This is a follow-up post from the earlier listing of 80 ways to lose money. This time, I am going to increase the number of tips to 101 because these are about saving money (and not losing).

Here are 101 ways to save money which are easy to implement as well.

1. Switch off the fan, air conditioner when you leave a room.
2. Apply various driving techniques to save on gas cost.
3. Use fans which rotate when winds blow as you need no electricity for them.
4. Walk as much as you can and use public transport which cost less and save gas.
5. Close the water faucet while brushing. See – Save water, Save money.
6. Close the shower when applying soap or shampoo.
7. Drink lots of cold water to keep your body temperature cool and reduce the need for air conditioning.
8. Use fans instead of air conditioners when it is not too hot.
9. Wash your car or other things on your lawn so don’t need to water them again.
10. Water the lawn or the plants before sunrise or after sunset, to keep air cool and prevent wastage of water.
11. Instead of washing clothes according to color, separately wash the clothes that lose color and wash the rest together.
12. Buy in bulk whenever you can. 
13. Don’t overeat and be healthy.
14. Buy a bigger freezer to store bulk items for extended period. 
15. Don’t keep food in refrigerator for too long, it spoils the food after a few days.
16. Use steel or stainless steel as it lasts longer than plastic articles.
17. Do not hire people for housework, instead do it yourself as it also helps as a good exercise. 
18. Leak-proof your home to save on energy consumption.
19. Don’t throw the plastic containers, reuse and re-purpose them.
20. Choose a bank with no-fee/lesser-fee to bank with.
21. Instead of ordering a pizza, buy frozen pizza which costs less.
22. While washing clothes turn them inside out to preserve their appearance.
23. Use less detergent powder unless clothes are very dirty to make them last longer.
24. Use old clothes to make rags, etc. 
25. Instead of expensive cleaners use vinegar.
26. Don’t get attracted towards sales.
27. Instead of gas/oil mowers use a push mower.
28. Wash clothes only when they are dirty.
29. Pay all bills on time to prevent penalty fees and finance charges.
30. Always check your bank balance before writing a check, to avoid overdraft fee.
31. Practice comparison shopping to drive lower cost whenever possible.
32. Cut your cable subscription and watch T.V online.
33. Before you go for shopping, eat.
34. Make coffee or tea at home.
35. Cut back on eating out frequently.
36. Don’t renew subscription for magazines you hardly read.
37. Quit smoking to save on cigarette cost and future healthcare cost.
38. Quit drinking if possible
39. Buy generic store products instead of name brand.
40. Create your monthly/annual budget and stick to it.
41. Don’t ask for home delivery if it is not free.
42. Drink water instead of soft drinks.
43. Cut on the number of trips to the mall.
44. Reduce auto insurance premium by raising deductibles.
45. Wash your car yourself, do not use car wash.
46. Use solar water heater to save grid electricity cost.
47. Grow plants and vegetables in your garden.
48. Use curtains to keep your home cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
49. Carry your own food when travelling, at least for initial days.
50. Throw parties in your home, rather than at clubs/restaurants.
51. Make gifts at home rather than buying expensive gifts.
52. Use alternate energy to save grid electricity cost.
53. Always try to negotiate while shopping. I always try to bargain for at least 10% reduction of original price.
54. Save flight ticket cost by booking tickets well in advance.
55. Go to less expensive tourists spots. or take staycation
56. Use free online phone services to make calls. Even Skype can help save a lot of money. 
57. Fit solar electricity generators.
58. Try to buy used car to save on new car premium pricing.
59. Go for vacations mid-week to avail the cheapest tickets for the week. Related – How I saved money during vacation.
60. Use CFL or LED lights instead of incandescent bulbs.
61. Try to repair simple faults before they become big and require more money to fix.
62. Never full your car’s fuel tank.
63. Don’t buy food if you don’t need it.
64. Park as soon as you see an empty parking space. See – How to save on parking cost.
65. Use rags, instead of expensive paper towels, etc.  See –  Go paperless to save money.
66. Use things to the maximum.
67. Never buy unnecessary things.
68. Make baby food at home.
69. Exercise at home, instead of going to the gym. Related – Losing weight saves money.
70. Move in a less expensive city.
71. Buy clothes from thrift stores.
72. Instead of costly zip-lock bags, use simple bags.
73. If possible use less expensive travelling ways.
74. Don’t buy mineral water, use tap water instead.
75. Use free software instead of their paid alternatives. See – How to buy software online.
76. Sell unwanted things to earn extra bucks.
77. Use a simpler cell phone. that can meet basic phone need. See – How to save money on cell phones.
78. Never throw soap remnants, instead combine them and use it.
79. Use cold water in summer to bath and to wash clothes.
80. Instead of an electric clock, use a wind-up clock.
81. Live in a locality with lower home price/rent. Related – How to save money while renting.
82. Before soaping dishes, rinse them.
83. Shop online and save on gas.
84. Choose short-cuts while driving.
85. When not using watches turn them off to save battery.
86. Use a cloth bag instead of buying a plastic bag everywhere.
87. Make pizzas and burgers at home.
88. Reuse old furniture instead of buying new.
89. Do your own taxes with the help of professional software, rather than hiring a consultant.
90. Use a microwave as much as possible to save electricity cost for cooking needs.
91. Do regular maintenance to reduce car repair cost. See – Regular care care for saving money.
92. Wash only when your dishwasher/washing machine is full.
93. Reduce cell phone cost.
94. Never let your account balance fall below minimum.
95. Save money with free stuff
96. Don’t buy clothes that require dry-cleaning only.
97. Ask your doctor about generic medicines when available, compared to name brands.
98. Pack your lunch when going to work.
99.  If you have an extra room in your house, give it on a rent.
100. Be happy with what you have!
101. Borrow books and movies from local library instead of renting them.

While saving money on these thing, do not miss good opportunities to save money and be a motivated saver, make saving a fun.

Readers, every item in the list can’t be followed by all of you. For some being social drinker is value for money. So I would say practice habits which you are more comfortable with.

Welcome to the 361′st edition of Carnival of Personal Finance. I am honored to be your host for the second time in 12 months of my blogging history. If you are a first time visitor, thanks for your time, do remember the blog name, very easy to remember – I guess and most importantly, keep on visiting.

Like every other blogger I talk rubbish sometimes, if you are a regular personal finance blogger or blog reader, you may have been already accustomed to read gibberish and non-sense stuff often anyway.

When neo-bloggers (in relative term) starts claiming a beautiful discovery that Dave Ramsey’s methods are mathematically wrong, I feel pity on their ignorance. Coming back to the point, yes I do talk non-sense sometimes, but most of the time my articles get editor’s choice distinctions at carnivals. So keep visiting. I may bore you sometimes, but not always.

I forgot that the theme is Mother’s day today. Here’s my tribute to my mother, published yesterday. Once you’re done with that, continue to next paragraph, if not, finish reading it first.

The biggest gift you can give to your mother, is your presence, I accept your apology for not being able to be with your mother this year. But, do not forget it next year. Perfumes, flowers, chocolates or cards are all fine, but they hardly create any memory. Going by my average readers’ age of 32, your moms are growing older. She loves to get your message, phone call or flowers, but what she badly wants is your presence.

Ignoring few exceptions, your mother mostly shaped you as human being when you were growing up. She was there when you needed most. You take good care of her now, I am sure your children would see and learn the same habit. It’s what I call Karma.

Lord Krishna and his Mother Yashoda - Hindu mythology

Let’s begin the carnival now, with my partial, narrow-minded and shortsighted selections for top posts.

Unqualified Editor’s Picks

After spending awful time reading the submissions, I am exhausted. Forgive me if your master-piece is not chosen. Better luck next time.

Kathryn @ Financial Highway from Financial Highway presents Common Interview Questions and Answers. I liked it because its extensive in nature. The amount of time devoted to this article was great. Although we never ask some questions he mentioned as ‘common’, it’s a treasure for job seekers.

Echo from Boomer & Echo presents Pitfalls Of Chasing The Highest Dividend Yield, and says, “Choosing a dividend stock involves a lot more than simply looking for the highest dividend yield”.  – Canada or United States or New Delhi, this simple formula of researching past dividend growth rate should provide better comfort for your dividend investment.

Peter from Bible Money Matters presents How to Setup a Custodial Account for a Minor to Help Them Save or Invest, and says, “There are times where you may want to setup an account for one of your minor children or a family member to help them start saving for the future, to teach them about how to manage money or to jump-start a college savings fund. Depending on what your goals are, there are different ways to go about doing this, but setting up a custodial account under the Uniform Gifts to Minors Act (UGMA) or the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) can be done at most banks, brokerages and mutual fund companies”. Peter said so much, I am not going to take any more space. 

Nicole from Nicole and Maggie: Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured presents How to wash dishes: Beyond Frugality, and says, “Nicole and Maggie discuss the most efficient way to wash dishes using a double sink when you’re without a dishwasher. This is hardcore”. This is really hardcore. The steps and the comments are too engaging. This is very normal in my home country, India. But, abnormal here in US. Before you say good bye to your dish washing liquids, calculate time save vs. money save. For me, saving extra 10 hrs a month is more valuable then spending $20 extra on washing soap and electricity.

Miss T. from Prairie Eco Thrifter presents Start Small; Dream Big: Achieving Financial Security from Small Beginnings, and says, “What would you do, who could you be, what would you dream, if you knew you couldn’t fail? So dream big, comforted by the knowledge that it’s OK to start your financial journey small. Remember, everything big was once small at the beginning!” Very inspiring post. Starts small and dream big!

Rest of the submissions

Here’s some awesome posts that can add value to your life, categorized as per the subject of the article.

Career

Dan Meyers from Your Life, Their Life presents Are you a work athlete?, and says, “In football, most players have a one-position title… the few who can do it all are simply called “Athletes”. Are you a work athlete?”

Jefferson from See Debt Run presents You Should Quit Your Job! 5 Signs That It Is Time To Move On, and says, “Warning signs that you should quit your job. Not getting invited to meetings, not enough work, don’t get along with boss, don’t get along with teammates.”

Philip from PT Money Personal Finance presents From Unemployed to Entrepreneur, and says, “An insightful interview with a couple who decided to start their own pizza making business after they both lost their jobs.”

Mike from The Financial Blogger presents Do You Care About Job Security?, and says, “How important is a stable job?”

Mike from Do Not Wait presents Should You Work For a Startup Company?, and says, “We look at the benefits of a small startup.”

Jason from One Money Design presents Do Higher Status Occupations and Higher Income Lead to More Stress?, and says, “Moving up the corporate latter and earning more pay and responsibility may be impacting the stress in your life. Is it worth it?”

Debt

Robert from The College Investor presents Student Loan Interest Rates Doubling: A Bad Thing?, and says, “I don’t think that higher student loan interest rates are bad – in fact, I think they are a good thing. I’ve discussed student loans many times, but I continue to be a firm believer in avoiding them as much as possible, and making sure that you calculate the Return on Investment in your education, and how student loan debt plays into it.”

Victoria Lindsay from Lend Not Borrow presents The Cost to Learn- Student Loan Debt!, and says, “Taking a close look at student loan debt and asking the question, “are we educating students enough on student debt management?”. ”

Roshawn Watson from Watson Inc presents Student Loan Debt Destroying Quality of Life, and says, “Perhaps no debt is so reverenced as the ubiquitous student loan. Recently, I came across data that only strengthened my belief: even student loan debt can decrease quality of life.”

Janet from Credit, Eh presents 3 Cool Ways to Reduce Your Debt Faster, and says, “When it comes to debt reduction, you want to be at the top of your game. There are many different ideas when it comes to debt reduction, but the best thing to do is think cool.”

Investing

D4L from Dividend Growth Stocks presents 7 Higher-Yielding Consumer Stocks To Build Your Yield, and says, “An investment strategy based on Dividend Growth Stocks focuses on companies that produce predictable results and thus are able to consistently raise their dividends. Demand for household and personal care products is generally stable and not affected by changes in the economy or other factors. If you lose your job, you probably won’t stop bathing, washing your clothes, brushing your teeth or stop buying toilet paper. That’s why companies in the Consumer Defensive sector are sought after as desirable dividend growth investments.”

Darrow Kirkpatrick from Can I Retire Yet? presents Diversification: Why Seeing Red Can be a Good Thing…, and says, “This article takes a simple metaphor (the stoplight colors), plus my personal experience, to illustrate the essence of investment diversification. A wise investor knows that a mix of daily investing results is best, because that represents the heartbeat of a well-diversified portfolio at work.”

PK from Don’t Quit Your Day Job… presents Is It Possible to Beat The Stock Market?, and says, “1,158 days of my trading history audited and bared for the world to see – and yes, over those 38 months I did beat the market. A fluke? Perhaps, and we’ll see if I regress to mean.

However, it’s possible evidence that a value approach to investing might outperform other styles of stock investing.”

FMF from Free Money Finance presents 80-20 Your Investments, and says, “While many people seem intimidated by investing and don’t know where to begin or what to do, being a successful investor is not that complicated. In the end it comes down to three basic (but important) steps.”

Barbara Friedberg from Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance presents MBA Series; Tax free or Taxable Bonds; Which Would You Choose?, and says, “Basic investing primer on how to decide whether to invest in taxable or tax free bonds. You’ll never wonder again.”

FamilyMoneyValues from Family Money Values presents Land for Sale, and says, “Ways to make money from raw land investments”.

Connie Prater from Taking Charge presents I want a piece of the Facebook IPO, but I’m just small potatoes, and says, “Everyone is talking about Facebook’s impending initial public offering (IPO) and whether the social media giant is truly valued at a realistic level. I’m not a Wall Streeter, but the prospect of potentially being able to get in on an IPO has me excited. Small-time investors rarely have this opportunity. Granted, I’ve got only a glimmer of hope of actually buying the stock from eTrade’s allotment. They may laugh at my paltry bid. Friends have said it will be a blessing if eTrade turns me down because then I can buy the stock at a much lower level when it is traded on the market and takes a nosedive, as many analysts are predicting. Call me crazy, but I still want in on the Facebook IPO.”

Drew from My Dollar Plan presents Roth IRAs: An Opposing View, and says, “The Roth IRA is one of the most touted personal finance investing vehicles around but here’s a bit of a different take on the subject!”

J.P. from Novel Investor presents Remember Your Investment Horizon, and says, “Fears in Europe, slowing economy, unemployment concerns, and a few hundred other data sets all contribute to the daily swings of the market. When the markets start acting crazy, remembering your investment horizon will bring everything back into perspective.”

Glen Craig from Free From Broke presents What is a Spousal IRA and How Does It Work?, and says, “It makes sense thinking that you have to work in order to contribute to an IRA, right? Well, if your spouse works and you don’t then you can take advantage of a spousal IRA.

Roger Wohlner from Chicago Financial Planner presents Is Betterment Really a Better Idea?, and says, “What troubles me though is that Betterment went ahead and published a post that was so full of inaccuracies. Was this a cheap attempt to bash advisors in order to drive business their way? Did they truly not understand why their post was inaccurate? Were they unaware of the flaws in the NBER study?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions it raises doubts in my mind as to the business maturity of the Betterment management team. Maybe their model is wonderful and they are a “better mousetrap.” At the end of the day, however, this episode will forever make them suspect in my mind.”

Pierre from Intelligent Speculator presents Facebook is Not All About Revenues, and says, “We take a deeper look at Facebook.”

Money Management

Bret from Hope to Prosper presents How Much Money is Eough?, and says, “With all of the Facebook IPO fever, it seems like everyone wants to become the next billionaire. For me, that is probably my worst nightmare.”

Ricky from Qwoter presents Planning for Retirement, and says, “Do you really have enough funds to be able to live comfortable when it comes time for you to retire? Make sure you aren’t making some common retirement planning mistakes to keep you on the right path for retirement.”

Earth and Money from Earth and Money presents How NOT to Make a Financial Decision, and says, “When it comes to making financial decisions, it is imperative that you have a clear and focused mind. Given how hard we work for our money, a poorly made financial decision can come back to haunt us many times over.”

Justin from The Family Finances presents Keep The “Personal” In Personal Finance, and says, “Personal finance is about so much more than numbers and math.”

Green Panda from Green Panda Treehouse presents Mistakes We All Make After College, and says, “Are you making these mistakes?”

Div Guy from The Dividend Guy Blog presents If You Had $10,000 Today, What Would You Do With It?, and says, “We look at dealing with this amount of money.”

Squirrelers from Squirrelers presents Different Ways to Plan Ahead for Retirement, and says, “Planning for retirement is a simple concept, yet it can involve many considerations. This post discusses steps to consider when planning for a successful financial future.”

Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents presents 8 Warning Signs You Need to Fire Your Financial Advisor, and says, “If you have a suspect financial advisor, here are warning signs that you need use the words of Donald Trump and tell them “You’re Fired” and move on.”

Grace from GRACEful Retirement presents I Can’t Explain it. I just have to spend it., and says, “There’s what we should do financially, and there’s what we really do, which may or may not make any monetary sense.”

Finance

Jessia Thompson from Structured Settlement & Annuity Blog presents Jessica Thompson, and says, “Due to the care we put into each post, our blog in under six months already has most of its pages indexed and ranking on Google. ”

Russ Thornton from Wealthcare For Women presents Is Happiness A Result Or An Ingredient?, and says, “It’s been interesting for me to see how different women define success and how they’re personal happiness relates to their vision of success, now or in the future.

Many women seem to believe that once they reach their goals and achieve their personal version of success, happiness will be a natural byproduct. A result of their success.

Others seem to consider happiness a key ingredient in their journey to live a successful life. For these women, happiness is a key ingredient. Or maybe a prerequisite to success.”

Adam Hagerman from Walking To Wealth presents What Is Financial Freedom?, and says, “”. Actually says nothing!

Michael Kitces from Nerd’s Eye View presents LearnVest – A Glimpse Of Financial Planning’s Future Serving The Masses In The Digital Age?, and says, “Although financial planning seeks to improve the lives of all who need help making better financial decisions, in practice its scope has mostly been limited to those with a relatively high level of affluence, at least compared to the “average” American. Where financial planning firms have failed, though, a technology company is finding success, as “start-up” firm LearnVest leaps forward. Will a technology firm employing financial planners set the model that solves the challenge the financial planning profession couldn’t?”

Adam Baker from Man Vs. Debt presents Danger in Comparing Yourself to Others, and says, “You have to make financial decisions based on your own situation, and not as a result of comparing yourself to others.”

Jeff Rose from Life Insurance By Jeff presents How Does Guaranteed Acceptance Life Insurance Work?, and says, “For those who cannot get approved for a basic term life policy, guaranteed acceptance life insurance is the solution to their problem.

Finance

Squeezer from Personal Finance Success presents When should you check your credit report?, and says, “Checking your credit report is an important step in improving your credit and protecting yourself from identity theft.”

Martin from Studenomics presents The Only Post on Student Loans You Need to Read, and says, “What you need to know about student loans.”

Budgeting

Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance presents Making Travel a Reality, and says, “In November, I spent 2 weeks in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. In January, I was in Costa Rica. In March, I made it to Fayetteville, Arkansas for a weekend. On Monday, I came home from New Orleans for three days before I drive to Omaha for a long weekend. Next weekend I am back in Arkansas, and by the end of the summer I will have been to Minneapolis and hopefully Spain.

This might be incredibly overwhelming, but you can really do it too. I promise.”

TTMK from Tie the Money Knot presents Be a Bridesmaid and Go Broke?, and says, “When people agree to be a part of someone’s wedding, it can be an honor. It’s also very expensive in many cases, particularly for bridesmaids. This post examines the topic of how outrageous this can be.”

Frugality

Bob from Christian Personal Finance presents How to buy gift cards at a discount, and says, “Who knew that you can buy gift cards at a nice discount from the retail price? Here are a few options for those looking to do it…” Read and be helped immediately. Save some money

Donna Freedman from Frugal Cool presents Thrift stores for DIYers, and says, “”Building materials reuse” companies like Habitat for Humanity ReStores sell lumber, plumbing, paint, housewares, appliances and other items at amazing discounts. It’s like shopping at a thrift store: You never know what you’re going to get. But you do know that it’ll be cheap”

Taxes

Sean from One Smart Dollar presents Small Business Tax Deductions You Should be Claiming, and says, “As a small business owner you are given the right to take tax deduction on certain business expenses. Here are a few of the most popular ones.”

Real Estate

Tim from Brilliant Finances: Personal Finance How To presents The Perfect Storm Brewing for Real Estate Investors According to Census Bureau Report, and says, “Mainstream media seems to be missing some key information that can help their readers. This article is aimed to help my readers capitalize on a significant event in history.”

Nathan Richardson from ComplexSearch.com presents 10 Reasons The Housing Market Won’t Recover Anytime Soon, and says, “Everybody is hoping for the recovery soon, but here are some sound reasons why the housing market could take some time to recover.”

John from Wallet Blog presents Mortgage Rates Hit Record Lows, and says, “To buy or not to buy…Wow, what a question! With mortgage rates at record lows, now may well be the right time either purchase or refinance a home. Take a look at the how and why of low interest rates and decide for yourself”.

Money Walks from Money Walks presents 5 Things to Do When Renting a Place, and says, “”. Didn’t say anything about the post!

Sandy from Yes, I am Cheap presents Why I’m Buying Rental Property While Still In Debt, and says, “If you listen to the news, it would make you run in the opposite direction of buying property at a time when you probably should be running directly to real estate. The housing affordability index is at its best, because of low housing prices and record low mortgage interest rates”

Credit

Liana from Card Hub presents Review: Bank of America’s New Travel Rewards Credit Cards, and says, “Bank of America just made travel a whole lot sweeter for their customers. With three new travel rewards cards on the market, it looks like they are taking on their competition. But how do these new offers really stack up?”

Mike from Rewards Cards Canada presents Why Cash Back Beats Travel Rewards, and says, “A free vacation keeps many Canadians loyal to their travel rewards program, but for me, cash back is king. Here’s why cash back beats travel rewards:”

Mike from Rewards Cards USA presents Best Airline Miles Credit Cards, and says, “One of the reasons that many people sign up for rewards programs is to save money on travel. Here are some of the best airline miles credit cards:”

Jim from Bargaineering presents Pros and Cons of Credit Cards.

SB from Finance Product Reviews presents Best Credit Cards for Balance Transfer in 2012.

Saving

Everything Finance from Everything Finance Blog presents 5 Great Ways to Stay Away from Your Savings Account, and says, “Stretching our money is something most of us would like to be able to do on a daily basis. Although the unfortunate reality of unexpected costs in life often makes this a difficult achievement, there are some concrete ways to work toward greater financial freedom and continued savings. Hopefully these five ideas and concepts will help you achieve these goals, and get you on the path to beneficial spending and smart financial choices in the future.”

Money Thinker from Money Thinking presents Retirement – Harder for Mom than Dad?, and says, “”. Too lazy to think about the article!

Other

Drew from Objective Wealth presents The Million Dollar Question, and says, “Drew gets his chalk out and takes us back to school in order to work out how three seemingly unrelated money and wealth case studies are inescapably connected by a certain philosophical view, but which one is it? Heavy!”

This is a small tribute to my mother on occasion of mother’s day. The lady whom I recall spending entire day to look after us. She never worked to earn a living, she was a housewife, a home maker. Someone who loved to control everything home related and did so efficiently and passionately.

She had the final say at every decision we took as family, be it choosing the next vacation destination or deciding if we needed new dresses. She maintained family budget and spending. She kept track of household inventory, she maintained supply needs. She prepared the grocery list.

She was on top of everybody’s need, amazingly she knew our needs much before we realized them as our needs. My father is a lucky man to have him as wife.

If he taught me the early lessons of investment and money. My mother taught me other human behaviors.

My mother taught us how money can be saved by doing things yourself. She sew clothes because getting them ready made was costly. My father had to take care of his elderly parents, his brothers and sisters, along with us. He didn’t have enough money.

She took it upon herself to finish things in cheaper and frugal ways. She prepared food, washed clothes, cleaned home and took care of her in-laws.

I never saw my parents fighting for money. Mom always had the final say. She took care of us and every one who lived with us equally. She never let us splurge on things, at the same time we never had to wear torn clothes or dirty shoes. We were poorer than our friends but no body knew that, and no body could tell that. She taught us to enjoy finer things in life and feel happy.

We always wore washed and cleaned dresses, always had plenty of school supplies, in India we needed to carry food to school, we always had tastiest and best food among fellow students.

Till high school she was our (my elder brother and I) only teacher. When I think now, I get amazed by the amount of time she had for us even after taking care of a big extended family. She was like a machine, always running at full throttle.

My father taught us to be best, my mother taught us to remain humble and care others. Father used to say I was gifted and I should not wasted my talent. My mother, on the other hand, kept reminding me that I was born to help others and I was needed to create compassion for others. I needed to create loving and rewarding relationship, I needed to forgive others. I needed to treat others well, I needed to donate to charity once I had enough money.

She taught me to be a better person. You let me be a better person.

Mother, let me tell you that whenever someone praises me for being a good person, I remember your words, they are inscribed in me since childhood.  It would remain forever and get passed on to a newer generation if I had any.

It’s for you that I learned to value good healthy food and physical exercise. You taught me to love and be loved. Thanks you mother, I know it’s nothing in return to what you have done, but this is the best I could do at this moment. This post and whatever success, how little it may be, I tasted is because of you.

You made me happy and you still make me happy.  I am missing you today.

I finally sold off my broken car on Craigslist.  I wasn’t expecting more than $500 for it, but, just to taste the water I put an ad in Miami Craigslist, offering the car for $1,200. I described every problem the car had, including blown head gasket, needs for new radiator and battery.

I also mentioned about two of the power windows which don’t work, a service light which needs attention along with a list of scratches and dents. I thought people would get scared off seeing the listing, so, I mentioned that this car is only useful for the mechanics, who can fix and resell for profit.

Those words spread like wild-fire. Within next few hours I received nearly 50 calls and text messages. Finally the first guy who came-by to check bought it. It helped in negotiation that while he was inspecting the car, I received two consecutive calls from other interested buyers. The car was sold for $1,200 cash then and there.

This is what it looked like in 2005

Why I think this is a good deal?

The KBB market value for fair conditioned Hyundai 2002 Hyundai Elantra was $2,600. The head gasket replacement , along with radiator and battery was lowest quoted at $1,700. So, financially I didn’t make any loss selling it for $1,200. I made a loss already when the car broke down couple of months back. I didn’t spend any time trying to sell the car either, other than talking and texting over phone.

We got another used car as a replacement, more about it later. Now, I encourage you to read a few posts that I found value in, I promise you’ll not be disappointed.

Financial and Productivity Articles around the web

Financial rules that work and don’t work – is a list of very important aspects of personal finance and what you should do, according to the blogger Free Money Finance. How much life insurance you need? Confused? You can read this article.

I have subscribed to Zen Habit‘s feed, when I received How to Live Well in my mail box, the next 5 mins of my life was spent in serenity and tranquility. I have to practice the learning every day.

The Simple Dollar posted an article which is so true about credit cards, they are helpful often to your finances, if you know how to use them. Use credit cards that actually benefit you being employed with a credit card issuer, I support the cause whole heartedly.

Have you ever felt that the entire world is against you? I feel it all the time. Everything seem to go against me and my wishes. Dumb Little Man writes about staying motivated in this situation.

What’s your favorite worst website? I am sure you have come across a few that raised produced instant hatred. This is one such site I visited recently. Can someone’s taste be so bad?

4 cheap food to increase your brain power – Is a money talks news article, which talks about berries, turmeric, avocado and cold water fish as the 4 such cheap food item. I would like to add ‘Neem‘ to the list. Venture in to your local Indian stores to buy a bunch of Neem leaves.

Call your Mom – is an Infographic from Frugal Dad as a tribute to Moms of the world. One statistics he mentioned “if your mom helped you in your homework for one hour per day during elementary, middle and high school stages, she helped you for 2160 hours in total. ” I remember my mother spending  few more hours, not just one hour per day for our studies. I love you mom!

Christian PF writes about residual income – “With residual income, income is generated on a recurring basis after the initial effort has been expended”. If you are interested in knowing how residual income works, head over there.

Carnival Inclusion

I am thankful to the gracious carnival hosts who published my articles last week.

Financial Excellence at the Carnival of Financial Planning
Thanks to Young and Thrifty for hosting the The Carnival of Financial Camaraderie
Thanks to Balance Junkie for hosting the Total Money Blog Carnival
Thanks to The Simple Finance Blog for hosting the Carnival of Retirement
Carnival of MoneyPros at Financial Success for Young Adults
Carnival of Personal Finance at Money talks Coaching
Financial Carnival for young Adults at 20′s Finances

If you have hosted a carnival last week, where I was included and not linked above, please email me – I would love to add your link.

What’s happening in your lives?

The following is a guest post from  Lynn Jackson

Every investment opportunity has its share of risks. Whether you’re putting your money in real estate, buying and selling gold, or trading stocks, you are bound to face, not only general management risks, but industry-specific threats. In the following post, we will take a look at investing in oil and natural gas, to see what you are putting on the line while investing in this specific industry.

Politics

If you are at all interested in oil and natural gas, you’ve probably read quite a bit about government regulations on this investing industry. All oil and natural gas companies are limited by governmental regulations, concerning the locations, times, and processes for oil and gas extractions.

These regulations typically vary from state to state and are known for increasing considerably with governing oil and natural gas deposits outside of the country. In an ideal investing world, oil and natural gas companies would mine exclusively from politically stable nations, which would adhere to long-term leases.

Unfortunately, oil and gas is a limited resource, and those looking to invest in either or both must often deal with the politics of less structured nations. This is where the bulk of politic risk stems from, as these unstable countries often have shifting governmental structures and unenforced regulations.

Many American oil and natural gas companies find the deals they agree to with foreign companies ending prematurely. Foreign countries’ governments may choose to disregard initial capital investment for their own greater profits. This is generally the case of countries with dictators, newfound nationalization, and corrupt domestic corporations.

These risks are best avoided by creating effective relationships with international partners, which are built on trust, understanding, and sustainability.

Geology

As an investor you should look for investing in things that are generally high in demand, low in supply, and difficult to acquire.

As you can probably tell by today’s rising gas prices, we’ve just about tapped out our resource of easily obtainable gas and oil. We’ve used up most of what we have easy access to, and now we are forced to investigate more treacherous drilling zones (like the middle of the ocean) and unconventional oil extractions (using complex combustion, steam, and carbonation techniques).

The geological risk you face as an investor is directly affected by the difficulty of the oil or gas extraction. With more complex extractions, there is a high potential that reserves will produce less oil and natural gas than originally estimated.

These risks are best avoided by working with oil and gas geologists who test frequently and will give you the most accurate level of “proven,” “probable,” and “possible,” when discussing their geological estimates.

Supply and Demand

Due to the complicated nature of extracting oil and natural gas, oil and natural gas prices are known for being particularly volatile. Drilling and other complicated extraction methods require enormous investments of time and capital, which can easily result in huge losses. In addition to these direct risks, the prices of oil and natural gas fluctuate with changing economic factors.

Unfortunately, there is no planning for supply and demand risks, but this is true of most investing. Your best bet is to be extra careful with investing during times of economic uncertainty.

Capital Costs

As previously mentioned, drilling and complicated extraction processes require huge start up costs. These costs are multiplied by the difficulty of the extraction, the quality of the drill, the level of political regulation, and the price for qualified, trustworthy workers.

The oil and natural gas industry is notoriously a capital-intensive industry. This should be the key determinant factor in whether or not to invest in this industry. In our current economic recession, very few can actually afford to invest in oil and natural gases. Like they say in Vegas, to win big, you must play big. But as many of you risk-takers already know, playing big can also mean losing bigger.

Investing in oil and natural gas comes with a pretty sizeable learning curve, so you’ll want to do as much research as possible before investing the huge amounts of capital required to get started. You will be faced with evaluating different companies for their experiences, success rates, and their fits with your needs. In turn, these companies will want to get a lot of information about you to assess your suitability. You will need to work with a lawyer, because this weight of investment requires a considerable amount of regulation and compliance.

For novice oil and natural gas investors, an investment advisor can assist you in developing a “risk control model” to best diversify these different potential areas of risk. These advisors can also direct you to the best companies and industry partners with the best records of low risk capitals.

Yes, there are many risks associated with oil and natural gas investing, but fortunately, by reading this article, you are already well on your way to making smart investments.

 SB’s Thought – I was reading a report the other day. World has enough gasoline to sustain us till an alternative fuel is discovered. While we are awaiting for green fuel to be cheaper than gasoline, we would probably not lose money investing in oil and natural gas in a time horizon of 10 years, give or take a few.

Glad that Lynn has touched the subject thoroughly as per my expectation. The article does not talk about boring charts and patterns in oil and gas investment. It’s a real beginner’s guide to help you decide on investing in oil sector. Decision is yours.

What’s your take on oil and natural gas sector as an investment option.

It’s April and 2011 regular tax filing window is closed. I did my taxes in February this year and started looking at various changes for the 2012 tax year. I thought of documenting the ‘must to know’ things for 2012 tax filing here.

We will have a discussion around the 2012 tax brackets, tax rates and standard deduction. Fortunately  this year there were no increase in taxes as such, perhaps it’s due to presidential election year. The (in)famous ‘Bush era tax cut’ still continues. But, the ultra rich, watch out for next year though.

Note: This article covers tax information for 2012 tax year. which will apply to the returns due Monday, April 15, 2013.

 2012 Tax Brackets

Hope this helps determining your tax bracket for 2012

A guide to help you determine your correct filing status is here.

2012 Tax Rate Tables

When you calculate your taxes due, refer to the tables, they are taken from IRS documentation online . Remember that tax rates are applicable on your adjusted income after accounting for deductions and other adjustments.

TABLE 1 – Married Individuals Filing Joint Returns and Surviving Spouses.

TABLE 2 – Head of Household Tax rates

Table 3 – Single Filers Tax Rates

Table 4 - Married Individuals Filing Separate Returns Tax Rate

2012 IRS Standard Deduction table

If you are like me and going in for standard deduction, as opposed to itemized, here is one very important table for you to calculate adjusted gross income in 2012

The personal and dependency exemption is now $3,800

Watch out for the specific tips for your 2012 taxes in upcoming blog posts.

Last month, my wife and I had dinner with our friends who came down from San Francisco. We talked about a lot of things, including new technologies.

My friend mentioned how important Blackberry was for him because he’s able to accomplish so many tasks with such a handy device. I also commented about my iPhone. Then it hit me. What could happen to the world without these smart phones?

I don’t want to exaggerate things, but I think it’s time we admit to ourselves we owe so many things to these diminutive devices. For me, one of their biggest uses is helping you manage finances well, wherever you are at.

You can keep track of your expenses

We have Mint app installed on both our iPhone, she likes it very much. After all, she can keep track of her expenses. The app allows her to send alerts whenever she needs to pay some bills, as well as schedule them beforehand (such as monthly, daily, or weekly).

I also liked it because we can both keep track of our credit cards and my investments on the go. Some of my friends are also using other apps such as Yodlee and Easy Bills. They do help us monitor our budget, income, and expenses. They’re easy to use too, so you don’t have to be ultra smart with counting money before you can use them.

We can monitor all our bank accounts

Not all banks are into mobile banking yet, but we’re lucky because ours are. When we need to check on money transfers and balances, we don’t have to bring along our laptops anymore while travelling. We simply sign in to your mobile banking accounts. We can also transfer money conveniently. There’s no need to pay for gas just to do it in our own banks.

Even I use PayPal’s iPhone app to check on the expected payments when I am at work. Both my checking banks provide bill pay through mobile app. We have auto-pay setup hence, we do not use the bill pay feature.

You can pay bills through your mobile phone

Remember the times when you have to get out of the house just to pay your bills? Once came the computers, you needed to be at home to pay your bills. Now, with smart phones, you can even skip being at home and have more time for something else.

Your bank’s smart phone app can pay bills for you. This means you authorize utilities and credit card companies to withdraw money from your accounts once it’s time to pay them.

Let me tell you, once we did this, my wife had more time to take care of herself. For me, that’s important because she too also works hard in the home. She can spend most of her free days pampering herself or reading a book or going out with friends.

It’s a mobile wallet

We’re glad that a couple of stores around us now accept mobile payments. still we pay with plastic credit card, as we do not have Google wallet, it’s not supported on our AT&T phones yet.

I see people waving their phone at the checkout line, they don’t need to bring credit cards or cash. We just hope that iPhone should be enabled for making mobile payments and more stores will be open to mobile payments. Check out this review of Google Wallet  for more.

We can shop through online coupons

Ever since online coupons became available, we hardly buy dailies or magazines anymore. And since smart phones can connect us to the Internet, all we need to do is to present the codes to the store, and we can already enjoy our discounts. It’s so easy, really.

Coupon Sherpa has now become a part of our shopping trip. We always score over other shopper with the help of Coupon Sherpa. Each time I used the coupon sherpa app, it invariable resulted in a question “what’s that?” from fellow shoppers. Once an old lady even wrote down the app name for passing on to her daughter.

There are already a lot of plans to choose from

There are a couple of smart phone plans that are very practical and affordable. Moreover, we could tie in several phones in one plan. For example, my wife and I share the same family plan. This helps us financially since we only get to pay one bill every month. Further, we can both monitor our use. Prepaid-wise, text and call charges have decreased considerably over the years.

You can compare prices

A few weeks ago, I downloaded a new app called Google Shopper. What it does is to compare prices between offline and online stores just to let you know which provides you a much better deal for the same product, and it’s so convenient to use. Just place your phone near the bar code, scan it with your camera, and open the app. It immediately searches for similar or even exact items and compare prices.

You can save money on calls

In fact, you can choose not to spend anything on calls, even if the person you’re talking to is several miles away. You can definitely forget about long-distance or roaming charges, which can sometimes be so absurd. As long as you’re connected through Wi-Fi, you can already use Skype or Google Video Chat. To top it off, Google Voice gives you a free phone number and text messages, so you also don’t spend any money on texts.

We don’t use GPS

We have three options on our phone, a free app from MapQuest which is in every way better voice and graphic navigation system compared to Garmin or TomTom we once had. As a back up we have Google’s voice less navigation system and AT&T Navigator (not free) which can be activated anytime whenever we need it to be.

So If you have a smart phone, you can forget about buying a GPS navigation system or using a car with an inbuilt GPS in it. Buy a phone holder and fit your smart phone in it. you’ll achieve the same purpose.

Not into smart phones yet? If you’re worried about the cost, don’t. A lot of them are already very affordable, and you don’t need to have an iPhone just to own a smart phone.

Welcome to the Facebook IPO edition of Yakezie Carnival. If a biggest IPO of the history is just a few days away how does the financial blogging community sit silent? Let’s discuss the IPO briefly.

In order to surpass Industrial and Commercial bank of China, Facebook needs to sell only 500 million share at $45 per share to become the biggest IPO of the history. I strongly feel this should be a cake walk.

Now let’s come to the pure mathematics, as per S -1 filing, Facebook receives 850 million monthly visitors and the consensus is towards a valuation of $100 billion for the company. Thus, roughly each visitor is valued at $118. That means with almost 20,000 monthly visitors I can dream of becoming a millionaire post OCAAT IPO!

All right, jokes apart, if you’re like me, you’ll never get a chance to participate in the IPO. You’ll have to buy from open market following listing of Facebook (FB – symbol). Let’s see what happened to the last mega social media IPO of LinkedIn.

LNKD opened at $83 on NYSE, up 84% from its IPO price of $45. The stock quickly spiked to $90 and climbed as high as $122.70 before closing at $94.25, up 109% from where it started the session.

Looks Like whoever will get the FB shares in IPO would multiply their money for sure, unfortunately common people would only have to buy from the stock market. That’s not bad either considering all top-tier tech companies (Google, Amazon, eBay and LinkedIn) are valued a few times their IPO price even today.

Honest confession – I will have a limit order set up for the first day, It’s purely speculative play but worth taking risk, there’s not many internet companies of the size and stature of Facebook out there.

eemusings @ Musings of an Abstract Aucklander writes Journalism lessons for all of us – How to think like a journalist to get ahead in your own life.

Jon Rhodes @ Affiliate Tips writes How To Get Loads Of Targeted Facebook Friends – This shows you how to get loads of Facebook friends that are actually interested in what you have to say.

Dr. Dean @ writes Food Fraud: What The Heck Is That? – Food accounts for 30% of most budgets. With the increasing number of imported foods that make it to the grocery shelves and our tables, food substitutions and dilutions are on the rise. Get the facts.

Timothy @ Wealth Artisan writes Budgeting Tools – Budgeting may be one of the hardest things that you have to do, but we have a list of tools to help you budget successfully.

KT @ Personal Finance Journey writes Do You Take an Honest Look at How You Spend Your Money? – When you see your friends buying nice things such as a new car or a second home, do you automatically think that they have gone deep into debt for the purchase or do you secretly envy them and think they must have come into some money? Do you think, some people have all the luck

John @ Married (with Debt) writes Addicted to Debt – We don’t really think of debt as an addiction. It’s not as though you have a burning desire to get debt if you don’t have it. You don’t hear about the car owner who recently made their last payment and started to crave making those monthly payments again.

PPlan @ Provident Plan writes Seven Deadly Sins and how they lead to Financial Disaster – Learn how the seven deadly sins offer financial guidance.

Amanda L Grossman @ Frugal Confessions writes Sifting Through Energy Company Offers in a World of Deregulation: Part 1 – Two weeks ago while shopping for electricity I gave up. By “giving up”, I mean that after finding out I would be charged a $9.9

Ashley @ Money Talks Coaching writes We Maxed Out Our Roths! – We are having a good April! Earlier this week I revealed that we refinanced our house.

101 Centavos @ 101 Centavos writes Using Cattle Panels to Support Tomato Plants – Staking up and supporting tomato plants has got to be one of the more time-consuming pastimes of the home gardener, and there’s plenty of ways to do it.

Eddie @ Finance Fox writes I Filed My Taxes, I’m Owing and I’m OK With That! – This weekend I got around to completing my taxes, and without much surprise I’m owning the government $1,800 in taxes.

Maria @ The Money Principle writes Money for all seasons II: income, spending and age profiles and received wisdom – In brief, I see the expectations of pitfalls in different -seasons- are the following.

MMD @ MyMoneyDesign writes The Value of What You Know – Is it possible that are an expert about something that may be worth something to someone else? Perhaps your hobby or knowledge could lead to something that someone else would pay big bucks for. Let’s look at a few examples.

Aloysa @ My Broken Coin writes Curb Your Spending with Pinterest – Yes, you’ve read it right and no, I have not lost my mind. I believe that you can curb your spending with Pinterest. If you’ve been reading this blog for some time now, you know then that I am a shopper and a spender.

Corey @ 20s Finances writes Why Cars are Destroying Our Society – What kind of car do you drive? Are one of those people that worries about breaking down on the side of the road because your car is older than most high schoolers? Or are you someone who loves the smell of a new car. We all know that smell – it’s not just a sign of its recent production date, but is also about comfort, security, and assurances (aka warranties).

TRL @ The Retired Landlord writes Real Estate Investing Has Risks – Investing in real estate has its risks and expenses. Find out what you can do to prevent a negative cash flow.

MR @ Money Reasons writes Learning Versus Watching TV As Entertainment – Learning instead of Watching TV can be very rewarding! Why not try to learn something simple and quick and see if you find it rewarding or not?

Daisy @ Add Vodka writes Letting Go Of Ideals – I find that in the PF blogosphere, there is a lot of intertwining with self improvement blogs and I think that by tracking our spending, budgeting, investing, and working toward financial goals leaks into other parts of our lives as well.

A Blinkin @ Funancials writes It’s The Economy, Stupid! – With the Presidential election in the U.S. beginning to heat up, it is natural to forget about elections elsewhere in the world. But before our elections start to cause volatility in the Fall, a round of elections in Europe in May could have a very meaningful impact on the marketplace.

Ryan @ Early Retirement Investments writes Understand and Avoiding Student Loan Debt at Retirement Age – Understand and Avoiding Student Loan Debt at Retirement Age and Why this is a great idea.

PITR @ Passive Income To Retire writes The Power of Re-Investing Profit – Find out why re-investing profits is advantageous to establishing a sustainable business model.

Jeremy Waller @ Personal Finance Whiz writes How to Wreck Your Car, Buy a New Car, Refinance Your Mortgage and Pay off A Credit Card at The Same Time – What a crazy month it has been. I feel like I’ve gone through a financial blender. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my beloved Jeep was totaled. I was rear-ended by someone going 60 mph. My car didn’t stand a chance. State Farm estimated it would cost $10,132.95 to repair. But, the Jeep was This post was originally posted to Personal Finance Whiz.

Lorillia B. Phillips @ yourmoneymentor writes Are you a Social Group Buyer or Provider? – This post discussing online coupon sites, like Groupon, Living Social etc.

Evan @ My Journey to Millions writes An Update on the Selling of Our Home and Buying a New Home – I recently mentioned that our house was on the market, so I figured I would put an update as to what was going on.

Daniel @ Sweating the Big Stuff writes Things I’d Buy If I Were Rich – It’s fun to daydream about what we’d do with more money than we could ever need. Here’s my list of items I’d like to have if I were in that situation.

Little House @ Little House in the Valley writes Super Duper Simple Book on Money – Alan Akina wants to educate people about finances in a way that makes sense to everyone, not just mathematical geniuses that can calculate the compound interest formula without a calculator. So he’s created an e-book about money that anyone can follow, it’s called Super Duper Simple Book on Money. He breaks down personal finance into five basic principles:

Jeremy @ Modest Money writes Importance Of Diversifying Online Business – In the blink of an eye, your online business can get turned on its head. It is incredibly important that you diversify both your traffic sources and income streams.

Jeffrey @ Money Spruce writes Hitting a Financial Knowledge Peak (and What Really Matters) – I’ve spent the past 2 years+ absorbing all the personal finance knowledge that I possibly can. Books, blogs, webinars, conferences, and more – I’ve read a ton on a wide range of topics. I don’t know everything, but I still feel like I’ve hit a knowledge peak.

Kyle @ The Penny Hoarder writes How to Make $24/Hour Teaching English Classes Online – If you know how to speak a language, you qualify for this freelance job. There’s a world full of people that are trying to learn how to speak English.

Suba @ Broke Professionals writes How Playing Monopoly Can Improve Your Financial Knowledge – How Playing Monopoly Can Improve Your Financial Knowledge is a post from: Broke Professionals if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed. If you haven’t played Monopoly before, you should download it to your phone or buy the board game. Don’t worry, there’s not much difference.

Steve @ Money Infant writes 5 Smart Things to do With Your Money – The following was written as a guest post for MI: Learning to make your money work for you is a good idea for anyone who has suffered from the economy in

Lance @ http://www.moneylifeandmore.com writes Five Money Milestones by Age 30 (More Like Your First Real Job) – While browsing the web I came across this video the other day “Five Money Milestones by Age 30″. They suggest the five following milestones: Build an Emergency Fund (Six Months of Expenses) Start Planning for Retirement Manage Your Debt Load Set a Monthly Budget and Stick to It Set Yourself Up for Your Future – Start Saving Now!

Hank @ Money Q&A writes Which Is First: Paying Off Your Debt Or Investing For Retirement? – Should you pay off debt, or should they start a retirement account first? This is a question that has plagued experts forever.

SFB @ Simple Finance Blog writes Are Mortgage Points Worth It? – Breaking down the numbers to see if mortgage points to secure a lower interest rate on your home loan is really worth it.

Jen @ Master the Art of Saving writes I Hate Housecleaning…But I Love Earning Opportunities – I’m not one of those people who enjoy cleaning; I absolutely hate housecleaning. No way that sticking to my routine was worth passing up an earning opportunity.

Shaun @ Smart Family Finance writes Ways Your Family Can Invest In Gold – As many world economies continue to stagnate in today’s weak global economy. Investors are looking to broaden their portfolio horizons and gold is one investment that is popular.

Luke @ Learn Bonds writes 101 Free Resources for Bond Investors – A list of all the best free resources from around the web for bond investors. Blogs, Education, News, Bond Market Data sources and more.

Sustainable PF @ Sustainable Personal Finance writes Recession Gardening to Save Money – I recently discovered a practice that I’d never heard of before – recession gardening.

Jon the Saver @ Free Money Wisdom writes Do Your Kids a Favor and Open a 529 Plan – Did you you can benefit from a 529 college savings plan if you open one? you can avoid taxes and shelter your money for future expenses!

Kevin @ Thousandaire writes How to Save Money on Vacation – Use frequent flyer miles, buy your hotel from groupon, and eat cheap foods if you want to save money on your vacation.

Earth and Money @ Earth and Money writes Planning a Green Frugal Wedding – Venue – When it comes to the venue, you can be both green and frugal without seriously defying standard wedding traditions.

Wayne @ Young Family Finance writes Buying the Best Car for Your Money – Buying the best car for your money involves considering quality in addition to the sticker price. Find out if you are getting the best car.

Ted Jenkin @ Your Smart Money Moves writes How Much Do I Give For A Wedding Gift? – Your college roommate or long time childhood friend invites you to their wedding. Or better yet, you’ve got a big family and your second cousin Joe is getting married and last time you saw him was two years ago at the family reunion. Now you have got to spend money to get an airline ticket, book a hotel room, and possibly buy a new dress or suit for the upcoming wedding this summer. It dawns on you that now you’ve got to figure out how much is the right amount to give for a wedding gi

FG @ Financial God writes Five Tips on How to Protect Yourself from Getting Financially Destroyed – 1. Invest money in precious metals. Even the gold pessimist Jon Nadler recommends that it is wise to store about 10% of your net assets in the form of physical, allocated gold. This means gold you hold in direct physical possession, or in vaults overseas.

YFS @ Your Finances Simplified writes Top 11 Reasons You Should Use Yodlee MoneyCenter –   You should keep track of your finances. It is as easy as that. Whether you decide to use a pen and paper, a spreadsheet, or an online account aggregator, you should have an idea of how much you are spending and on what.

Jason @ Work Save Live writes How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind – I hope you enjoy the 4th post of my ‘Understanding Retirement Planning & Investing’ series! If you’ve missed the first three posts be sure to check them out! Everything You Need to Know About a Roth IRA & Why to Start One.

Debt Guru @ Debt Free Blog writes Paying Off Debt is More than Numbers – Find out why paying off debt is more than just numbers. Many social and mental influences come into play with your finances.

Steven Zussino @ Grocery Alerts Canada writes How To Save On Pet Supplies – We aregoing to share some shopping tips to help you save on pet supplies. Our main focus would be on supplies for dogs and cats, with food costs being the particular expense that we are trying to reduce.

Miss T. @ Prairie Eco Thrifter writes The 5 Dimensions of a Meaningful Life – Many people chase monetary wealth, possessions and success to try and give their lives meaning. The accumulation of ‘things’ may bring happiness and satisfaction for a while but this feeling tends to be only fleeting. Much has been written on this subject and many authors agree that there are five dimensions that make up a meaningful life. When these become an integral part of life, we will start to experience more happiness and satisfaction than ever before.

Don @ MoneySmartGuides writes Is Tipping Out of Control? – Growing up, I would see my parents tip the waiter or waitress at the restaurant where we ate. I would see my Dad tip the barber for cutting our hair. Other than that, there wasn’t much tipping done.

krantcents @ KrantCents writes The 3 N’s of Success – The 3 N’s of Success is the fourteenth in a series of articles to help you reach your goal.

Crystal @ Budgeting in the Fun Stuff writes Build a Home Series: The Waiting Sucks – Mr. BFS and I have been waiting to hear back about pricing on a bunch of options for our new house, but it takes forever to get information!

Tushar @ Start Investing Money writes Can Fun Money Fit into a Smart Investing Plan? – This Post was Originally published at Can Fun Money Fit into a Smart Investing Plan? on Start Investing Money

greywater @ GreyWater Systems Use Reuse Recycling System Filtration Tank Treatment-UltraGTS Australia writes GreyWater Systems Use Reuse Recycling System Filtration Tank Treatment-UltraGTS Australia – UltraGTS Modern Treatment of GreyWater GreyWater Systems Grey Water Systems Grey Water System GreyWater System Grey Water Reuse Grey Water Tank Grey Water Filtration Grey Water Reuse Use Recycling Sysytems Grey Water.

PK @ Don’t Quit Your Day Job… writes What Kind of Investor Are You? – The article fits the title! Read on for a way to break down the type of investor you are, and fit your qualities to an investing style.

Sean @ One Smart Dollar writes Rent, Don’t Buy – Do you have a home project that needs to get done, but a $500 tool is standing in your way? Save your monday and don’t buy it, just rent.

Teacher Man @ My University Money writes We Are Officially Media Moguls – Hey man, you want to buy a blog” “Can we do that?” “Yah, but our girlfriends will kill us…” And just like that, we began the process that ultimately led to us buying a blog that is pretty cool by any metric (maybe even as cool as this one) – Young and Thrifty.

Young @ Young And Thrifty writes Time to Take a Step Back – About three years ago, I had a dream of starting a personal finance blog. My family and my boyfriend laughed at my lofty idea. I thought- I’ll show them! I can be successful if I work hard at it. It was my dream to make it successful and show the world that a female voice could swing with the big boys in the personal finance blog realm (woot!).

Brent Pittman @ On Target Coaching writes A Free Ride to Medical School – You can attend medical school without incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars are debt. Ways you can get a free ride to medical school

Van Beek @ Stock Trend Investing writes Investing in Google Stock – Find out what you should actually do before making the decision to invest a part of your savings in Google stock.

Matt @ Living in Financial Excellence writes April Financial Literacy Month: April 27–Moving Costs – Yay!! It’s my turn to do a video for Financial Literacy Month! Since I’m in the middle of moving from Wisconsin to Iowa, I thought it would be timely to share how we looked at a few of the financial issues we’re experiencing during the move.

Jason @ Live Real, Now writes Thug-cenomics – I’m considering launching a basic economics class for thugs and street rats. I want to teach them how to do a risk assessment by comparing the level of loot to the possible outcomes of getting caught.

Beating Broke @ Beating Broke writes I Quit My Job: Back to Work – If you’ve been following the I Quit My Job series, you’ll know that I quit my full-time job back in November 2011 and have been working a part-time job and running my websites ever since. With any journey that entails so much change, things are always changing. Several weeks ago, I made the decision that it was about time to start looking for a new full time job.

SB @ Finance Product Reviews writes Best 3 Credit Cards For Travel Rewards in 2012 – We searched all travel rewards cards, analyzed their features and then listed the top three in 2012 based on the research. These are the top 3 leading travel rewards cards in USA in 2012

Raj @ eMoneyLog writes The Basics of Money Management – Save, Invest and Repeat – The article covers the basics of money management – saving, investing and repeating the process. The emphasis is on repeating as many people save and invest initially but do not repeat and do not accumulate wealth.

Paul Vachon @ The Frugal Toad writes The Effect of FICO Credit Scores on Wealth Creation – We all know that a good credit score can result in a better interest rate on loans but you may be surprised to learn that a bad credit score can affect you in ways you might not have thought about. In addition to paying higher interest rates, a poor credit score can result in higher insurance premiums, denial for employment, or having to pay a security deposit when leasing an apartment or opening a utility account.

Roshawn Watson @ writes 10 Reasons To Seek Abundance – Sometimes it seems like the only reason people seek abundance is to lavish themselves with every luxury imaginable. Overall, I find that to be a very narrow and limiting perspective of abundance. Here are 10 reasons to seek abundance.

Kay Lynn @ Bucksome Boomer writes Lessons I Hope to Teach My Son – My son is only seven, but I hope to teach him quite a bit about finances, specifically, those things I never learned.

Robert @ My Multiple Incomes writes My Monthly Income Stream Report – April 2012 – The biggest thing I learned this month is to STOP paying attention to what Google is doing and focus on my content and what I can control.

Michelle @ Making Sense of Cents writes Life’s Little Splurges – There are a lot of things that I spend my money on that I guess I could live without, but I really enjoy having them (and I don’t mind spending money on them). I’m sure we all have specific items or events that we don’t mind spending money on. What are yours?

Glen Craig @ Free From Broke writes The Best Airline Miles Credit Cards – Finding the best airline miles credit card can net you free flights, free car rentals and hotels, upgrades, free bag checking, priority boarding, and more! Look through our list of the best airline miles credit cards and see which is best for you.

Philip @ PT Money Personal Finance writes My Accountant Reviews QuickBooks Online vs Desktop – Since I don’t know as much about how QuickBooks Online compares to the desktop version, I asked my accountant to share his opinion on the two based on his experience.

Sicorra @ Tackling Our Debt writes Let’s Talk Money – The Series – With Erika at From Shopping to Saving – Please check out this week’s Let’s Talk Money interview with Erika from the very popular blog known as From Shopping to Saving.

Kraig @ Young, Cheap Living writes How to Handle Life When it Attempts to Drive You Nuts – I’ve been through more than my fair share of drama and hard times in my short life so far. On the positive side, I’ve learned a lot. It has also motivated me to not let it or any future road blocks stop me from pressing forward with hope and inspiration.

J.P. @ Novel Investor writes Savings And Debt Debate: Where Should The Money Go? – The savings and debt debate has been ongoing since the first loan was created. With only so much income to spread around, a big decision must be made. Do you use any extra money to pay off debt or add it to savings?

That’s the end of this edition, don’t forget to submit your entries for next yakezie carnival, which is to be hosted by Well Heeled Blog. 

Welcome readers to April 2012 blog statistics.  Readership and following continue to increase. I am thankful to you all for your constant  encouragement and love towards OCAAT. Let’s begin.

Traffic update for One Cent at a Time

In Terms of traffic April was OCAAT’s biggest month in its existence, surpassing March traffic by more than 20% in terms of page views. In absolute number, traffic increased by over 8000 page views, this growth is mainly due to the guest post I published on GRS blog.

The other notable updates related to traffic are

1. Search traffic was also highest ever in April with 10,246 searches ended up at OCAAT. The biggest was Google, followed by Bing and Yahoo. (as per WordPress stat)

2. Alexa rank stayed below 50k for two consecutive months, though I am noticing number of comments going down. readers, please do comment and take part in interesting discussions.

3. Outbound clicks increased by more than 40% in April compared to March. Though it reflects more traffic departure but, I would take it positively. This should encourage quality guest posts at OCAAT from other bloggers and more comments from commenters as chances of getting referral visits from OCAAT has increased significantly.

4. Number of blog RSS subscribers also went up drastically. If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to my RSS feed or email.

Traffic Data For April 2012

Total Visits – 19,496 ( almost 15% improvement over last month)
Total Unique Visitor – 16,358 
Page Views – 32,685 (more than 25% improvement, mostly due to guest post at Get Rich Slowly)
Pages per visit – 1.68 
Average Time on Site – 1:50 minutes 
Bounce Rate – 75.29% ( a 5% point improvement, could be because of changing related post plugin from linkwithin to nrelete)
New Visits – 80.62% (amazingly same as last month, even to the decimal point!)

April top 10 Traffic sources were as follows

1. Get Rich Slowly – 1750 visits
2. Reddit – 868 visits (living under $10,000 a year was on Reddit personal finance home page for more than 24 hrs)
3. Google – 578 visits (including Google reader, Gmail and Google plus)
4. Free Money Finance – 414 visits  (living under $10,000 went to the championship round of a blog writing contest)
5. Yakezie – 155 visits
6. Twitter – 129 visits (Including t.co and Hootsuite)
7. Budgets are Sexy – 113 visits
8. Financial Samurai – 105 visits
9. Facebook – 89 visits 
10. Fox Business – 82 visits

Interesting Facts About this Blog

Some Facts about One cent at a Time that I never told before

1. OCAAT was created on a Sunday evening when I was terribly bored with no work to do other wise.

2. Comments: Till date OCAAT has received 4,234 comments including 40% comments from yours truly alone while replying to reader comments. Not a bad achievement at all, isn’t it?

3. Readership base: India has the highest readership base for OCAAT after USA and Canada.

4. Blog Cost: OCAAT was created in less than $100 start-up investment including hosting and domain registration. Till date I have spent less than $300 on this blog. Everything including design and Logo is self-made/Self-coded and self-damaged.

5. Highest traffic Day: April 1st 2012 with 3,827 page views, second highest traffic day is the following day, April 2nd.

6. No. of plugins: OCAAT currently runs on only 20 plugins. Rest of the changes are custom-made without the help of a plugin to do the job. Example, the Feed burner banner and email capture on side bar are custom code, not plugins.

7. Top three most viewed articles of all time

1. Living Well on Less Than $10,000 a Year
2. What is Credit Sesame, Why should you opt out
3. Financial Freedom with 50 Money Rules

Carnival Inclusion

I am thankful to the gracious carnival hosts who published my articles last week.

Carnival of Money pros at Money Cone.
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie at Young and Thrifty.
Carnival of Financial Planning at Financial Excellence.
Festival of Frugality at This That and MBA.
Top Personal Finance Post of the Week at Personal Finance Whiz
Carnival of Retirement at Young Cheap Living.
Financial Simplicity carnival at Money Smart Guide.
Yakezie carnival at Frugal Toad.
Financial carnival of Young Adult at 20′s Finances.

If you have hosted a carnival last week, where I was included and not linked above, please email me – I would love to add your link.

1)   Taking children to school and picking up

Seriously my friend’s wife does this. She teaches at an elementary school and on her way she picks up kids in her mini van. She earns $5 one way per child.

You will have to drop students to school, and after school you will have to drop them at their homes. You need to be very particular about time. You have to map out your route covering all the homes which reaches school in shortest route possible. You’ll need to be arriving each home to pick up on-time, every day.

Like everything else, this method also requires you to have discipline and efficiency at work. You may lose your customers for the lack of discipline. No body wants their kid to be at school late. And it costly proposition for parents if their kid stays at school afterwards for you being late at picking them up from school.

2)   Use it for a taxi service

You can start taxi service using your car. (or a delivery service). You’ll need a special license for that though.  your driver’s license you not do.

Taxi service pays well. Just keeping Taxi board on a top of your car will convert your car into taxi, no further modification is needed to convert your car into a taxi. If you already have a license then you should complete further legal procedures before starting taxi service.

if you happen to live in an area which attracts tourist you can be a week-end tourist guide, I know one such person in Miami, he works as contractor in our company. He makes good money over the weekends showing tourists the Miami attractions.

3)    Do paid advertising

In this way you will have to do advertising of various products or companies. You will have to put posters of that company on your car. The most preferred position to place posters in a car is on a rare window of a car which is visible to others on road most of the time compared to any other place on your car.

So by placing a poster on rare window of car will show ads to people. Many companies know that this kind of advertising is one of the best ways to reach to people and hence they give good money for doing such advertising.

4)    Deliver pizzas

This may require your time as well, unless you have someone at home who can do it for you. Many pizza stores hire people who can deliver pizzas. Search for nearby pizza stores and apply for off hour delivery.

Usually this sector has year-round demand for people with vehicles. If you have time and a car you can earn $10 -$20 per hour by delivering Pizza, including tips. Watch out “now hiring” stores signs.

5)   Rent-out your car

You can give your car on rent, through an agency like GetAround or through personal channel. This is a comfortable way, because you will not need to pay attention round the clock, kind of passive income stream it looks like. Average rental cost is usually from $3 to $15 per hour at Getaround.

The Get Around service is a registry of providers and renters. You can list your car for someone to rent it out on days you have no use for the car, earning you some easy money. you can also arrange for a driver and provide a chauffeur driven service to wealthy travelers.

6) Offer Driving lessons

Get a permit and start driving lessons. this again can be your week-end fun activity which could earn you extra money. This can be a sustainable business if you show results. Be a careful and safe teacher.

I would have turned in to a weekend instructor had I not have this blog. Our 2002 Hyundai Elantra can be a perfect fit for turning it in to a car with two brakes on both front sides. Now that we almost never use it.

Which option you want to choose readers? Not only car, your parking space can also earn you money, to know about using parking space to earn money read Save money on parking cost.

So far I have only though a car as an instrument which lose value over the time. A car is needed only for personal comfort. Now I know useful ways my car be used when I am sitting at home or working in my cubicle.

Readers, do you make your car work for money? Or, like mine, your car is just another money draining machine?