Out for a week

I'm leaving Friday to go on another mission trip with my church. My wife and I will be part of the adults that are chaperons for the junior and senior high kids. We over a hundred kids going. DC Friday, then Virgina on Saturday for a week long work camp. We'll be building homes for families in need.

I want a regular 9 to 5

I currently work in healthcare. In a hospital. It's nice to have some flexibility having off days during the week, but in the long run I'd really appreciate a set schedule that I'd have off on the weekends. Do you like your 9-5 or would you prefer to set your own schedule?

401K breaks $14,000

My 401K is keeping pace with the Dow breaking 14,000 today. I am currently contributing 12% of my income to my 401K and it has double in value since last year. My goal is to break $30,000 by the time I'm 3o. I still have over 2 years. I will be increasing my contribution to 15% starting in August when I get a 3% raise. I'll just put the whole raise into the 401K and never miss it. Do you invest in a 401K? My company only matches 4%, but hey I'm not going to argue with free money.

Festival of Under 30 Finances

Welcome to the July 17, 2007 edition of festival of under 30 finances.

Interested in Hosting the Festival? Contact me. I'm currently looking for people to host.

Uni presents Agloco game update # 2 posted at You Deserve More, saying, "Earn money online without spending a dime!"

WBL presents Is It A Good Time To Invest In Real Estate? posted at Adventures in Money Making, saying, "Is It A Good Time To Invest In Real Estate?"

WBL presents Is Sears the Next Berkshire Hathaway? posted at Wealth Building Lessons, saying, "Wealth Building Lessons discusses reasons why Sears may be the next Berkshire Hathaway."

Warren Wong presents Grow Your Pile Of Money posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Your Pile of Money is shrinking just by keeping it in the bank! Learn to grow your pile of money here!"

ISPF presents $5K in "Extra" Savings: Narrowing down the options we have posted at Grad Money Matters.

Steve Faber presents Quick Ways to Raise Your Credit Score – Are they UnFair? posted at DebtBlog.

Marc and Angel presents A House or A Car… Which Should I Buy First? posted at Marc and Angel, saying, "You graduated from college, landed a good job, and have been diligently saving money for awhile now. Your car is getting old and pretty soon you are going to need a new one, but you also have the desire to be a homeowner. Should you buy a new house or a new car first?"

Alanna Goodman presents 10 Financial Questions to Ask Before You Say “I Do” | BBB Consumer Education posted at BBB Consumer Education, saying, "what questions you need to ask your future spouse/partner about debt and finances."

Dean presents Simple and Effective Way to Save a Ton of Money on Food - Create a Weekly Menu posted at Mr. Cheap Stuff, saying, "How much money to you blow on food?"

Trent presents The Financial Implications Of Living With Mom And Dad posted at The Simple Dollar.

Matthew Paulson presents Should a Married Couple Combine Their Finances? posted at Getting Green.

Tushar Mathur presents Buying a New Construction Home: Do I need a realtor ? posted at Life of a Resident Alien....

Jason Elder presents Bankruptcy - The Best Ways to Deal With It posted at A Bankruptcy Lawyer's Blog, saying, "If you are thinking about filing for bankruptcy, you have come to the right place."

Aaron Wakling presents Buying a Car with a Bad Credit- Plan Well posted at The Credit & Credit Card Blog, saying, "Bad credit customers usually have difficulties in finding financing for buying a new car. Many people in that situation think only about getting the money needed to their new car and leave many other important things out of the picture and out of their plans."

Eric Hudin presents Estate Planning Made Easy?.Easier posted at My Estate Planning Career Blog, saying, "Special Report for Capital Financial Advisory Clients"

Allen Taylor presents Enhance Gains With Timing Diversification posted at Investing World Today, saying, "Many investors, who understand the potential of market timing, pay little attention to the potential of diversification. Many novice market timers jump right into an aggressive timing strategy with little thought about how they will handle a period of losing buy and sell signals."

Tim Ramsey presents Why You Should Choose Debt Settlement Over Consolidation Loan? posted at My Debt Relief Blog, saying, "Truth is that debt settlement services are usually the most appropriate solution and only in certain circumstances consolidation loans are a viable option."

Eric Stanley presents Easy Managable Plan To Track Your Payments posted at Personal Finance Blog Articles, saying, "To be able to resolve your debts, you need to have an easy manageable plan to track your payments. Combining all your debts into only one is a good decision."

Warren Wong presents Why You Should Start Saving Money Today posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Starting Saving Money Today! Why? It's the difference between being broke and being a millionaire!"

Super Saver presents Less Than Half of Americans Have Job Satisfaction posted at My Wealth Builder.

Moneywalks presents 10 Reasons why I Love to Budget posted at moneywalks.

Tushar Mathur presents How much should your Monthly Mortgage Payment be ? posted at Life of a Resident Alien....

The Happy Rock presents 6 Reasons To Buy A Starter Home posted at The Happy Rock, saying, "Starter home can have more benefits than we think."

Scott presents How Cosmo Kramer Would Make Money in College posted at College and Finance.

Uncle Leo presents Protecting Your Credit Files with Fraud Alerts and Freezes posted at Uncle Leo Rumbles.

Trent presents Treat It As A Bill: How I Made A Commitment To Saving Work For Me posted at The Simple Dollar.

Larry Russell presents Pre-retirement savings rates for renters ? with and without investment cost improvements posted at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog, saying, "When Fran and Fred had projected to pay "average" investment costs in their baseline lifetime financial plan, their required annual pre-retirement savings rates were much higher. There is roughly a 6 percentage point difference in their required annual savings rate between the "average" investment cost scenario and the low investment cost scenario. By reducing their investment costs they greatly reduce their savings requirements, yet they could end up at the same goal, which is to have adequate financial assets through age 95."

Tyler presents Home Sweet Home Depot posted at Dividend Money, saying, "A look at Home Depot as a long term dividend investment."

KCLau presents Why Invest in Land? posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Most people think that land investment is only for real estate developers, who buy big parcels of land for commercial, or residential development. But actually, investing in land is one of the sound investment strategies available for common investor, both large and small."

James presents Best Free Legal Resources Online posted at ZooLaw.

Nenad Ristic presents Money Conciousness » 10 Reasons to Join eVo posted at Money Conciousness.

David presents Build Financial Success with a Strong Credit Score posted at Worldwide Success.

Warren Wong presents How Much Money Is Integrity Worth? posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "How much money is your integrity worth? Here's why integrity is your most valuable commodity."

ISPF presents Campaign Against Financial Myths: Part 3 - Budgeting posted at Grad Money Matters.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents The Perfect Hobby: One That?s Cheap, Makes Money Or Becomes A Business posted at The Digerati Life, saying, "The short answer: No. The longer answer: I don't budget strictly but I know how much we expect to spend annually. And we practice as much self-control over our spending as we can muster though we don't limit our spending based on specific budget amounts."

Sam presents ETF Exchange Traded Funds Are a Great Investment Strategy. Buy and Sell easily. posted at Surfer Sam and Friends, saying, "ETFs Are a Great Investment Strategy
How Long Before They Replace Mutual Funds?
ETFs give the investor a way to "own" all the stocks in a broad group, like the Dow Jones Industrials or all the stocks in the Standard & Poors 500 Index. Better yet, ETFs are easy to buy and sell because they trade on the stock exchange just like stocks."

KCLau presents Asset Allocation Application in Unit Trust Investment posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Asset allocation involves dividing an investment portfolio among different asset categories, such as stocks, bonds, and liquid cash. The right mix for a person is actually very personal."

Warren Wong presents The Life Pursuit Of Money posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Why should making money be a life pursuit? Because making money actually helps people! Here's why."

Thomas Humes presents Retirement - The Real Cost of Procrastination posted at Wealth Building World, saying, "If you want to accumulate $1,000,000 when you are 65, how much would you have to save? It all depends on when you get started."

Brian Thibault presents 10 Ways to Pay for College with OPM (Other People?s Money) posted at Smart Shopper: Personal Finance Advisor, saying, "10 ways to go to college now and pay later."

Ryan presents 101 Ways to Trim Your Budget posted at Care on Credit.

edithyeung presents 12 Secrets to Establish Your Personal Creditability (Increase Your Personal Credit Score) posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act..

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
festival of under 30 finances
using our
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Want to Join the Under 30 Honor Roll?

If you are under 30 and interested check out The Under 30 Honor Roll

Want to improve this site?

Currently looking for user feedback to improve the site. Any programmers out there? Want to design a Wordpress theme for How to Make a Million Dollars? I'll pay you $20 for the project. Anyone who wants to make a few extra dollars I have writing opportunities available for $4. Leave a comment or contact me if your interested, I'll pay you with Paypal. I want to make this site international. I am looking for correspondants in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia.

Do You Like Music?

Check out ProjectPlaylist
Sweet site with a lot of music to listen to.

About the Festival of Under 30 Finances

From Kira at Penny Foolish

The Under 30 Honor Roll is a group of under-30 personal finance bloggers who have formed a network to support one another's efforts in their financial endeavors. We have a forum at http://www.under30honorroll.com/forum which everyone is invited to visit. We want to make a positive impact on the financial lives of others in our situation, and hope that by sharing our experiences we can come out ahead!

If you would like to join the Honor Roll, just email me (MarshallMiddle at gmail dot com) and I will add you to the list. I'll need to know your blog address, feed, and email address. That's all! I would prefer that new bloggers have been blogging at least one month before joining, to make sure that blogging is for you.

Anyone of any age can contribute to the Festival of Under 30 Finances as long as their article is relevant to a financial issue which people under 30 deal with. (This means that a post about how to take age-required minimum distributions from your IRA is out.) Here's some potential topics:

student loan debt
buying a first house
establishing good credit
budgeting tips
college costs or scholarships
renting issues
mutual funds, 401(k), IRAs


You may submit an article on any topic, written at any time; you do not need to submit new content. Every edition of the Festival will have a question selected by the host, we ask that you submit a short, one or two sentence response. Go here to submit an article for the next upcoming Festival edition.

*** Attention Under 30 Honor Roll - Festival of Under 30 Finances

Kira from PennyFoolish has passed the torch to me. Now I must carry on the Festival of Under 30 Finances. People who want to host the future editions contact me MarshallMiddle (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject line Festival of Under 30 Finances. Right now I've scheduled the next edition to come out in mid July. Once everything is set up and organized the festival will be in weekly editions depending on participation and feature a weekly finance question that young people face.

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Please click on the picture below to go and view an awesome banner where you can watch The Police's videos, listen to tracks from The Police's new 2 cd hits collection, enter to win a trip to NYC to see The Police in concert and even view details about their current world tour.


I've been a fan for years and have to say that I'm impressed that they still sound so good. You don't have turn on the red light. Those days are over, you don't have to sell your body to the night. Roxanne. That's one of my favorite Police songs. The released a 2 disc compilation CD on June 5th. If you purchase the CD you'll get a vintage poster. I love The Police and encourage you to purchase their album. Click on the banner above. The eyewonder banner has many features including:

Videos of the Police
a Track List and Jukebox
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a chance to Enter The Contest
also you can Send it To a Friend
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What is your favorite Police song of all time? Did you see them rock the MTV music awards? I think that this one of the best band reunions and hopefully will be able to go to one of their concerts. Pick up a copy of the Police Cd

Net Worth Update Coming Soon!

Stay tuned, I'm compiling a Net Worth list. You might be featured if you post your networth.