Carnival of Personal Finance: New Zealand Edition!

I’m honored to be hosting the 213th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. The carnival is one of the longest-running and most well-respected in existence!  Since my family and I are currently backpacking and job-hunting in New Zealand, I decided that a Kiwi-themed carnival would be quite appropriate!

This type of carnival is great for readers to find new and interesting blogs and for those bloggers to gain exposure to a wider reading audience.  I’ve selected 4 entries from the all the submissions that I believe are must-read posts.  You’ll find them directly below.  After reading those 4, continue browsing for some interesting New Zealand facts and for more great personal finance content!

If you are new to Man Vs. Debt, I hope you will stick around by subscribing to free RSS or E-mail updates.  You can also follow me on Twitter!  Don’t be a stranger!

EDITOR’S PICKS!

• The Happy Rock presents 29 Reasons Why Being A Part Time Entrepreneur Sucks!  This is not your normal “pie in the sky” type of list.  What I like most is that there is no attempt to sugar-coat these issues.  It’s a raw, real, and passionate observation from someone who has had years of successes and failure within the “part-time” entrepreneur label.  To me the sign of a truly-great article is one that speaks to you personally.  I can directly relate to almost all of the 29 points.  If you are currently in this boat or are thinking about starting a part-time venture, this post is must-read!

• Frank Curmudgeon from Bad Money Advice presents How to Guess a SSN and Get Famous on the Internet.  I have to admit when I first read about the “guessing SSN” story, I found it very interesting.  After all, what’s not to love about a couple elite college professors breaking a secret code that enables that to guess SSN using Facebook!  Well it turns out that this story has been a over-hyped a tad to say the least.  Luckily, we have writers and thinkers like “Frank” who are amazingly adept at breaking down the elements of this story and showing us a different side of the coin.  I’m a expert-scanner of online posts, but I intensely read every word from top to bottom of this post…  you should too.

• Matt Jabs from Debt Free Adventure presents Emergency Fund Is For Emergencies ONLY – 6 Ways To Leave It Alone!  Along with being one of the most-likable personal finance bloggers around, Matt Jabs has been on fire lately.  He’s really dishing out some killer posts, as proven above.  In my own life, finally getting an emergency fund in place and leaving it alone has radically shifted by financial behavior.  Jabs discusses the psychology of the emergency fund, along with providing practical types for avoiding using it!  Among my favorite suggestions are defining an “emergency” upfront, giving yourself a “misc.” budgeting category, and sacrficing something insttead of defaulting to the money in your fund!

• Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents presents Roth IRA Conversion in 2010, AGI Restricitions are “Gone Daddy Gone”!  Look, I’m going to state upfront that I’m not a big fan of investing articles in general.  It’s not my specialty and frankly it’s hard for me to relate with some of the topics (at this point in my life).  Luckily, Rose has a knack for being able to break down and relate investing concepts, so that even a non-investing crowd can reap the benefits of understanding these principles.  This post details what effects the changing AGI limits will have on Roth IRA’s in the future.  If you are thinking about a possible IRA conversion or would like to know how the new rules in 2010 will effect you, hop on over and give it a view!

New Zealand’s size is comparable to Britain or Japan, however it has an extremely low population density of only ~4.3 million people.  In fact, its largest city, Auckland, plays host to over 1/3 of the total population!  This leaves an even lower density throughout the rest of the North & South islands.  The Auckland skyline above features the Sky Tower, the largest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere!

Money Management

Jim from Bargaineering presents How to Hard Reset Your Financial Life.

Brad Chaffee from Enemy Of Debt presents Keys To Effective Money Management – Part 1: Attitude!

Joe Plemon from Personal Finance By The Book presents Are You Ready For Retirement?

Tisha Tolar from American Consumer News presents What’s the Deal With These Airline Fees?

Banker, Saver presents Sneaky Bank Fees: How To Avoid Those Extra Charges.

Tough Money Love presents A Vulture Consumer? Good for You.

Shawanda Greene from You Have More Than You Think presents Before You Give.

Debt Ninja from Punch Debt In The Face presents Confession: I pay installment fees!

Carrie from Carrie…On The Cheap presents Staying Fit: 5 Things to Splurge On.

Curt from PennyJobs.com presents The Most Pragmatic Way to Deal with the Economy is to be Realistic.

Kate Kashman from The Paycheck Chronicles presents It Pays to Ask.

Budgeting

Wojciech Kulicki from Fiscal Fizzle presents Getting The Best Car Insurance Rates.

Matt from One Million and Beyond presents You’re Spending more than you make! Now what?.

David R. Lampsen from Personal Finance Analyst presents The Average Cost of Groceries Per Person: Best Guesses.

Before being discovered by Europeans, the Maori culture dominated the New Zealand landscape.   The Maori take pride in their Kapa haka celebrations, which can contain singing, dancing, and performing with joyful movements and intense facial expressions.  In addition, many cities have maintained their original Maori names (especially on the North Island), confusing tourists still to this day!

Credit

Doughroller presents Freecreditreport.com Versus Annualcreditreport.com–Where to get your free credit report!

My Life ROI presents Credit Cards and Usury: Where is the Line?

Stephanie from Poorer Than You presents Erasing Negative Credit History: 5 Strategies You May Not Have Heard About!

Free From Broke presents Credit Scores Matter More Than You Think.

Bob from Christian Finances presents Thoughts on credit card use.

Anna Bleker from Taking Charge presents Huge rainbow made of credit cards.

Discover Debt Freedom presents Why Is Checking My Credit Report Regularly So Important?.

Madison from My Dollar Plan presents Extra Cash Back this Summer from Discover.

Grace from GRACEful Retirement presents Shuffling the Cards.

Debt

Silicon Valley Blogger from The Digerati Life presents How To Get Out of Debt With A Debt Repayment Plan!

The Smarter Wallet presents How To Consolidate Debt: Ways To Reduce Your Debt Load!

V.H. from Funny about Money presents If You’re in Debt….

New Zealand has been completely isolated for millions of years, which has fostered an extremely unique environment for rare birds, insects, and plants.  In fact, there were no predatory land mammals until they were brought over by the Maoris, first, and later by European settlers.  This meant the island was a haven for birds of all type, including flightless species.  While some of the birds have gone extinct in recent years, the hard-to-spot Kiwi is still a national symbol of New Zealand!

Frugality & Savings

Darwin from Darwin’s Finance presents The New Normal in America – Not Exactly What You’re Being Told.

Green Panda Treehouse presents Can You Really Save With A Costco Membership?

Ray from Financial Highway presents Pay Yourself First-Saving Strategy!

Charlie from Pay Less For Food presents Supermarket Speed Bumps That Get You to Spend More.

Michael B. Rubin from Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck presents Top 10 Most Annoying Ways to Lose A Little Money.

Personal Finance Blog by MoneyNing presents To Save Big, Think Small.

Marilyn Brodeur from eHow.com presents How to get a Free Flight by Getting Bumped.

Bret from BretFrohlich.com presents My Problem with Being Frugal.

Penelope Pince from Pecuniarities presents Save Money on Clothes: Shop the Juniors’ Department.

The “All Blacks” are one of the “winningest” Rugby Union teams in the history of the sport.  In general, Rugby dominates the sporting culture of New Zealand and is widely considered to be the national sport.  The picture above shows the All Blacks performing the famous Maori-inspired Haka (war dance), before each game.  In addition to Union… rugby league, cricket, soccer, and netball are popular alternatives.  It should also be noted that New Zealand has won the most Olympic Medals per capita of any country!

Investing

Prime Time Money presents Keep Investing Simple: Taxable vs Tax-Advantaged Investing.

Dividend Growth Investor presents Myths about Warren Buffett .

Matthew Paulson from Fine Tuned Finances presents Annuities Grow Tax Deferred But Watch Out for Missed Opportunities.

Nurseb911 from Triaging My Way To Financial Success presents The Competitive Analysis.

Tom from The FFS Blog presents Taleb On Distinguishing Between Investing Skill and Random Chance.

Kyle from Amateur Asset Allocator presents Four Important Metrics To Compare Index Funds.

Alexg from Value Investing Pro presents A Handful of Value Investing Resources.

Go To Retirement presents Building a Better CD Ladder Online.

Elizabeth G. from Modern Gal presents Demystifying ETFs.

D4L from Dividends Value presents Optimizing Your Asset Allocation.

TIPBlog.in presents Differentiating Asset Allocation and Diversification.

Paul Kamp from Don’t Quit Your Day Job… presents Investing in the 79th Element.

Hank from Own The Dollar presents New Exotic Investments Carry Huge Risks and Are Reminiscent of Past Mistakes.

Dividend Tree presents Diversification In the Context of Number of Stocks.

One of New Zealand’s most famous residents, Peter Jackson, made the decision to film all three famous Lord ofthe Rings films exclusively in New Zealand.  The films were shot in over 150 different location, including many around Wellington and Queenstown.  The New Zealand community took huge pride in the film and even the Army was commissioned to help build Hobbiton before shooting began!  There are now books on the different sites from famous scenes, along with many different tour operators that specialize in guided tours of the LOTR-featured areas.

Real Estate

Peter from Bible Money Matters presents 10 Tips To Help Sell Your Home Fast In A Down Market!

Kyle from Suburban Dollar presents Pay Your Mortgage Off Early !

Dan Melson from Searchlight Crusade presents How To Keep Listing Agents From Filtering Out Offers!

Miss M. from M is for Money presents Home Buyer Beware – Home Inspections!

Aryn from Sound Money Matters presents Should You Pay More than the Appraised Value of a Home?!

Career

J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy presents Would you rather… Money vs. Job edition?

Free Money Finance presents My Jobs, College.

Clint from Accumulating Money presents Setting Up An LLC the Easy Way.

Helen from Affine Financial Services presents Can an S Corporation Save Me Money?

Taxes

Single Guy Money presents Another Reason to Adjust Your W-4 Withholding.

Mass Affluent presents Prepare for a major tax increase.

New Zealand also is famous for its culture of extreme sports.  In fact, the world’s first commercial bungee jump took place in Queenstown in 1988.  The first jump was a 43 metre leap from Queenstown’s Kawarau Bridge!  Mountaineering is also extremely popular, do in large part to Sir Edmund Hilary (first to climb Everest) being a native New Zealander.  If you can dream up an adventure sport, there is most likely not only people who participate, but some who are among the best in the world!

Other

Wealth Pilgrim presents Michael Jackson’s Estate Teaches You One Great Lesson.

Matt B from Financial Methods presents 15 Sites that Can Help Improve Your Finances, Without Focusing on Money.

The Weakonomist from Weakonomics presents The Fun May Be Over For Oil Speculators.

Mr. Credit Card from Ask Mr. Credit Card presents Bargain Babe Interview.

Big Cajun Man from Canadian Personal Finance presents Eating Your Own Dog Food.

The Incidental Economist presents My Adventure on Bling St.

I hope you all enjoyed the carnival!  As always, your comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated.  Let me know which were your favorite posts of the bunch!

photos by (in order): wili, kiwi, jessicarabbit, freshwater2006, kiwi, xper, ctsnow