Money Walks

The typical “American Dream” is owning your own home, however, if you’re not able to swing it financially, it could end up being your worst nightmare. Some questions, you might want to ask yourself :

• How much are you gonna save up for a down payment and closing costs?
• How do you know how high a mortgage you will qualify for?
• How much can you really afford based on your lifestyle?
• How much will you really save in taxes?

The key point here is home ownership is not for everyone and there is nothing wrong with that. If your lifestyle requires you to change jobs often and move or get transferred every year or so then it makes perfect sense not to buy. Typically, it takes 4-6 years to recoup the money you pay in up-front costs and the cost and fees.

You may also be happier renting if you’re not comfortable with performing your own repairs and maintenance and you can’t afford to hire someone else to do it for you. There are plenty of people who enjoys the benefits from living in apartments, benefits such as like swimming pools, recreational features and the flexibility of being able to move without too much trouble. You want to think about whats important to you, there is nothing wrong with renting if it suits your lifestyle.

For those who do want to own a home, you want to make sure to avoid being house poor. You don’t want to put your self in a situation where you have such high house payments that your a prisoner to your own house and cant afford much of anything else. You may think at first that buying your dream house is worth the sacrifice but years of doing without the enjoyment of vacations, new furniture, new cars, eating out and just other simple life pleasures can make your dream house into your worst nightmare. Becoming house poor can also affect your relationship with your spouse or partner.

The general rule of thumb you want to stick to is to buy a house that costs less than two and a half times your income. For example, if you and your spouse make $100,000 together, then you want to try to keep your home price under $250,000.

Welcome to the 59th edition of the Carnival of Money Stories, a carnival where we share personal experiences with money. I enjoyed reading all the article submissions and have selected 16 articles in this edition. You can learn more about the Carnival of Money Stories at their home Page here. If your article was not included in this edition it probably did not have a personal story relating to money. Check out this weeks article submissions and make your financial journey smoother by learning from experiences and mistakes from others.

Front page stories (Editors Picks)

Brip Blap presents Best Financial Move in College

I applied to Harvard on a whim, … I started the application, handwritten, in black ink and when that pen died I finished in blue ink. I did it because one of my friends told me there was no way I could get in, and I took the bet.

Living the Cheap Life presents When Bank Account Bonuses Come Back to Bite You

The thing is, sometimes the banks get really tricky with the requirements. Sometimes there are obscure terms and conditions in tiny print …the banks play dirty.

Frugal Dad presents A Personal Finance Wakeup Call

So there I was at the McDonald’s drive-thru with a dead check card, an over-the-limit credit card, an empty wallet and exactly fifteen cents in the change holder in my truck.

Dont Feed the Alligators presents An Ounce of Prevention Saves Tons of Burning Car

“HEY!!! Your car is on fire!” He turned and smiled and kept walking. “HEY!!!” I yelled again, “YOUR CAR IS ON FIRE!”

Money & Fitness Blog presents My Mom Continues to Help Me Financially and She Shouldn’t Be

I have told my mother time and time again that all I want is a card but she continues to send money

Other Fantastic stories:

My Money Adventures presents Y’s Story: Part 2

My ex is a sleazebag. He grew up in a middle-class home with a middle-class mom and a middle-class dad…

The Q Family Adventure presents Handyman in a Making…

This week project is the flower pencil holder…

Finance Gets Personal presents I’ve Never Been So Happy About Not Taking a Week’s Vacation

…we’re taking a vacation in our own city, and our house will be the hotel

Fire Finance presents Beware - Citi Cash Returns Card Charges Hefty Over the Credit Limit Fees

…keep a tab of our credit card’s transactions via any system that works

Money Blue Book presents “Parking Wars” Reinforces Why I Dislike Tow Truck Drivers

The livelihood of tow truck drivers is based on their ability to successfully hide in the bushes with their getaway vehicles and lie in wait for hapless drivers to make a parking mistake or slip up

I’ve Paid for this Twice Already… presents One Person’s Coupon Trash Ends Up My Treasure

Not being one to turn down a coupon, I sorted through them, and found that most of them were for things we don’t buy or use.

The Financial Blogger presents My Smith Manoeuvre - April Update

In fact, it is more like gambling than investing!

My Daily Dollar presents Why Goals are Awesome

The great thing about the blog is that it’s so public. At first, it’s scary to put yourself out there, but then you realize that you have all these wonderful readers helping you along

Lazy Man and Money presents The Power of the Dream

I haven’t felt like this since college. A good friend and I would stay up all night dreaming about business plans

Dough Roller presents How to Turn Mistakes into Opportunities

The fact is that some of our best successes are born out of mistakes. I’ve made many mistakes with The Dough Roller, and most of them have allowed me greater success down the road

Just Shoot Me Now presents How I saved $10 in Gas

“Honey, do you really want me to come be with you?… I’d rather not waste the gas.”

Thats it for this weeks edition of the Carnival of Money Stories. You can submit your money stories using this form here. If you are interested in hosting a future edition of the Carnival of Money Stories please go to the carnival home page under hosting.

A budget is really nothing but a spending plan.

You may find yourself struggling with an unrealistic plan to save tons of money when what you really need to do is spend more wisely. If you think that you can meet your financial goals without some sort of a spending plan, you will find yourself very disappointed. Regardless of whether you make a hundred dollars a week or a million, the key ingredient to successfully making your money work for you is to create your spending plan.

The problem is that many people spend more money than they make and they don’t realize they’re spending too much until its too late and they’re deeply in debt. What you want to do is to decide in advance how to put your money to use instead of letting it happen accidentally. When you spend without some sort of a spending plan, you are not in total control of your money. In other words, your money is in control of you.

The driving force to keeping a spending plan, or budgeting, is all in the attitude. You want to think of budgeting as eating right rather than being on a diet. You eat what you want in moderate amounts, you don’t binge, you don’t deprive yourself, and yet you end up better off. The word budget, for some, creates images of sacrifice, penny pinching, and doing without the extra. I want to say that 90% of budgeting is mental, so if you find yourself overwhelmed when you hear the word budgeting, then you want to replace the negative image with a positive one.

Remember, the key ingredient to successful budgeting is a positive attitude.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Welcome to the 40th edition of the Carnival of Money Stories, the one year anniversary edition. To be exact, our first edition was last year on Christmas day, so the carnival is exactly one year and one week old.

I am really glad that it has made it this far, many great thanks to all the hosts and submitters for all their hard work and efforts. I want to take the time to recognize all the hosts that has contributed this past year including with all the posts and submissions from each carnival. Here is a recap of all the carnivals from the previous year, December 2006 - December 2007.

1. Moneywalks on 12/25/06
2. Moneywalks on 01/08/07
3. Save Money on 01/22/07
4. BinaryDollar on 02/05/07
5. DigeratiLife on 02/19/07
6. Money,Matter and Musing on 03/05/07
7. WiseBread on 03/19/07
8. MoneySmartLife on 04/02/07
9. FireFinance on 04/16/07
10. Young and Broke on 04/30/07
11. Sun’s Financial Diary on 05/14/07
12. Getting Green on 06/04/07
13. Money Walks on 06/11/07
14. The Frugal Law Student on 06/18/07
15. Retire Young and Wealthy on 06/25/07
16. My New Choice on 07/02/07
17. A Penny Saved on 07/10/07
18. Sushi Money on 07/16/07
19. Dough Roller on 07/31/07
20. Bryan C. Fleming on 08/07/07
21. Ask Mr. Credit Card on 08/14/07
22. Carnival of Money Stories on 08/21/07
23. Fire Finance on 08/28/07
24. Enough Wealth on 09/04/07
25. Tight Fisted Miser on 09/11/07
26. Paid Twice on 09/18/07
27. Money For Military on 09/25/07
28. Building An Empire on 10/02/07
29. Money Monk on 10/09/07
30. Free Money Finance on 10/16/07
31. Stop the Ride! on 10/23/07
32. Bag Lady on 10/30/07
33. Moolanomy on 11/06/07
34. Being Frugal on 11/13/07
35. Living off Dividends on 11/20/07
36. The Dividend Guy on 11/27/07
37. Loonies and Sense on 12/04/07
38. Cash Money Life on 12/11/07
39. Time to Budget on 12/18/07
40. Here on …today!

…and finally on to our 40th edition of The Carnival of Money Stories. Great selection of stories here so please take your time to look over these articles. Theses are in order from the time it was submitted. Enjoy!

1. My Dollar Plan
2. Millionaire Neumes
3. Credit Withdrawl
4. Me Vs. Debt
5. Gather Little by Little
6. The Investors Journal
7. Free Money Finance
8. The Financial Blogger
9. Chief Family Officer
10. Free From Broke
11. Early Retirement Extreme
12. Money Blue Book
13. Singly Guy Money
14. Money Clipped
15. Paid Twice
16. Credit Cards that Pay
17. Ask Mr. Credit Card
18. Money Changes Things

So that was it, I really enjoyed reading through all these stories. If you have time, please highlight your favorite story or even your favorite carnival edition from the past since its posted all here. Thanks for taking the time to look over this edition and big thanks to all submitters and also once again to all the previous hosts. Lets hope we can have another successful year of Money Stories.

If you are interested in hosting a future edition of the Carnival of Money Stories you can either send an email to carnivalofmoneystories(at)gmail(dot)com or just leave a simple comment here to this post. To submit your stories to the next edition, you can use this form here. Have a great week everyone and Happy New Years! Cheers!

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Merry Christmas!

It’s that time again for another year of gift opening, eggnog drinking and spending time with your loved ones. This day a year ago was the first edition of the carnival of money stories and I am very glad that it has made it this far. I want to thank all the hosts and story submitters for their hard work and efforts.

As for todays edition, I will be extending the deadline for another week so that we can get more stories. We had plenty of awesome entries, but most of them were not stories dealing with money or experiences so I could not include them. Please remember that this carnival is specifically just for stories and experiences. So it will be hosted here on January 2nd here at Money Walks. You can use this submission form to submit your stories.

Have a safe and a joyful break!

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When you get your first job offer, how will you know if the salary is reasonable? The first thing you need to do before you enter the job market, whether it’s your first job fresh out of college or a new step into a career path, you need to research what the going rate or salary is in your area that also matches your education and skills.

When it comes to negotiating salary and benefits, most of it just boils down to knowing how much you’re worth in the marketplace. You need to identify which benefits are important to you and associate these benefits with a price tag offered by the employer so that you can evaluate the real value of the offer. The total compensation encompasses much more than just a salary, but also benefits and bonuses such as relocation package and signing bonuses.

When negotiating with your prospective employers, you need to find out what benefits and bonuses the company offers to employees in the position that you’re applying for, what the average pay increase is, and what benefits might be added later.

As far as when to discuss salary negotiations, you should delay any questions or requests until you’re well into the interviewing process and you also want to avoid telling your interviewers how much you currently make. You shouldn’t be thrown into a salary range that’s lower than your current going rates just because you were underpaid at your previous job, and discussing your salary too early in the game can take you out of the running if your current salary is too high. The main goal here is to have enough time interacting with the managers and interviewers to have a chance to “sell yourself” and to convince them why you’re the right person for the job before going into discussion about salary.

Keep in mind, the objective of them asking your current salary or the salary you’re looking for is generally to pay you as little as possible. Employers, for the most part, will always offer less than what they can afford. So the general rule of thumb is this, whatever the offer, always ask for 12%-15% more than what they give you. The reason for this is because when they put together your initial offer, they compose the letter assuming that you will ask for an increase. The employer usually allocates 15% higher than the initial offer for their budget on you, so if you don’t ask for the increase, then the company is more than happy to give you your base pay since they were able to reel you in with their minimum offer. When asking for the 12-15% increase, you might not always get the exact 12-15% but any increase is better than nothing. In the worse case scenario, they say no and that’s it. They’re not going to retract their offer because you asked for an increase, it can’t hurt to ask.

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