The Best of Finance Blogosphere: New Blog Discovery Edition

While I was randomly browsing this week, I came across a new blog (new for me; via Clever Dude) which I just had to highlight in this Best of Finance Blogosphere edition. The blog is called The Wastrel Show and has the tag line Confessions of a Middle Aged Spendthrift. I must admit that, I almost dismissed the blog and moved on because of that tag line. But the article that landed me there – Debt Free Is A Lonely Road - painted a very different picture. In this article Boomie (the author) talks about how her choice to stay debt free and live a simple life has put her and her spouse at odds with some of the family and friends, but helped them amass a net worth of a million dollars. I was quite intrigued by the dichotomy of the flittery tagline and the sensibility of the post. As I wandered around the other recent posts, I found this dichotomy repeating itself - ‘Boomie’ seems like a interestingly complicated person – firmly grounded in reality but with a tendency towards surrealism; straight and to-the-point at times and intentionally vague at others. Here are a couple of interesting posts to get you started into her interesting world -

• How I Am Preparing For The Proposed Recession (A very practical post firmly grounded in reality).


• If Money Were Human (Exactly the opposite, but no less interesting!).

Now onto some other articles that caught my attention –

• Flexo at Consumerism Commentary is giving away Quicken 2008. I know I am diminishing my chances of winning by writing about it here and having you compete with me for it, but Flexo promises he has four more copies to giveaway – so what the heck, I might as well share the information and build up some good karma :)


• While we are on the topic of winning things, if you plan to participate in the $10K student blogging scholarship contest (I wrote about it here), then you should check out this wonderful collection of blogging resources by Pinyo at Moolanomy. Actually, even if you are not participating in the scholarship contest, you should check out the resources and book mark it for handy reference.


• MBH at Mighty Bargain Hunter has a list of prudent things to do with small windfalls - a good reminder for all of us to not blow away the little bits of found money.


• J.D. at Get Rich Slowly shares his experience of firing an employee. While an experience like this can be frustrating for both the employer and the employee, I really like the way J.D handled it.


• Sun at The Sun’s Financial Diary has an interesting article about investing in global REIT ETF’s - if you are looking to diversify your portfolio, you might want to check out this post for a not-so-commonly-discussed option.


• While we are on the topic of investing, check out
  this visual guide to morning start mutual fund comparison tool by Jeremy at GenX Finance. A really nice primer.


• Patrich at Cash Money Life has got himself into a nice little battle about credit card usage and here is a post where he discusses 10 reasons credit cards are good. I am with Patrick on this one, and just recently did another 0% balance transfer bringing the total to $55K that is earning a nice little interest at the rate of 5% for me. What’s not to like about free money?

That’s it from me for this weekend edition. Hope you all have a good break spending time with family and friends and relaxing!

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