This Week In The News

I wanted to announce the winners of the You Call The Shots giveaway I started last week, in addition to linking to stuff I liked. First, congratulations to…

• John Wilks
• Rick
• Dustin
• Mike

… on winning a copy of You Call The Shots by Cameron Johnson. Enjoy!

And… watch out! Here comes what was worthy of reading this week!

• Nickel and about a million other personal finance bloggers want to know: “Are you a 0% balance transfer daredevil?”
• It’s no secret that the reason companies have a vesting schedule for 401ks and other benefits is to keep employees around. This week, Flexo wrestled with this very idea and wondered if the actual fear of throwing money away prevented someone from quitting. Read that carefully, not the actual throwing of the money away but the fear of doing so… very interesting psychological point.
• FMF talks about why you need a budget.
• JLP’s house goes through FOUR GALLONS of milk a day… he wants to know if organic milk is worth it.
• MBH hits one of the biggest scams in internet history, the inflated shipping cost on eBay auctions. When I sold stuff on eBay, I always tacked on a few extra dollars to cover the shipping materials and my travel time to the post office but never the ridiculous $1 auction + $50 shipping some auctions used to do.
• The 3,000 mile oil change myth is pretty well known now by most experience drivers but Jeremy makes an excellent point of how you should always check your owners manual first before believing anything anyone tells you about your car.
• Henry warns that paying the minimum monthly payment on a credit card will make you pay the maximum in interest. Don’t do it!
• Lazy Man gives up an update on his Prosper dealings and it hasn’t been good.
• Ben has a sad tale about how debt snowballs and bad things seem to happen all at once, in this particular story it started with talking on the cell phone too much. Luckily it wasn’t him.
• Golbguru has a smart guest post about tax diversification worth checking out. It underscores the importance of having 401k’s and Roths, not just one or the other.
• The gender divide in the workplace is something that’s slowly shrinking I think and SVB takes a swing at it.
• Zecco took the trials deposits back from Sun when he opened his account! I think I remember another account doing the same thing but not many.
• Jim Boykin, esteemed SEO, is giving away some fantastic SEO-ish swag like We Build Pages clocks (and other goodies like MP3 players, links, etc.) via his latest Best Hits update page. Get in on the action!
• I’ve been looking at self-directed IRAs lately since they’ve been in the news, the idea of investing in something cool like a film company is intriguing… though the thought of losing money is not so intriguing.
• Home fires are really really scary and when you’re talking about a row of townhomes like what I live in, one fire could mean disaster for a whole area even when you consider the firewalls. So that’s probably one of the reasons why I’ve been on a fire-related writing tear at Home Insurance Guide. I warn about using rechargeable batteries in fire & smoke detectors, having a fire extinguisher in your home, and the four classes of fire extinguishers. Having insurance is important but a fire still destroys everything, even if you can get it fixed.