What color is US currency? It’s green. What’s one of the most content creatures on the planet? Well, one of them is a panda. And what happens when a bunch of kids get into a treehouse? Well they play fort, have a good time, and otherwise bond and become better friends. If any of that seems like a stretch, it shouldn’t be, because that’s the namesake and origins behind Green Panda Treehouse. I had the opportunity to interview the Green Panda herself for my PFBlogger Spotlight series.

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This latest PFBlogger Spotlight is a few month in the marking and I unfortunately lost it in my drafts folder for quite some time. However, it’s been unearthed and it’s a email chat I had with Blunt Money. Blunt Money describes herself as “a re-married mother of one who lives in the southwestern U.S. I’ve had over $15,000 in credit card debt. I’ve been divorced, employed, unemployed, self-employed, underemployed, etc. I’m currently working on saving & learning about investing, building my very small businesses. My husband and I are working on paying off our mortgage (which is our only debt).”

Check her out over at bluntmoney.com!

Before my wedding in February, I had sent out a bunch of interview requests and questions to some personal finance bloggers I didn’t know too well and then prompted forget I had done so (I blame it on the hustle and bustle of the wedding!). David, of My Two Dollars, was one of them and thankfully he asked about it the other day or this would forever have been lost in my GMail archives!

David’s background is certainly quite eclectic and he single handedly brings a pretty diverse perspective on a lot of things. I don’t want to give too much of it away but the guy has a degree in Criminology and Sociology and has never used either in a job (oh and don’t move across the country for a girl, unless you know her really well :)).

Oh, and it’s his birthday today, so send him your well wishes!

I invite you to check out both My Two Dollars and The Good Human, both are excellent blogs and I’m not just saying that (just look how interesting his life has been, how could his blogs not be fun to read???).

When I started blogging I knew of very few personal finance bloggers outside of the United States. Now there are plenty whether it’s plonkee over in the UK or our interview victim participant today, Frugal Trader of Million Dollar Journey. He hails from the great white north, yep, that’s Canada, and he gives us great insight into the great sport we call a “personal finance obsession.” So, I invite you to enjoy my brief chat with FT today.

jim:	Hi Frugal Trader, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Frugal Trader:	I always find this to be the toughest interview question. Here it goes. I am a married Canadian who was born, raised and currently resides in Eastern Canada. I graduated from University almost 5 years ago with an Engineering degree along with a side degree in personal finance obsession. From a personal finance perspective, I started saving at a very young age (like 7) and started dabbling in mutual funds while in high school (I was 16). From there, I continued saving throughout University (with a part time job) and graduated with around $10k in my bank account. Sounds pretty good right? Well, it was pretty good, but unfortunately my fiance at the time (now wife), had a lot of student loan debt along with a brand new car loan. So combined, upon graduation we had a negative net worth. Today, almost 5 years later, we have dug ourselves out of the hole, have a net worth of over $270k and a goal of a $1 million in net worth by the age of 35.
jim:	What’s it like being a Canadian pf blogger in a pfblogosphere dominated by US blogs? Do you find that a lot of the topics overlap (that’s what I would suspect)?
FT:	To answer your question, in my opinion US and Canadian personal finance are similar in some ways, but very different in others. The similarities are with portfolio asset allocation, stock strategies and budgeting/frugality. The major differences are with taxation, retirement, and government benefits.
jim:	What’s something no one else in the blogging world knows about you?
FT:	Hmm.. I have disclosed a little bit about myself already in the post “5 things you didn’t know about me“, but another thing would be that at the age of 28, I’m just starting to learn how to play the guitar.
jim:	How did you come up with the name for your blog?
FT:	When I was thinking about setting up a website, I had a bunch of domain names in mind. However, the name Million Dollar Journey really suited me best as my financial story is literally that.. my million dollar journey.
jim:	What motivated you to begin blogging and how long have you been doing it?
FT:	Million Dollar Journey was my first (and only) blog with it’s first post on December 6, 2006. What motivated me to start the site? I was at a time in my life where I wanted to get really organized with my finances to reach my goals. I then thought what better idea than to announce my goals to the whole Internet world to help keep me accountable. It’s easy to set a goal for yourself, but I have a tendency to stop pursuing goals if no one else knows about it. The blog really helps keep me on my toes with regards to my finances.
jim:	What do you think makes your perspective unique?
FT:	I’m not sure that my perspective is unique. My perspective on building wealth is spend less than you earn, and look for ways to make more money. Simple. Perhaps what attracts people to my blog is that I started young with good money habits and I have a legitimate shot of being worth $1 million in 7 years.
jim:	What are your favorite personal finance books?
FT:	I have them listed on MDJ. They are: The Wealthy Barber - for saving and personal finance strategies. Stop Working: Here’s How You Can - for early retirement and dividend investing strategies (the author retired @ age 34). Why Swim with the Sharks - for early retirement The Smith Manoeuvre - A method to convert a Canadian non-tax deductible mortgage into a tax deductible investment loan. One Up on Wall Street - for learning how to stock pick. I would say that the book that has influenced my financial life the most is ” The Wealthy Barber”. I read this book back in high school and it’s what really got me interested in personal finance.
jim:	Which of your posts do you think all your readers should read?
FT:	MDJ has a bunch of popular articles listed on the right sidebar. But as to articles that are popular to non-geographic specific readers, they would have to be: 25 Ways to Save Money New Car Buying Tips - Confessions of a Car Salesman PF Blog Net Worth Comparison 2007 Saving Energy Around the House Multiple Streams of Income? The articles below are Canadian Specific: Canadian Discount Brokerage Comparison The Smith Manoeuvre - A Wealth Strategy
jim:	What financial “mistake” that you’ve done has bothered you the most?
FT:	I’ve written about financial mistakes before. The biggest one that I’ve written about was investing in Nortel when I didn’t know a lot about the market. The result was basically losing all of my $3,000 “investment”. On the spending front, the biggest regret is probably getting such a large car loan upon graduation. In our defense though, we still drive that car and will continue doing so until it falls apart.
jim:	How about your best decision?
FT:	I’m not sure if there is any one good financial decisions that I’ve made thus far, it’s more of a combination of a few. One would include buying a 2 apt home upon graduation, living in one and renting out the other. Others would be living below our means, making sure to max out our retirement accounts, starting non retirement portfolios in addition to investing in rental real estate (not including our primary residence). The most significant would probably be the rental property as it was purchased at a discount.
jim:	What is your favorite personal finance blog and why?
FT:	This is probably the toughest question out of the batch! I read a LOT of blogs and don’t have a particular favorite as each has their own unique point of view. As a group though, I read Canadian pf blogs the most, as they relate to my life the most.
jim:	What do you hope to accomplish this year?
FT:	This year will be a big one for us as we will be moving into our new house along with a new baby on the way. Financially speaking, even with the income setbacks of maternity leave, we hope to grow our net worth by 25% along with increasing our charitable contributions. In terms of the blog, I hope to keep going strong with the daily posts and hopefully double my readership.
jim:	And, lastly, if your blog ended today, how would you like people to remember it?
FT:	I would hope for MDJ to be remembered as a site that provided useful information in improving our personal finance lives.

We hope you enjoyed our little discussion with Frugal Trader and Million Dollar Journey. While MDJ is based out of Canada, I think that many topics in personal finance are geographically independent and so MDJ is certainly a site worth putting in your reader.

Welcome to another edition of PFBlogger Spotlight, a series in which I interview some personal finance bloggers so that we all get to learn a little more about them. This week, we have John from Mighty Bargain Hunter, a blog that is a member of the Money Blog Network and someone I had a chance to know better when I was a member. MBH and I have privately discussed everything from the government screwing us by re-taxing the Roth IRA to hoarding gold, but after today even you will have a greater insight into the mind behind the Mighty Mighty Bargain Hunter!

jim:	Hi MBH, could you tell us a little about yourself?
MBH:	I grew up and went to college in upstate New York and came to Virginia in 2000 to thaw. I’m in my mid 30s and have a wonderful wife of almost six years and an adorable three-year-old daughter.
jim:	What’s something no one else in the blogging world knows about you?
MBH:	If I told you, then it wouldn’t be known by no one anymore! I’ve put enough out there in “tell us five things about yourself” memes that I have to think hard — or make something up. OK, here’s one: I love shopping for shoes. Just kidding. Really, here it is: I love to play Monopoly and I shoot to kill. (Figuratively. While playing Monopoly, that is. Not killing people in real life. That would be bad to say in a widely-read public forum such as Blueprint For Financial Prosperity.)
jim:	What motivated you to begin blogging and how long have you been doing it?
MBH:	A friend from work got me onto online rewards programs and estate auctions, and I really liked them. I started the website in 2004 as a smart-shopping, bargain-hunting, frugal-living newsletter. I sent out the newsletters and posted them to the website. The original articles are here. Basically, I saw what SavingAdvice.com and TheFrugalShopper.com were doing, and it looked like I had something to say and could contribute to the discussion. Since I’m an introvert, this also seemed like a good way to start up a side income. In the site’s first incarnation, I spent about 25% of my time writing the articles and 75% of the time formatting the web pages — they were all hand-coded. This got tedious, and my posting slowed to a crawl for a while. After squeaking out one article per month or so for a while, I stumbled on blogs like pfblog.com, and commented on Free Money Finance’s posts and (probably) Five Cent Nickel’s posts there until they informed me that they had their own blogs. In the spring of 2005 I started blogging because I could spend 95% of my time on the website writing content and about 5% formatting it. MUCH better. And a couple thousand people think I still have something worthwhile to say. Which is why I keep doing it.
jim:	What do you think makes your perspective unique?
MBH:	I love getting good deals and deep discounts. I have an entrepreneurial streak. I’ve learned conventional wisdom regarding career, money management, and investing, and have had enough of it thrown into question that I’m a little contrarian in my thinking.
jim:	What are your favorite personal finance books?
MBH:	The Millionaire Next Door (Stanley and Danko) and Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson.
jim:	Which of your posts do you think all your readers should read?
MBH:	Judging by comments, hands-down it’s “Missed Fortune 101: Horrible Advice!” with more than 200 comments. One that still makes the rounds on StumbleUpon is “Twenty-five ways I save money.” Another one I like is “Sixteen ways being disorganized costs you money.”
jim:	What financial “mistake” that you’ve done has bothered you the most?
MBH:	I had a tech stock that lost 99% of its value post-bubble. I got frightened listening to a colleague that it might go completely worthless, and sold it near its low. It went up 25-30 times its price in the following years, and had I listened to the actions of every single board member in the company (they were buying the company stock like there was no tomorrow) rather than my friend, I’d own my house free and clear now. Lesson: Don’t let someone scare you into selling at a loss, especially if they don’t have a stake in it and if you know they like stirring the pot. Think for yourself.
jim:	How about your best decision?
MBH:	Getting married to a Christian woman and having a daughter. Aside from a joy that you can’t put a price on, I see money much more as a tool than as an end in itself. I was socking away a lot more before I got married, but it has turned out to be much more rewarding to provide for a family and return part of what I earn to God’s Kingdom than to just protect myself, by myself.
jim:	What is your favorite personal finance blog and why?
MBH:	I don’t have a favorite. I like dozens of blogs for very different reasons.
jim:	What do you hope to accomplish this year?
MBH:	I have a post that outlines my goals for the year. The financial goals are to track my finances regularly and to get my online income to cover my mortgage payment again (I wasn’t wise enough to have diversified my online income when Google moved the text-link cheese).
jim:	And, lastly, if your blog ended today, how would you like people to remember it?
MBH:	I’d like it to be remembered as a blog that had something useful to say to someone, and as a blog that didn’t take itself too terribly seriously. Heck, how serious can the blog be if it has posts written in the style of Dr. Seuss?

Go check out Mighty Bargain Hunter and tell him I sent you (then duck!).

Today I have the opportunity to present a brief interview with Phil Town about both his life and his upcoming book, Rule #1. Phil has been writing a blog (unlike other authors who write a book and then a blog to promote it, Phil’s blog has been around for quite some time) on which he gives you an overview of rule #1 and tells you how to submit “homework” that he can review. Onward to the interview…

You can find more information on Phil’s upcoming book Rule #1 : The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! on Amazon.com.

George runs Fat Pitch Financials which is primarily an investing related blog where he searches for profitable arbitrage opportunities in the marketplace. As he puts it, his quest is “to find dollar bills for 40 cents… Value investing and personal finance discoveries for those seeking to invest with a margin of safety in stocks with wide moats and to profit from arbitrage opportunities.” George has graciously agreed to not only answer all my questions but he offered me membership into his Contributor’s Corner where he offers a wealth of arbitrage opportunities. I’ve actually taken advantage of one such opportunity and when it comes to fruition, I’ll be writing about it in the future. Until then, enjoy the interview.

I started the PFBlogger Spotlight Series was started in Nov. 2005 with the intent of giving some exposure, however much I could, to other personal finance bloggers out there so we could get to know a little bit about the person behind the blogs. Lately the series was on hiatus because of the holidays but it’s back and anyone willing to answer some questions is eligible for a spotlight. Please contact me if you’re interested.

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Today I have the distinct honor of posting an email interview I had with JLP of AllThingsFinancial. I befriended JLP through the course of writing this blog and I’m thoroughly impressed with his extension knowledge of all things financial, which is why I approached him. He was kind enough to agree to answer all my questions and I’ve printed them in their entirety without any alterations whatsoever. And if you haven’t been to AllThingsFinancial, I suggest you stop on over and read his daily postings because they’re extremely informative.

jim: Would you give us a little information about your background and what qualifies you to be a financial advisor?
JLP: I graduated from college with a finance degree in 1996. I worked a year at PaineWebber (now UBS), found out that I didn’t like the traditional brokerage side of the business. Left there and went to work with my father-in-law in his insurance business. I actually left the financial planning aspect of the business to take on a totally different job working with auto dealerships. That didn’t work out and I came back to the planning business about two years later.

Starting in about 2001 I started rethinking the planning business and what it meant. I didn’t like the traditional commission-based sales method. I thought it was misleading to clients. I started reading about fee-only financial planning and decided that was the way I wanted to go. I set up my own practice about a year ago and things are starting to look good.

I’m currently enrolled in the CFP program and hope to be a CFP next year.

jim: What does a financial advisor do?
JLP: That depends. There’s different ways of working with people. Some people like to do everything themselves and just want a second opinion. A planner can take their information and tell them whether or not they are on the right track. That’s why I like the fee-only platform because the planner gets paid to tell the client what’s BEST for THEM. There’s not a lot of commission-based advisors who would advise a person who just wants a second opinion.

There are people who just don’t like to do stuff on their own but they know they need to do something. They can go to a planner for a complete financial plan and then return to that planner every year or so to get a “checkup.”

Then there are people who may just want help with one aspect of their financial lives. Perhaps it is college planning for their kids or greandkids. A planner can just take that one aspect and help the client understand what needs to be done. This is called modular planning.

jim: Why would the average working adult need a financial advisor?
JLP: Not everybody needs a planner. But, most people probably need a planner for some area of their lives. A good planner can keep people from making serious mistakes with their money and may also help them overcome preconcieved ideas about money. There are lots of people out there in their 30s with all their 401(k) money in bonds.

jim: What three books related to personal finance would you recommend every person read and why?
JLP:
1. The Road to Wealth by Suze Orman. I’m not a big Suze fan, but this is a good book with lots of questions and answers about various financial topics.
2, 3. Stocks for the Long Run and The Future for Investors by Jeremy Siegel. These two books will give a person a firm foundation in how the stock market works.

jim: What should I look for in a financial advisor?
JLP: Are you comfortable with them? Do you think they are shooting straight with you? They should be able to tell you without wincing how much they will make from your business. What’s their educational background? Things like that.

jim: How much should a financial advisor cost and what should I get out of it?
JLP: Some planners charge by the hour ($120 - $250). Some planners charge by the plan ($1,600 - $10,000 for really big cases). Some planners get a commission off what you end up buying from them.

Hourly planners can probably split work up for you so that you don’t have to pay for a lot of time right off the bat. In other words, if you have 5 action items that need attention, a planner should be able to prioritize them for you and help you knock them out one-by-one.

jim: I want to give you $100,000 and have you manage it, what would you recommend… if I was 25? 45? 65?
JLP: The answers depend on your tolerance for risk. If you are 25 and have a very low tolerance for risk, I would try to educate you as to what risk really is. If you are 25 and have a low tolerance for risk, which keeps you from investing in the stock market, then there’s a good chance you won’t meet your long-term goals.

In general, the younger you are, the more you should have invested in stocks. So, generally speaking, I would advise a 25 year old to be 100% in stocks. The volatility of stocks makes dollar-cost averaging work beautifully. A 45 year old would probably want to ease up on the stocks just a bit. Maybe consider a 80-20 split between stocks and bonds. A 65 year old still needs stocks, but I would pare it back to say 60-40 or even 50-50, depending on their needs.

jim: What is the one financial mistake nearly everyone makes?
JLP: They don’t save enough money.

jim: What is one misconception about financial advisors you would want to refute?
JLP: That they are all the same. There are lots and lots of differences between the different types of planners.

jim: What would you recommend someone who has no personal finance “headaches” and is looking to increase their wealth? (They fully fund their Roth IRA, they contribute to a 401k, all their portfolio’s are diversified, they have zero revolving credit card debt, they have an emergency fund in an ING Direct account, and own their home outright)
JLP: I would recommend they focus on the big picture. Make sure they have their assets properly titled, make sure they have enough insurance, make sure they have a good asset allocation plan, and then tell them to continue onward!

jim: Can you do my taxes?
JLP: NO, but I know someone who can!

jim: Thanks JLP!
JLP: You’re most welcome, jim!

If you have any questions you’d like to ask, you can visit AllThingsFinancial and leave him a comment, or you can leave one here and I can pass it on to him (or he may read it and answer it here). I hope you’ve found this interview as informative as I did!

Clarification: I, and I assume JLP did as well, used the terms financial advisor and financial planner interchangeably.