Carnival of Personal Finance #70
Make Love, Not Debt has posted the latest Carnival of Personal Finance, edition #70. Thanks for hosting! It’s another week, and we have another wide variety of submissions. Take a look and read through the articles as you find time.
Next week’s Carnival will be hosted by Fat Pitch Financials. The submission deadline in Sunday at 6:00 PM ET, and bloggers can use this form to submit articles.
Submit an Article to Carnival #70
Next Monday, the Carnival of Personal Finance will be hosted by Make Love, Not Debt. We’re looking forward to an entertaining event, as always. Please submit your articles using this form before 6:00 PM ET on Sunday.
Hosting Tip: Don’t Wait
If you’re hosting a Carnival, don’t wait until Sunday night to start preparing your post. You’ll have a much smaller headache—and I know this from my recent experience—if you start organizing the submissions into a post and weeding out the spam throughout the week.
I spend several hours going through more than 60 submissions on Sunday night. Spreading this out throughout the week would have been a much less stressful option.
Carnival of Personal Finance #69
Welcome to the 69th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted here at the home of the Carnival. I’ve included most of the blog articles submitted over the last week below. Thanks to Journey to Financial Freedom who volunteered to host this week; we hope you feel better and get back to blogging as soon as possible. Here are the qualifying submissions, starting with my favorites.
Here are my favorites from the past week that I’ve chosen to highlight:
The King of Debt from We’re In Debt describes a change in Bank of America’s bill pay program. This works in favor of the bank rather than the customer, of course. Take a look at the article, especially if you’re a BOA customer, so you understand how the change might affect your account balance. (245 words; 5 comments)
Ask Uncle Bill has this advice for job-seeking: Hit ‘Em Where They Ain’t. When you’re looking at the top, a lot of talented people are competing with you. Competition is healthy sometimes, but consider other options. (769 words; 2 comments)
Wenchypoo describes the phenomenon of “Maintenance Makes Up the Difference,” in which the low cost of an item is made up by required maintenance costs. (854 words; 0 comments)
Get Rich Slowly has a very basic introduction to mutual funds for beginners. “In the beginning, there were stocks, and that was good… Then came mutual funds, and that was better.” (795 words; 8 comments)
QueerCents presents a money-related interview with John Aravosis, the blogger behind AMERICAblog. (1,126 words)
Mighty Bargain Hunter wonders if the typical personal finance tips are unhelpful to those who really need the help and offers some alternatives. (591 words; 11 comments)
Dan Melson from Searchlight Crusade fields a question about taxes due on a lien once a property is sold. Do you still owe taxes on the lien? Read to find out. (750 words; no comments)
Experiments in Finance has a financial checklist for disaster preparedness, including emergency funds, safe keeping, backup files, and more. (1,128 words; 1 comment)
Continue reading for more submissions. Read more
Submit an Article to Carnival #69
It’s time to get in your submissions for the next Carnival of Personal Finance, to be hosted on Monday by Journey to Financial Freedom. If you’d like to be included, please get your submissions into the host via this form before Sunday evening.
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Tips for Hosting Great Carnivals
Everyone wants to host the Carnival of Personal Finance, but few first-time hosts realize that putting together a quality Carnival is a good amount of work. At the very least, there are a few guidelines to follow. However, the best Carnivals are the ones where the host puts in the extra effort to develop something unique or bring part of their personality into the presentation.
Punny Money’s #68 is a great example of a fun metaphor. For another creative example, take a look at Carnival #47 at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.
One idea, to make things more interesting, is to highlight some of your favorite submissions like I did for Carnival #53.
At the very least, read all the articles that were submitted and exclude spam and scams. As the host and editor, you have the prerogative to exclude any submission you think is inappropriate. However, it’s important to show respect to all submitters who are participating in good faith. In other words, don’t take the attitude like the one exhibited by okdork in #42. The host did highlight his favorites, but all others were shown little respect, and that’s not what this Carnival is about.
It’s tough because we all know that bloggers should be submitting their best of the week to the Carnival, but sometimes the quality is sub-par. In this situation, it’s best to highlight the best at the top or provide other notation, but don’t just blow off the rest.
By the way, when I host, I do not include all submissions, particularly those from who I know submit their articles in bulk to a multitude of Carnivals. I suggest all hosts perform some kind of editorial review, and at the very least read the submissions.
For further reading and some great tips, take a look at Be the Host With the Most over at 10,000 Birds. Free Money Finance also has some tips for hosting Carnivals.
Feel free to add comments with this post with more tips or links to articles you have written about hosting a Carnival successfully. Here are more resources:
Great Carnival This Week
Again, make sure you check out Punny Money’s edition of the Carnival. Thanks, not only to Nick, but also to the participants, especially those who linked back. The hosts appreciate the attention, so thank you Money, Matter, and More Musings, No Credit Needed, Scott on Money, and Single Ma!