The Best of October: Personal Finance Links

I hope you’ve all had a fun and scary Halloween weekend! This is another edition of my personal finance links, looking through October’s best posts around the web.

@Fiscal Fizzle

But first, a quick recap of what you’ve missed at Fiscal Fizzle if you took October off. These were the most popular posts this month:

1. Should Millionaires Apply for Unemployment? We tackled this controversial topic with some very insightful comments. What’s your take?
2. 10 Ways to Screw Up Your First Child (Financially): There are many, many more, but I’ve created my personal “top 10” list for making sure your kids completely ruin you financially. Readers chimed in with their own comments.
3. 3 Reasons Why Spreadsheets Make Effective Tools: I’ve used spreadsheets on and off for various tasks, and they always seem ready for action. Here are three reasons I think they are awesome.

Hope you can chime in with your own comments on those posts if you haven’t had the chance to do so yet!

The Very Best of October

I’ve looked through my links for the month and selected some of the best reading you should definitely check out if you have a few minutes.

1. Baker from Man vs. Debt offers 11 reasons why you should ditch your television. If you still need convincing, this might just be the post.
2. Sam from Financial Samurai tackles an interesting psychological paradox—are people getting into debt just so they can have the rush and success of getting out?
3. Frugal Dad offers five simple but effective daily habits to improve your finances.
4. From Jonathan Rivers at Shrinkage is Good, here’s an interesting graph showing grocery spending over time for the average American household.
5. Rob Bennett, writing at Get Rich Slowly, offers thoughts about advertising in the modern era, and asks Why Are There No Ads Urging Us to Save?
6. Want to save money? Trent from The Simple Dollar offers a gem in his list of the top ways he’s saved money since starting the blog four years ago.

Elsewhere This Month

But wait, that’s not all! Here are a few other places you should definitely visit:

1. Money Index, a new website created by Tom from Canadian Personal Finance that aggregates personal finance feeds in a style similar to Alltop.
2. The Top Personal Finance Blogs list created by the guys at Money Crashers.
3. Love Drop, a new project featuring J. Money from Budgets are Sexy with an awesome idea that needs your support today!

Other Updates

A few other updates on what’s going on around here lately:

• So far, we’ve raised $81 for Charity: Water to celebrate my birthday. If you remember, the final goal is $500! Click here if you want to help.
• Many of you have noticed the voting widget in the sidebar for my new eBooks. Vote for your favorite to sway my mind on which one I tackle first! So far, “How to Manage Baby Expenses in the 1st Year” is squarely in the lead.
• We’ve reached a milestone of 10,000 monthly unique readers this month! We’re still very far from my ultimate dreams, but I’m celebrating this awesome stepping stone nevertheless.
• The Pecuniary Pepper, my weekly e-magazine, is quickly becoming a very popular way to get my posts on a weekly basis, along with my personal thoughts and musings. If you’re not signed up yet, check out this page for details.

We’re back on schedule tomorrow with more outstanding posts. Enjoy your Monday, and see you back here in the morning!

Photo by creativedc