton created? None.

About that Bush Boom - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

Great line:

But remember, we’re just a nation of whiners.

We are, but that's not the point here. Did you know that President George W. Bush will be the only president to have suffered through two recessions? That's a legacy he's wont to cherish.

Is it his fault? Not entirely. He's been creamed with some calamities (9/11, housing and stock market bubbles bursting), but he surely is to blame for a portion of it. After all, he has taken credit for the upswing after 9/11 because of his massive tax cuts and spending sprees (two wars, pork bills he's failed to veto).

You gotta take the bad and the good.

I'm the last guy to suggest that the current mortgage meltdown is solely the government's fault. I believe that borrowers, lenders, investors, and regulators are all culpable in this mess. However, our government is supposed to provide a safety net, and the story below shows us that the government was sleeping on the job.

Not many of you will remember the S&L crisis a few decades ago. Back then, there were 200 FBI agents assigned to mortgage fraud cases. During this last real estate boom, there were 100 agents on the trail of fraudsters. In fact, the FBI asked for a bigger budget for such things and they got even less than they originally had.

This points out one -- of MANY -- opportunity costs that fighting three wars presents (Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror).

We simply chose to provide funds to fight wars rather than regulate our markets. This is not a judgment; it's a fact.

Much of the initial "sub prime" issue arose because of wanton fraud by both borrowers and lenders. Mortgage banks duped investors who bought the "securitized" mortgages, but investors should have known better.

FBI saw threat of mortgage crisis - Los Angeles Times

Officials said they began approaching mortgage companies and others in an attempt to raise awareness about the growing fraud problem. But the lenders had little incentive to cooperate because they were continuing to make money. Black says that in many cases, they were part of the fraud.

At the end of the day, it was all about greed: Borrower, lender, and investor greed. Greed is not one of the seven deadly sins for nothing!

While we've experienced a pretty mild summer where I live, it's still with bittersweet emotions that summer is nearing its end. Yes, we still have September to endure ridiculous heat, but our children will be heading off to school again. Time to shop for back to school supplies, do a refresher on our budget (if you budget), and get our heads around paying for daycare, school lunches, and yes -- college planning.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 8 Lessons I Learned From The Cheapest Family In The Nation posted at The Digerati Life.

Realm of Prosperity presents Frugal Textbook Buying Tips posted at Realm of Prosperity.

rothira presents Roth IRA for Teenagers posted at Roth IRA Explained.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Saving Tips For New Parents: Get Ready For Baby! posted at The Digerati Life.

jim presents 7 Deadly Sins of Personal Finance: Skipping Emergency Funds posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Tracy Gullett (ParentingCents.com) presents They're Listening! posted at Parenting Cents.

Sandy Naidu presents Emergency Fund Savings - Emergency Fund Tips | FutureNestEgg posted at Future Nest Egg.

Erin Gifford presents 3 Ways to Save on Back-to-School Clothes posted at Coupon Cravings.

Surfer Sam presents Student Loans for College. Clear, Quick and Easy Info posted at Surfer Sam and Friends.

Concerning Kids presents Helping Your Children Stay Fit For Life posted at Concerning Kids.

Crystal Nichols presents Kids Eat Free! posted at Living the Frugal Life.

Stay tuned for next week's edition of Kids and Money.

Money isn't everything. Enjoy life. Spend time with your family.

I've just posted Chapter 4 of my soon-to-be released eBook, "Stock Investing Basics," over at Your Money (digg the new logo?).

Money isn't everything. Enjoy life. Spend time with your family. Vote. It matters.

This one kind of goes in the Department of...Duh, but the amazing thing to me is that traffic fatalities may reach an almost 50-year low. Not since 1961 have driving deaths been under 37,000 per year.

Reason: Higher gasoline prices have caused drivers to hange their behavior. First off, teens and elderly most likely feel the rising price of gas a little more than those of us in our "middle age" because we presumably have higher disposable incomes. Second, people are driving only for "necessities" not pleasure. Vacation travel is down. People are simply doing "stay-cations" where they stay home, or close to home, for vacation.

Third, people are driving slower to save gas. Slower = Better fuel economy. However, this is one I'm not really seeing.

It does seem that folks who own Priuses drive slowly, but the macho men in their raised 4x4s seem to drive even faster nowadays. But I live in the state of freeways and fast crazy drivers, so I may have a distorted perspective. With traffic the way it is, and with most of us forced to drive 15 mph for much of our commute time, it's really tempting to put our cars and trucks in top gear and drive 85 mph (or more).

Remember, the faster you drive, the worse fuel economy you're going to get. It's not linear either, meaning doubling your speed (to keep the math simple and to illustrate this point) will not reduce your mileage by 2 -- it will reduce your mileage by 4.

So, if you get 24 mpg at 50 mph, you'll get 6 mpg at 100 mph. It's all about friction, both aerodynamic on the outside, and RPMs and load on the inside.

High gas prices drive down traffic fatalities - Yahoo! News

Here's a neat little Consumer Price Index (CPI) Inflation Calculator.

I've just posted Chapter 3 of my soon-to-be released eBook, Stock Investing Basics, over at Your Money Is Your Life.

Enjoy it. Praise it. Critique it. Blast it. Share it. Tell me what you think.


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Money isn't everything. Enjoy life. Spend time with your family.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Sears will rebound. It's not a matter of "If" but "When." That is, if the shorts don't kill it.

Eddie Lampert is, quite possibly, the world's greatest investor, better than Warren Buffett. He's less well-known than the Oracle of Omaha, but he's been at the top of the investment game for a long time. His investment (takeover) in Sears and K-Mart should have signaled the turnaround of those two entities, but such a turnaround has been absent thus far. Read this story -- What's Behind Sears's Sudden Rise? - Kiplinger.com -- for more. And pay particular attention to the last paragraph. This may indeed come to fruition. Not a bad idea...

Was Bear Stearns the last large financial company to fail? Will Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae fail, too (Answer: NO)?

Odds-on favorites to fail are Lehman (LEH), Wachovia (WB), and Washington Mutual (WM), according to this report: 24/7 Wall St.: Vegas Odds: Another Large Financial Firm Will Fail (LEH)(WB)(WM)

The remainder of 2008 is going to be really ugly and difficult.

I've made a change to my banner (up there). It's a simple change, but is it effective? Does it make you want to read more?

Like what you've read here? Subscribe to Money Hacks by Email.
Be sure to check out the development of my free eBook, "Stock Investing Basics."

Dr. Doom - Profile - Nouriel Roubini - Predicting Crisis in the United States Economy - NYTimes.com

The United States, Roubini went on, will likely muddle through the crisis but will emerge from it a different nation, with a different place in the world. “Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers,” he said, pausing to let out a resigned sigh. “This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.

We can only hope he's wrong. But he did call the mortgage meltdown, the credit crunch, the run on the banks, and the implosion of the entire credit market.

Adorama is selling 11x14 prints for $1.99! Hurry. Offer ends 8/31/2008.

Now is the time to take those priceless baby photos, or sports shots, and blow 'em up on the cheap!

AdoramaPix

Adorama is one of my favorite photo stores: It has great equipment at awesome prices, including digital cameras and inkjet inks, as well as the best prices on high-quality prints. And their sales ROCK.

I don't budget. Do you? For those of us in the middle, here's a great shortcut method to budgeting: Budgeting for Lazy People.

Here's the even shorter story: Earn more than you spend.

Falling short every month? Get a better-paying job or work on alternative income streams. Here are some posts from Moolanomy about creating income streams.

Remember, you can only cut out so much. Once you've canned cable, stopped eating out, and dropped the cell phone plan and switched to Vonage, what's left: Health insurance, 401k contributions, and food. None of these are good options to cut.

The up and down trajectory of the price of oil has been wild, to say the least. Rising to $150 and then falling to around $115 last week (and we've seen it in gas prices, too, where in the last month, where I live, gas has fallen more than 30 cents per gallon).

It's affected everybody's pocketbook and people have pared back on their spending. This has put the economy into an even deeper tailspin. Paying for gas (a non-productive use of money for consumers) instead of goods and services like shoes, televisions, and home improvements is just a waste of money, so people have not only decreased their driving, they've had to refrain from spending on consumer goods and services.

I'm doing my part to keep the economy afloat: I've had a tree service come out and care for a rather large tree in the backyard, we're going to be calling some landscapers very soon to get bids on sprucing up our yard, and my wife bought a whole lot of picture frames to put up with our boys' pictures in them.

I went to Home Depot and Lowe's yesterday to pick up a few things for projects I'm working on in the house; Saturday afternoon was a ghost town in both stores, with one checkout lane open. The parking lots were empty. My wife and I drove by the mall on Friday; while the parking lot was pretty full, we both thought out loud about whether people were shopping or buying. Shopping is actually a drag on retailers, in that they have to work harder to maintain stores that people "shop" in for less in sales; I know, I was a retailer for years.

A lot of folks are predicting that oil will fall to $70. I'd like to see it drop to $20, but I'm that kind of guy. I'd also like to see us lessen our dependence on oil, both foreign and domestic, because it's really a commodity that has outlived its usefulness. Don't get me wrong: The global economy would tank if oil fields all of a sudden dried up. We are so dependent on it for so many things and we've known for a very long time that this was coming. After all, we've had price spikes a few times in the last few decades, but we've always dodged the bullet when prices fell precipitously back to normal, or sub-normal, levels. Only now has the price of oil risen to its highest inflation-adjusted level; the previous high was in 1980!

Part of me hopes that oil stays above $100; demand for oil drops noticeably around that level. However, the part of me that makes the money and pays the bill wants oil to drop to the $12 level it fell to after the first Gulf War. That would make me jump for joy; I might run naked down the street.

But that's not going to happen.

Oil will undoubtedly rise and fall, but the trendline for the long term will be upward sloping. Take advantage of it now: Buy oil stocks on the dips. Those fat cats are going to get fatter as time goes on.

A Crude Sign of the Times - Seeking Alpha

Welcome to the August 14, 2008 edition of Kids and Money. Be sure to check out the development of my free eBook, "Stock Investing Basics."

Many of you know that I have two children: Two little boys -- one is 2 1/2 years old, the other is 10 months old. They've both been under the weather. Consequently, I am a slow mover of late. I ache, I'm tired beyond belief (hard to imagine we're contemplating trying for Number 3), and my eyes are two swollen, red, puffy orbs about to burst from my skull. My head aches, I'm anxious, and I have a short fuse.

I'm doing my best to keep it all together. My wife is an angel.

So I apologize for getting this edition out late with no commentary whatsoever.

As a consolation, I will be picking a few of these posts over the next week or so to do a more thorough read-through and commentary / analysis. I hope you'll indulge me.

Without further delay here are this week's submissions. Thanks to all for the support.

Briana presents Upromise Reminder…. | Bargain Briana posted at Bargain Briana, saying, "My article is about saving money for your child's/grandchild's, etc education with upromise! :) Those pennies add up!"

Jennifer Johnson presents Surviving the PTO posted at MommyABCs.com, saying, "PTO, kids school"

Save Money presents Three Principles Of Personal Finance posted at How I Save Money.net.

Lauren Rose presents Tips on How to Teach Your Kids to Save Money posted at No Debt Anymore .org, saying, "The concept of buying something tomorrow instead of today is a difficult concept for kids to master. To encourage your children to save, you may need to exaggerate the benefits for them at first."

Coach Peter Khoury presents Parents and Students are getting executive style Coaching to supplement Tutoring and Counseling posted at InControlCoaching.com, saying, "Life and career coaching for students to help them find a direction."

Toni Graybill shared Wealth - Making It Up As We Go posted at Maximize Health and Wealth.

Heather Johnson presents The Changing Face of Pedagogy posted at Et cetera.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents What Do Potty Training Mishaps Got To Do With Money? posted at The Digerati Life.

Joe Manausa presents 3 Bogus Real Estate Statistics - Know Them Or Be Burned By Them posted at Really Better Real Estate, saying, "There is a disturbing habit of our recognized industry leaders to quote statistics that have no basis at all. Some of them are downright wrong! This article will recognize three of the most important bogus real estate statistics that everyone ought to know about."

Joe Manausa presents What Homes Have Sold? New Versus Resales posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, saying, "New home sales versus resales, you might be surprised to find that builders are not helping with the current over-supply of homes on the market."

Joe Manausa presents Tallahassee Market Update posted at Real Estate Market Reports, saying, "Here is a housing inventory report, hot off the press for the housing market. The statistics are starting to point out that inventory levels seem to be falling for the first time in many years."

David Cassell presents Get Qualified To Protect Your Nations Secrets posted at selectcoursesblog.com.

Joseph presents How To Save Money On Cars posted at Penny Pinching.

Sweettooth presents How To Manage Your Gift Budget: 3 Easy Tips posted at Shop Little Gifts.

KCLau presents Frugal living doesn’t mean cheap posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "List of benefits of being frugal and what frugality is about"

Anand presents Ian Stephens - Identity of a Wealth Builder posted at Anand Dhillon . com, saying, "This post includes a free download of Ian Stephens wealth building audio program: Identity of a Wealth Builder. Ian went from being more than $100,000 in debt to living in a $1 million home in 3 years. In this program, he details his formula for financial success."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Kids and Money using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: kids and money, blog carnival.

Like what you've read here? Subscribe to Money Hacks by Email.

Here's a thoughtful analysis by one of Greg Mankiw's friends in the White House about the virtues of the first stimulus package versus the possibility of a second. The great thing about this note is that it is filled with economic principles put to use in the real world.

Note the interesting co-operation between sound economics and politics. No matter what, politics comes into play. This is what happens when folks who know nothing about economics insert themselves into a purely economic scenario.

It's kind of like people, other than your doctor, telling you how to treat your heart condition -- people like those employed by insurance companies. That's stupid, too, and we would NOT dare allow that! (Now that's sarcasm!)

Greg Mankiw's Blog: The View from the White House

I'm not sure how this affects you, but I'm sure this will impact Microsoft's retail partners in a significant way: Microsoft yanks Money off retail shelves

That's right, Money will not be sold on store shelves any more. The only place to get Money is online (it's unclear whether it will be through MS only, or a variety of places online; what is clear is that the packaged, shrink-wrapped package will no longer be sold).

This is a step in the right direction. The trend for digital downloads is way up (Microsoft reports that sales of the digital version of Money equaled the packaged version, up from a 1:3 ratio the year before), it saves Microsoft a ton of money, not just in packaging but in picking up the software that doesn't sell (and then what?).

Plus, software in a package is so yesterday. For the consumer, it's just much more convenient to download and buy: No trips to the store, no waiting for the mail, no boxes to throw away, etc.

One tip for digital downloads: Make a backup right away and store it on disk (CD or DVD). DO NOT BUY THE BACKUP THAT THE VENDOR OFFERS. Number one, it's a waste of money. You CAN do it yourself. Second, you're kind of defeating the purpose of the digital download in that the vendor is still sending a physical product through the mail (or UPS, FedEx, etc.).

Is Quicken next? 

Stock Investing Basics: Chapter 2 -- What Are Stocks? has been published over at Your Money Is Your Life.

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Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff announced the biggest ID-theft bust in history last Tuesday.

Federal indictments unsealed Tuesday in Boston and San Diego against 11 individuals outlined an extraordinary global scheme that siphoned 40 million customer credit and debit card numbers out of the networks of nine major U.S. retailers and placed them - for a price - in the hands of individuals around the world, who in turn used them to make purchases or withdraw cash from ATMs.

Sounds pretty serious.

Chertoff called the indictment a "milestone" in the evolving history of cybersecurity.

"It's an opportunity, in fact an obligation at this point, for everybody involved in this scenario to take a careful look at the security systems in place," Chertoff said in the San Jose offices of the U.S. Secret Service, which investigated the case.

 I'd have to agree with this. The crime ring incorporated "wardriving" (finding open networks to exploit) and then created an online database to buy and sell credit card numbers, among other things. This cooperative effort was lucrative, too:

At least one of Gonzalez's co-conspirators enriched himself to the tune of $11 million, according to the indictment. Gonzalez himself allegedly profited by at least $1.7 million and purchased a 2006 BMW, computers, a Glock handgun and a condominium in Florida where he let a co-conspirator stay for free in exchange for help in the scheme, the indictment alleges.

 It's the same old story: Find the weakest link and break it:

The fact that the alleged hacking took place at retail outlets - and not banks, for example - suggested that the suspects were targeting weaker links in the network, Dunkelberger said. In some cases, the indictment said, the network and credit card data were unsecured; in others the suspects were able to crack the encryption. 

 I'm truly glad that DHS caught the thieves. But here's the punchline: The ring, and its concomittant crimes, occurred beginning in 2004! Four year later, we find this out?

My first thought when I read this article -- 6 Ways to Save on Groceries -- was to stop buying groceries and just eat out all the time. It's WAY more convenient, it's tasty, if not terribly salty (but my early death would save a TON of dough), and I don't have to clean any dishes.

Plus, I save about $20 every time I didn't go to Safeway (gas is not $1 any more).

But then I thought, I owe it to my readers to give them some safe, sane, and sound financial advice.

For those of us who don't clip coupons (I'm really lazy, but I'm not this guy), here are a half dozen ways to save money grocery shopping.

1. Don't buy pre-packaged food
2. Buy generic or store brand
3. Write a list and stick to it
4. Be smart about organic food
5. Use the unit pricing labels on the store shelves (though I can't wait for a chain to post the wrong unit prices just to get people to buy the more expensive size)
6. Don't waste food

To this list, I'll add:

1. Shop on a full stomach. You'll stick to your list and/or buy less impulse items
2. Self check-out. You ever notice those lines don't have nearly the impulse item temptations?
3. Don't buy bottled water. It's simply stupid.

A few cheats:

1. Drop a carton of eggs and then tell management you'll take it off their hands for 1/4 the price (a good deal if you break less than 3 eggs of a dozen -- remember the unit pricing!).
2. Break open a candy bar, eat it, and toss the wrapper while you're in the store. Nobody will ever know. Grocery stores are no longer stocked with help, just checkers, and they're going away too (see Self check-out above).
3. Wear baggy clothing and hide beef -- lots of it -- in your pants and shirt.

Of course, I say this in jest. Shoplifting is a serious crime. Plus, those that get away with it make the rest of us pay more for our groceries.

You could always go BIG-TIME and defraud the government by lying to get food stamps.

Okay, that's a felony. But you'll save even more in the pokey, where food is free. Plus, you get access to a full library, free cable, and a gym. Not a bad deal. All in exchange for freedom (highly overrated).

This link, Hey, It’s Free! | Eat Free On Your Birthday, takes you to a site where you can not only get free stuff on your birthday, you can sign up to receive coupons throughout the year at various eateries to save a lot of money.

That is, if you go to places like this (I DO!!! to my ultimate waistline and budget demise <chagrin>).

Cold Stone Creamery is my current demon.

I just posted another chapter (in draft form) of my new eBook, Stock Investing Basics, over at Your Money Is Your Life. Check it out and please leave comments either here or there about it (comment on content, suggestions, errors, formatting, anything that will make it better) -- thanks!

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Welcome to the August 7, 2008 edition of kids and money.

Ben Dinsmore presents Trees Full of Money: 7 Ways to Increase Your Cash Flow posted at Trees Full of Money, saying, "The following is a list of actions that will have an immediate positive impact on your financial situation and free up cash."

I like free cash! Especially now that I have children. Purging stuff I no longer need has given me some cash that I hadn't planned on having. And you know what? It disappears the instant it hits the bank account!

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Are You Ready To Be A Parent? Know The Cost Of Having Kids posted at The Digerati Life, saying, "So sorry if I've submitted this already. I wasn't sure if it got published! Thank you for the chance to join your carnival!"
Yes, I did publish it, but I'll publish it again because it's worth reiterating.

Tom Tessin presents How to Save Money as a College Student posted at FCC Student Blog, saying, "A few tips on how you can save money as a college student."

There really ought to be a class (perhaps part of Orientation?) about living the frugal lifestyle while attending college, especially in light of the fact that you're using somebody else's money (your parents); it seems to be the considerate thing to do...

Joe Manausa presents Tallahassee Real Estate - Market Graphs UpdatedTallahassee Real Estate Blog, saying, "A compilation of real estate market graphs that shows different segments of the real estate market and how it is performing."
This real estate thing is starting to really bug me. Why don't banks, the Fed, the US Treasury, Freddie and Fannie all collude -- YES, COLLUDE -- to get this important market back on its feet?

KCLau presents The Money Book: A CAP Guide to Managing Your Money posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Published by Consumers Association of Penang (CAP), a run down on how to manage your money and a list of what the money book discusses."

David Cassell presents Free College Textbooks posted at selectcoursesblog.com.

Free? Cool.

Larry Russell presents Financial Planning Reading List posted at Pasadena Financial Planner.

imarketing4s presents A Variety of Business Loans For You | LoanHunt.com.

Concerning Kids presents 10 Back to School Safety Tips For Brown Bag Lunches posted at Concerning Kids.

Livingalmostlarge presents Paying for Tot’s Photo posted at LivingAlmostLarge, saying, "Paying celebrities for their kid's photos is it a good idea? And should some of the money go to into a savings for the kids themselves?"

Do they need savings? How about donate the money to a children's charity so that the public who has to read about this on a daily basis gets something back?

Raymond presents How To Generate Valid Credit Card Numbers posted at Money Blue Book.
This is a great post on how credit cards numbers are created. Good thing to show your older child just for the thought process alone.

Raymond presents How Credit Scores Work And How Scores Are Calculated.

Card Blogger presents The Best Credit Cards posted at Credit Card Blog.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents What Do Potty Training Mishaps Got To Do With Money? posted at The Digerati Life, saying, "Thank you!"

Joe Manausa presents HR 3221 - Good For Tallahassee posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, saying, "For Fannie and Freddie, it seems they got much of what they asked for, and a few things they did not when the President signed HR 3221. It authorized $300B (B as in Billion) to expand the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan guarantee programs."

KCLau presents 48 Fuel Saving Tips posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Article on how to save fuel"

We can all save some dough on fuel costs.

Mark Montgomery presents Princeton Review's Best 368 Colleges--A User's Guide posted at Great College Advice, saying, "Every guidebook needs a guide to help you make sense of the recommendations presented within. The Princeton Review recommends 368 colleges. But are any of those right for your kid?"

Sagar Satapathy presents 50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom posted at Smart Teaching.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
Kids and Money using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Technorati tags: kids and money, blog carnival.

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Be sure to check out the development of my free eBook, "Stock Investing Basics."

Don't forget your back to school staples at Staples.

Noted security guru Bruce Schneier wrote a piece that somewhat dispels the notion that LifeLock's product is lacking in the security department. In case you don't remember, LifeLock's CEO drives around with a big van, where his social security number is boldly displayed on the sides of the vehicle. LifeLock has been sued; various claims that the company doesn't do what it promises, that the CEO's own identity has been stolen, among other things, have come to light.

Up until a few months ago, I was running ads for LifeLock; when the lawsuits were filed, I pulled them. Once the dust settles, I may reinstate them (as if they need my approval!).

Schneier pretty much discredits all the claims in this article: Schneier on Security: LifeLock and Identity Theft

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I just wanted to let you all know that I've been working on a draft of an eBook about stock investing basics and I've put up the first part of the book on my companion site, Your Money Is Your Life.

It's tentatively called "Stock Investing Basics."

The purpose of the book is to teach the beginning equity investor the basics that are needed to start investing in stocks. I welcome all constructive criticism. Please comment.


Be sure to return to Your Money... for subsequent parts posted online. I'll be putting the whole thing together once I'm done with the draft and will offer it as a free downloadable eBook in the near future.

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Contingency plans are always wise, and having backups available is part of that. Here's an article, How to Back-up Your Life from Stepcase Lifehack, that points out the critical parts of your life that you need to back up. I've written about this before in various forms, but the link below will take you to an easy-to-use backup script for backing up computer files.



Back Up Data from the Computer Monkeys



Of course, there's more to the article than backing up computer files. You also have to plan for contingencies in your personal life (plan on divorce, losing a spouse), money (of course! Wills, trusts, and insurance), and personal documents (like tax returns, birth certificates, and the like).



A home inventory is a good idea too.

From the Department of WTF? comes this story about a man who neglected to pay a ticket for having no license plates (turned in by his brother, no less!) and after several years and thousands of dollars in additional fines/fees, the city of Milwaukee foreclosed on his home.



Thanks, Milwaukee, for pouring just a little more gasoline on the mortgage meltdown fire!



Parking Ticket Leads to Home Foreclosure - The Home Front (usnews.com)

One thing I'm sure to do is forget to take something when I run errands. You know, a return at Target (or the receipt), the key you need to get a copy of at Orchard Supply, the grocery list, etc.



My wife and I have established a system that consists of the following complex set of components:

• A box


• Dining room table (optional)
  
  

The box is on the dining room table near our front door. We place our car/house keys there and anything else we want to take with us. It's impossible for us to go very far without our car keys, since we run almost all our errands with the car. So placing the keys in the same box as where we put all of the stuff we want to take with us helps us "remember" those things.



It's not full-proof, of course. We could forget to put something in the box. However, we don't run many errands and putting things in the box over the course of the week gives us time to remember those things that we really need to deal with.



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From Growthink newsletter:



What does the first half of 2008 have to show for us?

• Record-breaking oil prices


• Unprecedented government bail outs


• Poor stock market performance

All signs point towards an extended slowdown in the economy. During these conditions, investors will find it extremely challenging to achieve alpha returns in the public markets. But that doesn't mean that you should be hiding your money under your mattress.



History has shown that recessions are a great time to launch new companies. In fact, 16 of the 30 companies whose stocks make up the Dow started during recessions. General Electric traces its roots to the panic of 1873. William Hewlett and David Packard founded HP during the Great Depression.



In 1982, the U.S. was in the midst of a recession and unemployment was at its highest since World War II. But just when the general investing public was panicking, private investors were planting the seeds of great investment fortune.



In that year, 5 new businesses were launched that are now worth more than $50 billion. Do you recognize their names?



Click here to learn which companies we're talking about...



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This one is hard to believe...

That "ding" you hear when you get an email collectively costs the United States $70 billion in lost productivity.



Hi-tech is turning us all into time-wasters

And to think that email was created to increase our productivity!



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