Do you ever sit down and think about how your life is progressing and where you’re headed?  Laying out a roadmap for yourself can be a valuable experience.

As the post title alludes to, if you haven’t defined your goals, how will you measure your progress towards them?  Having a plan not only makes your efforts more measurable it can give the things you do more meaning and help filter out time wasters.

You may have noticed I was silent on this site over the weekend, I was using the time for some strategic planning in my own life.  My planning process is iterative in nature.  I come up with some goals and plans to meet those goals.  Then I sleep on it and re-evaluate those the next day.  Looking at it with a fresh perspective, I may change around the milestones and tasks a bit.  Needless to say, my planning isn’t complete but it was nice to get a start on it.

Typically I would have provided a list of articles I enjoyed for the week but due to my planning I didn’t publish those.  Instead, I’ll point out a few articles everyday this week, here’s the first few.

– The Digerati Life lists 8 simple ways you can save a lot of money, try $1000.

– The Mighty Bargain Hunter and All Financial Matters take a look at whether it’s worth your time to wait for free stuff.

– Summer is here and My Dollar Plan offers some tips for saving money on weddings.

– Million Dollar Journey gives us a strategy for asking for discounts.

– Brip Blap loves working so much that he’s started the carnival of careers.

– CNN covers how people aren’t canceling their vacation plans this summer, just changing them to be cheaper, reminds me of my series on saving money on vacations.

– eHow article on how to earn extra money seems appropriate for tough economic times:

• Get a part-time job
• Turn a hobby into money
• Get paid for focus groups
• Sell your stuff on eBay

I also took a look at ways to make extra money during a recession.

Thanks to Money & Values and Canadian Dream for hosting the last two personal finance carnivals and including the articles Best Credit Cards for New College Graduates and Three Ways Your Boss Can Save You Money on Gas.

One of my favorite saving techniques is the use of targeted accounts. If I want to save for something big — like a Mini Cooper, for example — I’ll open a new savings account specifically for this purpose. I first learned about this method from Robert Pagliarini’s The Six-Day Financial Makeover:

Traditionally, most people invested for various vague goals and lumped all of their savings together in a single investment account. That?s pretty boring. It?s not very inspiring or effective. Purpose-Driven Investing satisfies our need for a purpose and our need for instant gratification by thinking of each of our goals as a separate ?basket?. Each of our baskets represents a single goal with a clear purpose that we can see and grow.

What does this mean in the real world? It means that we have a single investment account for every goal. For example, if one of your goals is to take the family on a European vacation, create a separate savings account called ?Family European Vacation Fund?. This account or basket contains all of your savings toward that one goal. Every penny in the account is for the European vacation — not for retirement, a new car, your emergency fund, your kids? college tuition, or any other goal.

I like this idea, and have been using it ever since I saved for my Nintendo Wii.

Until recently, I kept my targeted savings accounts at the local credit union where they earned me a paltry 0.35%. For the past few months, Get Rich Slowly readers have been urging me to move all of my savings to ING Direct, which is where I keep my emergency fund. “It’s easy,” my readers tell me. “You can open multiple accounts, give them any name you want, and track them all from the same screen. You can even open a checking account!”

Last month, I finally overcame inertia to try this myself. My readers were right: opening multiple accounts at ING Direct is easy. (It’s probably easy at HSBC Direct and many other online banks, as well.)

Step one: Choose an account
First, I logged into my ING Direct account summary page. From there, I clicked the big “Open an Account” button.

I was directed to a page listing a variety of available accounts, including business and retirement accounts. Because I wanted to open another savings account, that’s the option I selected.

On the next screen, I was asked to further refine the account type:

Step two: Fund the account
Next came the good part: I selected how much I wanted to put into the account and where those funds would come from. I was also able to give the new account a nickname. Since I was opening these extra accounts specifically for targeted saving, it makes sense to name each one based on my goal.

Finally, I had to agree to the terms and conditions of the account.

Step three: Wait
Then the waiting began. Because ING Direct had to “pull” the money from my credit union, it took several days for the cash to transfer to my accounts. At first they appeared empty:

After the money had transferred, it was easy for me to track all of my savings goals in one place.

Next on my list? Exploring ING Direct’s certificates of deposit and business accounts.

A useful tool
Thank you to all of the readers who suggested this. I don’t know why I took so long to try it. I’m sure this technique isn’t limited to ING Direct. I was doing something similar at my local credit union (though without the pretty interface, account nicknames, or high interest rates), so I suspect that other online banks offer similar functionality.

Not everyone needs multiple accounts to save for goals. My wife, for example, is perfectly content with a single gigantic savings account for everything. But for me, being able to separate funds like this is awesome. It keeps me motivated to save. And because it doesn’t cost me a penny, I’m happy to do it.

Note: This article was originally scheduled to appear on June 12th, but Trent at The Simple Dollar posted his handy (and similar) guide to budgeting with an online bank that day, so I delayed my story for a few weeks.

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Use a Freedom Account to Prepare for the Unexpected
• Which Online High-Yield Savings Account is Best?
• The Official GRS Referral Swapping Thread
• Optimize Your Bank Accounts with a Periodic Review
• What are Your Experiences with Internet Banking?

With the whole mortgage meltdown and ensuing credit crisis, there is plenty of blame to go around. Even with shady lenders, complex loans, and loose lending requirements, most of this could have been avoided if people took the time to read, and more importantly, understand what they were signing. Most people simply don’t want to spend the time to sit there and read all of the fine print and those who do actually read it may not fully understand everything.

Don’t Be Embarrassed if You Don’t Understand

When someone explains something technical or difficult to grasp and then asks, “Do you understand?”, the response is typically “yes.” Either it is because you want to get through the process quickly, you don’t think it is very important, or you don’t want to feel embarrassed that you don’t understand a concept. This could end up being a costly mistake. If you don’t understand something or if you see conflicting information, it is in your best interest to stop and ask questions. It’s much easier to take a moment before signing to get clarification than to learn the hard way at some point in the future.

Information Included in the Fine Print

Most people are concerned with a few key areas of a loan such interest rate and length of the loan, but it is within the fine print of the promissory note or security agreement that contains the information that can really cost you money. The most common information included throughout the text will include:

• The promise you make to pay the lender a certain amount of money plus the agreed to interest rate.
• Whether the interest rate is fixed or variable — if variable, when does the rate change and by how much.
• The payment schedule.
• Charges for late payments.
• Any applicable grace period.
• If the loan can be paid off early and if any penalties are incurred for doing so.
• Whether or not security or collateral is required.
• Whether or not the loan can be extended.
• What happens if you default.
• What happens if you pay with a bad check.
• Can the lender take money from other accounts you may have with them to repay the loan.
• Who pays legal fees and collection costs.

Don’t Sign Anything Until You Completely Understand

While it pays to make sure you get a good interest rate with good terms, it is equally important to make sure you understand everything about the loan even if you don’t think it will ever apply to you. You have nobody to blame but yourself if you make a late payment and find out there is a $40 late fee. It would come as no surprise if you took the time to understand what you agreed to. In the event of a problem with your account, ignorance is not a defense. It may seem like a waste of time to spend an extra ten or fifteen minutes to read multiple pages of small text, but it could end up saving you money or problems somewhere down the line.

And finally, don’t feel pressured by the person sitting across the table who’s urging you to sign. Not everyone is out there trying to trick you into a shady loan, but you shouldn’t feel rushed if they are just trying to quickly get you through the process. They can wait, and you should take as much time as you need. If they brush off certain sections saying it isn’t important, just explain that you want to take a moment to look it over. A couple extra minutes will ensure that you aren’t missing some key terms on the loan and help you completely understand what to expect, and what the consequences will be if something goes wrong.

Read the Fine Print Before Signing Any Loan - You Might be Surprised at What’s in There

Welcome to the Carnival of Personal Finance!  It’s officially Cyber Monday 2008, the online doppelgaenger to Black Friday.  This term was coined by the American Retail Federation three years ago after a majority of online retailers saw their sales go up the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Snopes found that the busiest online shopping day is not Cyber Monday but a couple of weeks after.  Regardless of whether online shoppers are only lukewarm about today, one thing’s for sure: there’s way less danger of getting injured by an online shopping cart.

So enjoy the Carnival, and head over to Amazon or eBay with full assurance that the Internet will completely protect you from e-bruising by other online shoppers!

Posts on Budgeting

• Mighty Bargain Hunter gives ways to save on food, clothing, and shelter.
• Canadian Dream: Free at 45 reveals his spending weakness.
• Studenomics asks if you’re cash-strapped this holiday season.
• M is for Money talks about zero-based budgeting.
• Green Panda Treehouse asks a hard question: “Do you pay your mortgage or your medical bills?”
• Penny Jobs asks a good question for tough times: “What can I cut back on?“

Posts on Career

• Economic Crunch runs through a checklist for taking advantage of benefits on a new job.  (These things can be a nice supplement to your salary.)
• Monagomoney offers parallel advice with five things to do if you get laid off.  (Hopefully you’re not needing both this advice and the previous advice in the same day.)
• Dog Ate My Finances (ha!) will take Common Sense for $200, Alex.  (Note:  Careful punctuation is crucial in this blog’s tagline.  Imagine, if you will, a misplaced colon: “Mid twenties.  Big salary.  Paying for some mistakes:  a wedding, and life.”  The name would then have to be changed to Alimony Ate My Finances.)
• Beating Broke asks: “What is freedom worth?“

Posts on Credit and Debt

• Free From Broke chats about medical treatment and how it can affect your credit.  (Especially if the costs are big.)
• Credit Toolbox discusses some aspects of refinancing consumer debt.
• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has a list of 0% balance transfer offers.  (Fifty different offers.  You should be able to do a 0% transfer of the national debt with this volume of plastic.)
• Ask Mr. Credit Card: “Should teenagers have credit cards?”
• Discover Debt Freedom has some advice for someone trying to get out of debt for the first time.
• Single Guy Money has a credit score checkup.
• My Family’s Money talks about two states’ propositions on payday loans.
• Destroy Debt discusses debt settlement and some factors to consider before doing it.
• Think Your Way To Wealth gives a closer look at the Baby Steps plan.
• Debt Goal tells how to say “no” to your children this holiday season correctly.

Posts on The Economy

• Wide Open Wallet has some ideas as to what the government should be doing during the recession.  (I have my own thoughts but I like to keep this blog clean.)
• Everyday Finance – the Blog of a Thousand Tabs — has some choice words to say about repricing employee stock options.  (Ahh, stock options.  What a cool dream.)
• Amateur Asset Allocator postulates on what a privatized social security system would look like.
• Funny about Money observes that the Dow is up, in spite of it all.  (Yeah, I don’t buy it either.  The market’s always right, but remember, it’s still down over 5,000 points from its high.)
• Frugal in the Fruitlands reviews The Two-Income Trap.
• The Sun’s Financial Diary reports on the extent of the malaise in the banking industry.
• Earn What You Spend discusses some of the relevant financial news as the incoming administration gears up.
• No Credit Needed questions whether spending patterns are in line with the direction the economy is heading.
• Brip Blap gives a superb answer to the question: “Do you need a bailout?“

Posts on Finance

• The Strump wonders why we don’t like to talk about money.  (It’s dangerous, especially if you were wise enough to sell your stocks a while back.)
• InsureBlog discusses discounts and medical plans.
• Accumulating Money talks about Social Security insurance.
• Harvesting Dollars suggests making this year’s bonus season different.  (Assuming you get a bonus, of course.)

Posts on Frugality

• Just Thrive explains three rules for giving the perfect gift without necessarily spending a lot of money.  (Money is tight, so make the most out of your gift-giving.)
• Debt Free Saver has a very simple suggestion for holiday gift-giving.  (It gets back to the basic of gift-giving!)
• Money Ning asks whether we always think that saving money is worth it.
• Monroe on a Budget rattles off some practical Christmas gift ideas.
• The Smarter Wallet has some tips for the early-bird traveler.
• Online Saving Blog tells how to avoid the Black Friday hype.
• Uncommon Cents discusses personal opportunity cost.

Posts on Investing

• Investing School explains the important aspects of bond funds.  (I love how he reminds us that even US Treasuries can default. I happen to agree, but rates will go way up before they do that.)
• Crash Market Stocks goes through the basics of buying and selling options contracts.
• The Financial Blogger wonders if the Dogs of the Dow have had their day.
• Intelligent Speculator questions whether corporate bonds are really safer investments.  (Than, say, Forever Stamps.)
• Dividends4Life discusses how to manage your dividend portfolio in a downturn.
• Four Pillars discusses whether we’ve reached the death of index investing.
• ABCs of Investing gives a quick tutorial on index funds.
• Dividend Growth Investor discusses why companies should pay dividends.
• Greener Pastures talks about the Standard & Poor’s Aristocrat Indexes.
• Monevator shows how to get rich by playing a video game.  (Nice spin on things.)
• Cash Money Life recommends making some year-end retirement account moves.
• The Dividend Guy sold some dividend cut stocks.
• The Dough Roller asks if you follow the 50-50 rule of mutual fund investing.  (Click to see what the fifties are.)
• No Debt Plan continues the “No Debt Plan” series with a post on investing for retirement.  (Very nice post.)

Posts on Money Management

• Crackerjack Greenback questions whether you can really trust your financial adviser.  (It makes good sense to follow the money.)
• Smart Money Daily takes a look at whether winning the lottery is all it’s cracked up to be.  (After reading the post, I’ll probably never buy a lottery ticket.)
• About.com Financial Software lists eight good iGoogle financial gadgets.
• Wisdom Journal lays out ten economic truths we cannot ignore.
• Christian Personal Finance advocates letting your finances see the light of day.
• Sound Money Matters asks: “To gift card, or not to gift card.“  (That is the question.)
• American Consumer News doesn’t buy the two months’ salary thing.  (I don’t either.  But if I were a high-powered CEO with a yearly salary of $1, well … “Here’s your Secret Decoder Ring.  Will you marry me?”)
• My Wealth Builder lists a few personal finance strategies that have helped during times of economic crisis.

Posts on Real Estate

• Living After Foreclosure has some suggestions if you’re facing foreclosure.
• Insurance Toolbox comes through with seven practical tips for reducing your homeowner’s insurance expense.  (Some of these tips have other good side-effects in addition to lowering your insurance bill.)
• Growing Money Blog posts a rental property update.

Posts on Saving and Taxes

• Stumble Forward gives five tips to creating a stellar emergency fund.  (Covers the basics well.)
• Blogging Banks posts the best CD rates around.
• Dollar Frugal is sounding the charge and telling people to continue hypermiling.  (Great advice.  Gas prices are low because of the recession.  They’re still going to go way up as supply crunches hit.)
• The Happy Rock pits Black Friday against Buy Nothing Day.
• Deposit Accounts talks about flexible spending accounts.
• Money Smart Life compares a couple of online bank accounts.
• Saving To Invest has some end-of-year tax tips, among other things.  (Gee, I can’t imagine anyone would have capital losses this year to deduct, as kind as the market’s been to people, but just in case you do …)
• Online Banking Blog shows how to choose the best bank account.

Other Posts

• Happiness is Better lists three keys to banana-free living.  (Sounds a-peeling.)
• Curious Cat discusses a financial Thanksgiving.
• Free Money Finance asks if you’re using your dollar coins.  (All the time, man!)
• Chief Family Officer has an emergency preparedness checklist for personal finance matters.
• Digerati Life wonders if there’s any good time to start a business.
• Budgets Are Sexy is uber-tempted by sales e-mails.
• Living Almost Large asks if one should feel guilty for success.  (Absolutely not!)
• Prime Time Money gives six ways to argue less about money.

It's a rhetorical question, I think.  Or, maybe not.  If I have already decided the answer, does that make it rhetorical.  Because here's the answer:  absolutely not.

Several months ago, I wrote a post about the wonder juice, Mona Vie.  It's a juice made with acai berry and other exotic sounding things that you couldn't possibly grow yourself.  You see, you would have to get the magic seeds from the depths of the Brazillian rain forest.  Ever wonder why the most healthy things in the world only grow in the far reaches of Brazillian rain forests and Himalayan mountain tops?

Anyway, I analyzed the business plan offered to those wishing to be part of the Mona Vie pyramid.  Er, I mean, take advantage of the exciting business opportunity.  Looks to me like it is possible to make some money.  Of course, I don't wish to view all of my friends and family as sales prospects.  So, I guess I wouldn't be successful.

Not surprisingly, the comments were one of two things.  Either it was someone telling us all that Mona Vie cured their high blood pressure, insomnia, baldness, made them taller, grew back their amputated leg, etc.  The other type of comment was that Mona Vie made them broke, ruined their marraige, caused them to be impotent and friendless.  Tragic, really.

So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it was that same post that instigated my first bit of hate mail.  Here's the email that I found in my inbox this morning:

"It seems that before you question the business of Mona Vie that you would at least find out what pv means.  Hey, here's a concept why don't you drink it for a month and then make your claims.  How long do you have to take vitamins before feeling any difference?  Do vitamins help lower your blood pressure because that is what Mona Vie has done for my mother.  Don't ruin it for everyone else who can benefit from the nutritional value of Mona Vie."

It was sent from the catering department of a golf course.  I wonder if she's slipping some acai berries into the fruit tart.  Lucky golfers.

Times are tough out there and a lot of Americans are getting caught in the squeeze. As real estate investors we feel this in a number of ways: bargain foreclosures to buy (good!), a glut of rental properties depressing rental rates (bad!), fewer competing bids for quality properties (good!), longer waits to sell properties (bad!)...and the list goes on.

One thing I’m noticing is the challenge to get quality tenants. I have some properties that rent like hotcakes w/ zero vacancy time. But others, for some reason, have been more challenging. Like most property owners, I have a number of rules-of-thumb that I follow when it comes to screening tenants. But rules of thumb aren’t written in stone; they’re just guidelines. Every now and then I come across an applicant who I think will make a great tenant, but there is something or other that makes me second guess myself.

The fact of the matter is that good people get caught in bad situations sometimes, and a quality applicant can sometimes appear brandishing a blemished credit report. Don’t get me wrong – my mantra #1 is that renting to a bad tenant is twice as expensive as sitting on a vacancy for an extra month – but what is a landlord to do when her gut tells her that she should take a chance on an applicant? Well here are three steps I sometime take::

• Ask for first and last months' rent upfront, plus one month’s deposit. This does three things for you. First, the applicant will have to cough up three months’ rent upfront before he moves in. If the applicant can do this it is an indicator that he’s not living paycheck to paycheck, a good sign that he will be responsible. Secondly, it mitigates your risk by ensuring the final month is paid. Lastly, that final month’s rent sits in your bank account collecting interest (or, better, is out in the market working for you) for the entire time the tenant resides in the property. I write the lease to state that the last month’s rent paid upfront will be credited to the final month that the tenant resides in the property.  PROs:  will scare off bad/risky applicants.  CONs:  may eliminate some good applicants as well. 
• Shorten the term. Write a lease with a short term; four months or six months. Agree to renew if the tenant pays each month on time; you can put this in writing in the contract if you wish. If there is a problem you’re still going to suffer, but you wont’ have a deadbeat sitting in your property with a contractual right to stick around for an entire year.  PROs:  limits the period you're at risk.  CONs: no financial benefit to the landlord, who is still stuck with evicting the tenant if he doesn't work out. 
• Charge a higher rent. This doesn’t do much for you in the risk mitigation category, but if you’ve trust yourself as a judge of character and you’re willing to rent to an applicant that other landlords have turned away, you should get compensated for the extra risk you’re assuming.  PROs:  higher return on the property, a good thing.  CONs: doesn't lower your risk.

Smart landlords use these strategies in combination. Increase the rent and offer a shorter term. Offer a shorter term w/ first and last month paid upfront (great risk mitigation).

Geezeo joins the ranks of Mint.com, NetworthIQ.com, and Wesabe.com as a social personal finance site. The USP (unique selling point) of the site is their mobile accessibility.

It works like this:

Henry’s walking down the street. He stops and wonders if he’s got enough for a Big Mac. He sends a text message to the ether and waits. Moments later a text message comes back with all of my account balances that he setup at the website. Welp. Looks like Henry will have to go another day without food.

It’s targeting students or recent graduates for their service but anyone can use it. They target them because they’re more “connected”. It’s also US-only. Sorry Canada. They have compatibility with 6000+ institutions.

Here are a couple of improvements I would make:

1. Instead of texting the word “geezeo” to get current account balances, make it a common word that I can enter without switching to “abc” mode.
2. Instead of texting the word “geezeo update” to update my balances, it should already be updated when you retrieve your current account balances (see item 1).  Why would anyone want non-updated information?  Deprecate this.
3. Send a pie chart or graph or something via MMS if possible.

There are more things but here’s the one sentence summary: “Geezeo tracks your money automatically and there’s also discussion boards as well.”

Is it useful?  Sure.  Consistent awareness of your financial situation is very important for building wealth or getting out of debt.

Will I use it?  Probably not.  Calculating my net worth at the end of the month is good enough for me.

-h

PS - Sorry about the absence.  I was doing pull-ups this entire time.

Sponsor: Brohans Video Blog - It’s Like Binary Dollar. Except you don’t learn anything.

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Al Gores whole basic theory is based on the LIE that CO2 causes global tempertures to rise.

Are record cold temperatures an indication of global cooling or a new ice age? NO

Are record cold temperatures an indication of global cooling or a new ice age? NO.

Fact: Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at a record high, not just in human history, but in the geological record for the last 600,000 years Is this increased carbon dioxide the result of human activity? Almost certainly. We are digging up coal and pumping up oil that was buried over hundreds of millions of years. We are dumping the spent products of combustion into the atmosphere pretty quickly. Before we have exhausted the world's supply of coal and oil, we will raise carbon dioxide even higher.

Fact: Carbon Dioxide levels and global ice volume are inversely proportional in the geological record for the last 400,000 years.

Does Carbon Dioxide itself cause temperature to rise?

That is the popular theory. There is no appearent correlation between carbon dioxide and global temperature in longer term studies for the last 500,000,000 years (Nir J. Shaviv, Ján Veizer, "Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?" Geological Society of America Today 13:7 July 2003 p4-10). Actual temperature increase, measured by methods that may be tainted by the Urban Heat Island Effect, still show an increase less than 0.5C since 1880. While carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere has gone up continuously for more than 100 years, average global temperatures have risen as well as fallen during that period.

The drop in carbon dioxide levels observed during the ice ages may have caused the ice age, may be caused by the ice age or both may have a common cause, but are otherwise unrelated. Scientific analysis of the correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide indicate that rising temperatures PRECEDE carbon dioxide increases by about 800 years, suggesting that temperature causes carbon dioxide to rise, which is not the position of global warming theorists. (Caillon et al, "Timing of Atmospheric CO and Antarctic Temperature Changes Across Termination III", Science v299, March 2003, p1728-1731).

Global Temperature changes correspond more accurately to changes in solar activity than they do to the continuous rise in carbon dioxide during the last hundred years. (Friis-Christensen et al, "Length of the solar cycle: An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate", Science, v254, 1991, p698-700) There is some evidence these data sets have begun to diverge in recent years, but the data is only published on the internet, not in scientific review journals. Current scientific data cannot be easily interpreted to portend global warming. Mathematical models can be constructed to project future temperature changes many different ways, but those mathematical models projecting large increases are considered "realistic" while straight line projections (which aren't very scary) are not popular, possibly because they are not exciting.

Is increased carbon dioxide bad for the environment if it has no effect on global temperature? No.

Carbon dioxide is a necessary nutrient that plants depend upon. Carbon Dioxide levels many times higher than current levels on earth improve plant growth and vitality. A significant portion of the increased farming productivity observed during the last 50 years may not be due to pestisides or improved techniques, but to the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Sherwood B. Idso, Bruce A. Kimball, "Tree Growth in Carbon Dioxide Enriched Air and Its Implications for Global Carbon Cycling and Maximum Levels of Atmospheric CO2," Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 7(1993):3:537-555, p. 537-5380)

Is increased temperature bad for the earth?

In and of itself, temperature increase would not be bad. Longer growing seasons and increases in arable land would improve crop yields even more and increase the earths sustainable population. In the 1970s, when a broad consensus of scientific opinion and projections suggested the earth was rapidly cooling, mass-starvation was a cause for worry, but global warming would not have that particular effect.

For the non-human population of the earth, over hundreds or thousands of years global warming would change the viablility of species. Plants and animals would migrate, adapt or become extinct. Would it be worse, i.e. more deadly, than the ice ages that have fallen over the whole earth 4 times in the last 400,000 years? That would depend on the quickness with which the climate changes.

Global sealevels have been rising continuously for several centuries at a rate of 1-2mm per year. An acceleration of the rise in global sealevels would have a more significant effect than slower rates, but coastal cities will be forced to change with the times either way. Sea levels 18,000 years ago were 100 meters lower than they are today. Sea level has risen an average of 5.6mm per year for the last 18,000 years, so we are actually in a rather slow period geologically as far as sea level changes. During the "Little Ice Age" of 1650 to 1850, the rate of sea level rise was virtually halted, but we have now moved back into a relatively warmer period and sea levels are rising once again, but not yet at thier historical clip. About 3.5 million years ago, sea levels were around 30 meters higher than today.

The earth will change and we will change with it. Some of the changes we may cause, but other changes will be out of our hands. Change is not necessarily good or bad. Slow change is inevitable. The earth can adapt and so can we.

About the Author

Steve Johnson is writes on a large variety of subjects and topics. Currently Steve is involved in The Truth About Iraq

Buy books that are used. Most are in good condition. You’re buying the book for the words so don’t worry that the spine is a little bent or the pages are a bit folded. I just bought a $35 dollar book on Amazon.com for $15 bucks used.

Some people are irked by buying books used. They’re afraid that the previous owner had abused and neglected their book before putting it on the market. Rest assured: They’re nothing wrong with most used books. The previous owner is selling it because they need the money. Or they do what I do and buy books and then not read them.

[Photo Credit]

Sponsor: Parlayer - Henry and Matt blog about sports and stuff.

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She’ll want that stimulus check now! Is it possible to win a million dollars and still file for bankruptcy in 2 months? Apparently so!

How to become a millionaire? Well winning a game show is one way to do it. But then again, here’s this story of such a “millionaire”, which I can only describe as a tale of riches to rags, or maybe of rags to riches to rags.

There’s this woman — no other than a State School Superintendent — who won a million dollars on the game show “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader”? She won the grand prize and pledged to donate it to various schools. But since her win 2 months ago, her husband’s home building company has failed, forcing her family to file for bankruptcy.

Click this link or the image to see this CNN video.

Goes to show you just how tenuous our financial situation can be at any point in time. For many people, it only takes a layoff, one bad business cycle, one bad trade in the stock market or one major illness to wipe out the family’s fortunes. I covered a lot of this when I wrote about the only 3 reasons why people go bankrupt.

The game show winner is still honoring her promise to gift her winnings to schools, with the funds sheltered in a “gift foundation” that is supposed to be protected from her creditors. Hopefully, her donation stays intact and untouched throughout bankruptcy proceedings.

Now what else caught my eye this week? Some more reads from the financial web:

• The Sun’s Financial Diary: FDIC Problem Bank List Now Includes 171 Banks
• Money Smart Life: Black Friday Deals or Cyber Monday Savings?
• My Dollar Plan: An Administrative Error Could Cost You Your Retirement
• Bible Money Matters: Christmas Is For Debt?
• The Wallet: What’s Your Black Friday Strategy?
• Personal Finance Analyst: Online Consumer Education and Rip Off Report
• Happy Rock: The “Paying Cash” Experience - 2 Months Later

Recent Carnivals

• Carnival of Personal Finance
• Festival of Stocks
• Carnival of Money Hacks
• Review Bloggers Carnival
• Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog Carnival
• Best of Me Symphony

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When you are poor you would like someone to share your financial burdens; you want to someone to give you some tax relief; you want someone to give your kids financial assistance to get through college; you want someone to bail you out of the financial crisis; it seems logical for you that the “rich” are taxed more - you call that graduated tax; you consider it fair that there are incentives/affirmative-action for the economically and socially challenged; the growing disparity between the quality of life in the rich and the poor bothers you; the concept of “free market” doesn’t always work in your interest; you find it surprising that CEOs are paid several million dollars a year while you can barely make your ends meet; you generally don’t like that the fact that health insurance is controlled by for-profit companies; and you want the government to have some control over banks/firms who handle your retirement money; you generally envy the “capitalists”.

When you are rich you want to enjoy all your wealth by yourselves; you think “poor” people are “poor” because they aren’t working hard enough to get “rich”; you think it’s unfair that you are taxed at a higher rate than the “poor” - you call that “spreading the wealth”; for you “charity” is only a means of reducing your taxable income - you generally don’t believe that “wealth should be spread around” so the concept of “charity” doesn’t really appeal to you; you are a staunch supporter of “free market” (but you still want the government to bail you out of financial mess - I don’t know what’s up with that); you recoil in horror because some plumber who earns more than $250,000 a year will pay about $3500 more per year in taxes; you think it’s draconian to limit profits or pay of any company or individual; you don’t care about the fact that health insurance is offered by for-profit companies - because you can basically afford anything they charge; you want minimum government involvement in anything that you are associated with financially; you believe that lack of government control leads to a “self-correcting” market; you generally hate the “socialist”.

The world isn’t black and white.

When you get engaged, you’re not just promising to marry a person; you’re also marrying their money habits, their debt, and credit history.  If you’re not careful, unknown money issues can not only ruin a marriage but sink you deep into debt.

Hiding Credit Card Debt
Here’s a sad story of a former co-worker whose life was turned upside down by his spouse’s debt.  I met up with him for lunch yesterday to catch up and couldn’t believe the story he had to tell.

His wife had 50K of credit card debt coming into their marriage that she didn’t tell him about until several years after they were married.  She was only making minimum payments so over the years the interest mounted and the debt continued to grow.

He had owned a home prior to the marriage and they finally they decided to tap into it’s equity and take out a loan to pay off most of her debt. A few days later he comes home to find her packing her bags and on her way out the door.  Of course he didn’t share this story with anyone for quite a while since it was so painful and embarrassing but now happily he’s met someone new and is moving on. 

What’s the morale of the story?  Find out about your future spouse’s finances before you get married.  To help you do that, here are some questions to ask, courtesy of Real Simple:

Ten Romantic Debt Questions for Your Fiancé

• Do you use credit cards for everyday expenses?
• Do you pay your credit-card balance in full each month?
• Have you ever maxed out your credit cards?
• How many credit cards do you have?
• What are your debts?
• Have you looked at your credit reports in the last year?
• Did you ever require a cosigner for a loan?
• Have you ever been put into collection by a creditor?
• Are you a cosigner on anyone else’s loan?
• Do you have any tax or other liens pending?

These questions are obviously not very romantic but they’re definitely necessary things to ask.  Depending on your fiancé’s personality you might handle them in different ways.  It might be easiest to just sit down and go through them all straight up or you might have to slip in a carefully worded question here and there during the course of conversation. 

Here are some other finance questions the article suggests asking:

• Do you have a savings or checking account?
• Do you balance your checking account each month?
• Do you do research before making major purchases?
• Do you have a budget or a spending plan?
• Do you track your finances? How often?
• Are you aware of all your benefits at work?
• Do you have life insurance?
• Do you have health insurance?

Of course some of these things you might find out over the course of time as you get to know someone. However you do it, make sure you get these questions answered, I know my friend sure wishes he had.

Checking Their Credit History
If you’re worried that your fiancé is holding back information you could dig a little deeper. Not telling you everything is probably a bad sign for future marital communications but if you’re determined they might be the one you could always do some more research.

If you know their full name, social security number, date of birth, current address, and previous address you can probably pull your future spouse’s credit report to do some double checking.  Be aware checking their credit report without their permission can potentially get you into some trouble:

“Anyone who obtains a copy of someone else’s credit report under false pretenses can be fined substantially and jailed for up to a year.

Only businesses or individuals with a “permissible purpose” can access your credit report. “Permissible purpose” is defined in Section 604 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).“

Then again, if your fiancé is willing to throw you into jail for checking their credit history, probably a sign you don’t want to marry them.

How to Build Credit History
What if your future husband or wife doesn’t have any debt but they don’t have any credit history at all?  This happened to us, when we went to get a loan for our home my wife’s lack of credit history affected the interest rates we were eligible for. 

We ended up putting both our names on the title but only mine on the loan so that we could get a better interest rate but we wanted a way to help build her credit profile.

Our financial planner showed us a pretty slick way that worked wonders for my wife’s credit.  She put $1000 into a 12 month certificate of deposit at our local bank and then used the CD to get a secured loan from the same bank.

We setup our checking account to make automatic payments on the loan so she had a year’s worth of on time loan payments on her credit report. Then after 12 months we took the money out of the CD and paid off the loan.  The interest we had earned on the CD helped pay for most of the interest we had paid on the money we borrowed.

Marriage Money Summary
Get to know your fiancé’s money baggage and habits or they may come back to make you miserable, divorced, and in debt in the future.

In the American Revolutionary War Colonel William Prescott admonished his troops not to fire till they saw the whites of the enemies’ eyes. Bottom feeders in this tanking real estate market are trying to show the same discipline, but it’s tough. As early as mid 2007 we were reading all sorts of stories about vultures swooping into overheated markets like Miami and Las Vegas to gobble up properties that had tanked in value. Funny – we don’t really see too many stories about what happened next.

But we know what happened next – they continued to tumble, and the bottom feeders who jumped in too early took a beating.

Today Case Shiller reported a 15.8% drop in their housing price index. This isn’t really news, actually – it’s the twenty second consecutive month that the index is down. And if I were a betting man I’d count on it being down next month too.

Foreclosures are hammering the market as banks unload their inventory of REO’s, pushing down the averages. There are some indications that Congress and the Fed are ready to step in – witness this week’s housing bill. This will reassure Wall Street, but it remains to be seen if the positive impact that this has on credit liquidity is neutralized by banks reevaluating the risk of the government unilaterally resetting the terms of the loans that they make.

I’ve remarked in earlier posts that there is a difference between investing and speculating – and that either one may be ok for you, but the danger is when you think that you’re doing one but you’re actually doing the other. “Investors” out there who are trying to catch the bounce aren’t investors; they’re speculators. In my view it’s more important than ever for investors to evaluate the risks, take a sober look at a potential cashflow that an investment will produce, and ask themselves what kind of return their investment will yield if they’re forced to hold for a few years.

Andrew Lahde, manager of a hedge fund that profited enormously by speculating on the failure of firms that made major bets on sub-prime mortgages, has called it quits.

His "so long, and thanks for the fish" comes in the form of this letter.

Enjoy.