Eighth Edition of The Money Carnival

Welcome to the eight edition of The Money Mail Carnival. You can submit your articles to the carnival using the form located here or request to host the carnival here.

Featured post from The Frugal Path

Overcoming mental barriers that keep you way from accumulating wealth by changing your attitude from I can’t to I can

Featured Post from The Money Mail

Roth IRA is a very powerful retirement savings account but are you eligible? The Money Mail provides an update on the income limits and contribution limits that apply in 2013.

 

Carnival submission

Jason @ WorkSaveLive writes, don’t feel that you need to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on your children to create a magical Christmas. Spend what you are comfortable spending and within the limits of what you can afford. Here are some of my favorite frugal gifts for kids. See post 5 Frugal Christmas Ideas for Children.

Jay @ Daily Fuel Economy Tip writes, saving and using your gas most efficiently are very simple to employ. See post Save Time and Money with Fuel Efficiency.

Lance @ Money Life and More writes Use Credit Card Rewards to Pay for Christmas! – The holidays can be a very expensive time of year depending on your gift giving tendencies and how much you celebrate the holiday festivities. Luckily I’m going to share a unique way to pay for your Christmas this year that is a bit out of the box.

NoTrustFund @ wheresmyTrustFund writes Personal Finance Math Hacks – Quick math to use with your personal finances

Jessica @ Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses writes Happy One Year Blogiversary to Me! – I’m still amazed that for one whole year I’ve been blogging about saving, making, and investing money, and I’m still not ready to quit. Here’s to another year of posts all about the magical world of personal finance.

Derek Knight @ Freeat33 writes What Do You Mean I Cannot Return This? I Don`t Want a Store Credit! – Have you been stopped from returning something because you didn’t have the receipt? Check out this sneaky and morally questionable solution! Just don’t tell anyone you heard it from me! okay?

Evan @ My Journey to Millions writes December 2012 Dividend Champion Watchlist Update – Every few months I like to update the watch list for my Dividend Investment Portfolio (last update was in October of 2012). As explained in great detail below, I apply various metrics to the Dividend Champion List (defined below) to weed through the list to create a watchlist that I’ll buy lots of over the next few months.

Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money writes Hotel’s “Broken Computer” Credit Card Scam – Someone tried to steal our credit card information a couple of hours ago. It was a pretty ingenious scam too. I’m hoping that you’ll read this and share this story so that people won’t fall for it like we almost did.

Mr. Money @ Smart on Money writes How to Avoid Paying 3 Common Fees – No one likes to pay extra money. However, there are a number of fees that you end up paying as you go through life. Indeed, it seems as though there are always new fees cropping up everywhere you turn, whether it’s an increase in ATM fees, or whether you discover that you can no longer check even one bag for free when you fly.

Tushar @ Earn More and Save writes Unconventional Investment Series: Investing in Wine – Unconventional Investment Series: Investing in Wine

MMD @ My Money Design writes Should I Pay Off My Mortgage Early or Look for a Better Return? – Should I pay off my mortgage early or look for other opportunities with a better rate of return? What about inflation or other investment goals?

Carmen @ MyBestCarInsurance101 writes What To Do After A Car Accident – With the holidays fast approaching, hopefully yours will be safe and accident free. For those of you that may experience a car accident now or in the future, here is a “what to do” to keep you financially protected and responsible.

harry campbell @ Your Personal Finance Pro writes How Much Money Would it Take to Leave a Great Life? – When I graduated college four years ago, I faced a tough job market with very few prospects. I had a couple interviews but I was only offered one position as a navigation/systems engineer in Palmdale, CA. Even though it was my only offer at the time, it was still a tough decision. I debated about taking the job because I had lived in SoCal all my life(never more than 10 minutes from the beach) and I can assure you that Palmdale was/is no Southern Cali! I really wanted to turn down the offer b

Matt @ Dividend Monk writes How to Invest with a Margin of Safety – The math that shows how and why investing with a margin of safety improves returns and safeguards capital.

Matt @ Stoic Insights writes Invest in Food: The SImple Method to Eat Healthy – It’s cheap to cut corners on food. It’s frugal to buy high quality food to reduce health costs and burdens in the future.

My Wealth Desire @ My Wealth Desire writes 10 Tips To Save Money on Groceries – If you are looking for money saving tips or frugal living, you should consider reducing your budget first for food and grocery items. With rising living expenses, increasing food expenditures, ploys marketing and etc., there are always a lot of means to lessen your grocery budget.

My Wealth Desire @ My Wealth Desire writes 15 Good Habits of Highly Successful People – There are times in our busy lives that we come to wonder what makes successful people so different from others. It was then I realized that good habits drive them into a world of winners and of successful people. There are certain habits of highly successful people that any one of us could form and could turn us to be a successful one.

Andrea @ Modest Money writes 7 Ways to Lose Money with Last-Minute Gift Shopping – Last minute Christmas shopping is never fun, but on top of that you might be losing money by procrastinating. Learn how.

Teacher Man @ My University Money writes Last Minute Gift Ideas – A Financial Education – So you’re down to the nitty gritty for Christmas gifts yet again. Last year you promised yourself it would never come to this again. No more last second stressful dashes to the mall to fight crowds of other anxiety-ridden zombies. Yet somehow December just flew by again this year…

Jason @ Live Real Now writes Dreams – It’s hard to raise a family on a stablehand’s income. My wife’s alternative was to own horses. This comes with a different set of problems.

Beating Broke @ Beating Broke writes Mortgage Insurance: Annoyance or Helper? – Is mortgage insurance an annoyance or a helper? I think it’s a little bit of both. It’ll mean that you don’t get the mortgage paid off as quickly as well since you’ll not only start with a larger loan, but have a chunk of your monthly payment siphoned off. It also helps in that it does help you get a loan with a lower down payment because it assures the lender that the mortgage will be made good should you default.

Peter @ Bible Money Matters writes Credit Sesame Now Offers Free Credit Monitoring along with a Free Credit Score – One thing that could definitely hurt us while we plan to buy a new house, is if we were to experience any sort of identity theft. Thankfully there are things you can do to protect yourself against ID theft, and now Credit Sesame is jumping into the game. Credit Sesame is now offering a free credit monitoring service.

Gajizmo @ Gajizmo.com writes Best Home Insurance Coverage, Companies, Quotes and Rates -

Justin @ Young And Thrifty writes 7 Well Paying Jobs that Don’t Require a University Degree – If you are thinking about making a career change, or spooked by the cost of a university education for yourself or your child, there are well-paying jobs that don’t require university degree.

FMF @ Free Money Finance writes Stacking Multiple Discounts to Rack Up Big Savings – A few weeks ago I noted how I save while shopping at outlet malls. The key: stacking multiple offers on top of each other to get substantial discounts. Well, our family recently had a big success doing this on a much larger scale and thought I’d share the details.

Investor Junkie @ Investor Junkie writes Five College 529 Plans Worth Investing In – If you are looking for a 529 plan, you might try one of the following 5 plans that offer solid value:

Girl Meets Debt @ Girl Meets Debt writes Have Yourself a Very Merry and Not So Expensive Christmas – This holiday season, I have been surprisingly really good and resisted many spending temptations. I am going to share with you some tried and true tips I used to save money this year:

Holly @ Club Thrifty writes Confessions of a Cheap-Ass Santa – I admit it. I am a cheap-ass Santa. Yet, I don’t let it bother me. In fact, here are a few confessions of ways I’ve saved money on gifts this Christmas.

Buck Inspire @ Buck Inspire writes Meet My New Virtual Assistant, Siri! – Since time is so hard to come by these days, I needed help making phone calls, looking up directions, and most importantly, creating content. Fortunately for me, my new virtual assistant lives in my smartphone!

John S @ Frugal Rules writes A Frugal Person’s View on Holiday Tipping – The holidays are a great time to give thanks to those who might serve you. But, does that necessarily mean we should be tipping what’s suggested by many experts? A little tipping goes a long way, but you can bust a budget tipping at the suggested amounts.

The Happy Homeowner @ The Happy Homeowner writes $1400+ of Travel for $520 – Want to take a trip but don’t think you can afford it? Read about how I make travel a reality no matter how tight the budget may be!

Dividend Growth Investor @ Dividend Growth Investor writes Dividend Stocks I Purchased Over the Past Two Months – As I mentioned in my dividend retirement plan, I am an investor in the accumulation phase. I typically purchase somewhere between one to three investments each month.

Little House @ Little House in the Valley writes First Time Home Buyer Tips – I’m beginning to realize that I might be purchasing my first house without the golden standard of 20% down. For personal finance gurus who are guffawing and shaking their heads, the truth is I live in an expensive area and 20% down on homes in my area is more than most people make in a year.

Bob @ ChristianPF writes 9 Homemade Christmas Gifts That Might Actually Get Used – Let’s be honest, we have all received some homemade Christmas gifts that never saw the light of day again – sometimes they are well intentioned and so we might not care that our peppermint-scented ruler holder won’t get too much use. The thought and love behind it makes up for it’s lack of usefulness…

Glen Craig @ Free From Broke writes When are Credit Card Annual Fees Worth Paying? – Some say to never pay an annual fee for a credit card. But that’s short-sighted. Sometimes an annual fee gives you perks that are well exceed the fee.

Edward Antrobus @ Edward Antrobus writes We Got Outta Debt: Book Review – We Got Outta Debt is a short guide by Joe Foley who paid off $68,000 worth of debt in just three years.