I’m wondering how many people really know why they call it Black Friday!?

If you’re one of those that are unsure, but too afraid to ask – the reason is this:

Retailers hope this is the day people spend like crazy so they can go from being in the red to being in the black!  Hence – Black Friday!

Here are the best of the best this Thanksgiving week on the Black Friday edition of the Round Up!

5 Things You Shouldn’t Buy This Black Friday - Wise Bread

This is a great post by Adam Baker from ManvsDebt!  Just some real practical advice to keep your spending in check this holiday season. 

Setting Values Oriented Goals - Bible Money Matters

Jason Price from OneMoneyDesign tackles this great topic!  This post is a great reminder to not just set financial goals or monetary goals, but to make sure those goals are values driven and by doing so you increase your odds of achieving them!

9 Ways to Give Even When Times are Tough – Get Rich Slowly

Brian from My Next Buck gives some good ideas on giving and having a heart of compassion even though we’re in a tough economic climate.   Lot of good ideas here.

Guest Post

I had the privilege to guest post over at Frugal Dad this week.  Check out my post called “5 Four-Letter Words You Should Be Using in Personal Finance“. 

This post won’t teach you any new vocabulary words to use when your accounts are down, but it will challenge you with some simple guidelines to help in your everday personal finances! 

In case you missed ‘em

In case you missed posts from this week, check these out:

5 Reasons Some People Never Get Ahead Financially (And Others Do)

3 Simple Rules to Curb Your Credit Card Use

What is True Wealth

Wow!  Big news from the Harpo camp yesterday regarding Oprah Winfrey’s retirement from her TV show in 2011.  

She’s been on the air for 25 years.  Whether you’re a fan or not (I’m in that camp) that’s some pretty big news – apparently she’s going to start a cable channel and try to become even more powerful!

I can’t believe it’s Friday already, but here we are looking at another round up.  It’s been a great week for posts out there in the blogosphere.  Here’s a look at a few of them:

4 Ways to Develop a Thankful Heart Before Thanksgiving – Bible Money Matters

Craig Ford lays out some ideas on getting our minds and hearts right as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday.  Thankfulness doesn’t always come from our financial progress. 

Create a Five Year Financial Plan – One Money Design

Jason offers a free spreadsheet to dowload that looks at a five-year plan.  Take a look and incorporate some of your own numbers to keep you on the right track!

The How Much Your Debt Costs Spreadsheet - Debt Free Adventure

This must be the week for spreadsheets.  Matt offers up a free spreadsheet to calculate and track how much you pay in interest each month on your debt.  If you want an eye opening experience to help motivate you to get rid of your debt…download this!

How to Become a Successful Secret Shopper – Generation X Finance

I’ve always wanted to do this.  Just the thought of stealthily going around and checking up on people while making some coin seemed fun – but I’ve heard of a lot of scam companies that reportedly are in this business.  Jeremy offers up some good tips and some links to reputable sites.

Frugal Ways to Celebrate the Holidays - My Dollar Plan

Some great tips for spending more time with family and spending less money.

Ever wish you could have a financial “re-do”? We probably all have one or two things in our past where we wish we could go back and do it all over again. One of my major financial mistakes is retold over at My Next Buck.

Brian was gracious enough for me to share my experience of buying my first brand new car with a giant balloon payment at the end in his Financial Foul Up Series. Check it out.

This Week’s Links

Healthy Online Banks - Jim Wang over at Bargaineering takes a look at some healthy online banks as an alternative to your regular brick and mortars.  I didn’t realize until after reading the post that there have been 145 bank failures since the start of the credit crisis!

How Much Does Your Debt Cost – Matt Jabs tackles this one over at Five Cent Nickel.  After calculating how much his debt was costing him he used that as motivation to knock it out!  He challenges readers to do the same! 

Does Saver’s Remorse Exist? – Bob at Christian PF looks into ING’s tagline – “There’s No Such Thing as Saver’s Remorse” and shares his two cents.

If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

Friday Finance Round Up is a weekly post that includes interesting articles and blog posts on money found during the week from across the web.

The US Government’s Credit Score – Loans and Credit

This is a scary look at what Uncle Sam’s credit score would look like if we could rate it!

Investing and Money Rules of Thumb – Financial Highway

Great post by Financial Highway for those looking for some rules of thumb to start out with.

10 Attributes of the Perpetually Broke – Bible Money Matters

Pete offers some telling signs of those who always seem to be having financial difficulty.  The last one was particularly insightful.

Weekly Links

This past week was a good one for links.  Here’s a look at what went on:

• Do You Recognize These 5 Roadblocks to Reaching Your Financial Goals was included in Evolution of Wealth’s Sunday Link Rodeo and at JoeTaxpayer’s “Reading My Fellow Finance Writers” round up.

• 5 Ways to Win the Race to Retirement was included in One Money Design’s Weekly Round Up and also included in Buck$ome Boomer’s Journey to Retirement round up.

• How to Save (Potentially) Thousands by Spending $3.99 was included in the Carnival of Pecuniary Delights hosted by Financial Highway

• Should You Buy Accidental Death Insurance was included at Fiscal Geek’s Thursday Round Up

Be sure to follow me through email, RSS Feeds here and on  Twitter here.

If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

Retirement Readiness Quiz - CNN Money

Cool quiz that asks about 10 questions and gives you an idea of what your target savings should be for a certian age. 

Cash For Appliances Government Rebate Program – Bible Money Matters

Pete from BMM has become the guru of all things Government Stimulus related.  Here he explains the Cash for Appliances program. 

 Is a College Education Still Worth the Investment? – Sound Mind Investing

Last week I posted a graphic of the cost of college vs. the starting salary of the average graduate.  This week SMI takes a deeper look at the value of the education. 

The Economic Crisis in Simple Terms – The Economy Collapse

This video shows how to explain the 2008 US Financial Crisis to your kids (and most adults).

Should You Pay Off Debt or Invest - Five Cent Nickel

Nickel tackles an important question that most of us have probably thought about.

Weekly Links

How to Save (Potentially) Thousands by Spending $3.99 was included in:

• Carnival of Money Stories hosted by MisforMoney. 
• Festival of Frugality held at Green Panda Treehouse.
• Money Hacks Carnival #83 at Cash Money Life

Do You Make These 4 Common 401k Mistakes? was included at ETF Trends as well as the Baby Boomers Blog Carnival #6

What a Cow, a Red Box and Hair Clippers Have in Common was included in the Carnival of Road to Financial Independence at One Family’s Blog

If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

Earnings of Young College Grads vs College Costs – Business Week

Wow! Very interesting look at the out-of-control costs for college compared to what grads make starting out!

Is This a Double Dip Recession? – Financial Highway

 Scary thought.

“The Government Can” – Debt Free Adventure

This is hilarious – love the moves!   I’ll warn you though – you’ll have this song in your head all weekend!

Balancing the Obama Budget With a Mandatory Gorilla – Political Math

I love this site!  These guys are creative, entertaining and educational.

The REAL Costs of Owning Wireless Mice & Keyboards - Len Penzo

Something I’ve always been curious about, but too lazy to do all the tracking myself!  Len always does a great job providing his own research.

This Week’s Links

It’s been a pretty cool week for Redeeming Riches with my post Do You Make These 4 Common 401k Mistakes getting linked by Consumerist - the 38th most  popular blog in the world according to Technorati! 

It was also linked by Bizzia.com - a business, news and commentary site and My Life ROI’s Weekly Mashup list.

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If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

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Friday Finance Round Up

Friday Finance Round Up is a weekly post that includes interesting articles and blog posts on money found during the week from across the web.

In no particular order:

Why Is Retirement an Entitlement? – Oblivious Investor

This is an interesting read on why most of us consider retirement something that is owed to us.

 Going Green Gone Wrong – The Good Human

Going green taken to extremes!  A little humor for the start of your weekend!

Make Your Computer Faster Instead of Buying a New One – Wise Bread

We’ve all been annoyed at slow-running computers, here’s some helpful information about speeding up your PC. 

12 Clever Substitutions That Save Money (Nearly) Effortlessly – Simple Dollar

Here are some very clever ideas on saving a little extra cash. 

Blog Carnivals

Blog Carnivals are a way of reaching a larger audience for your blog posts.  You submit your posts to other bloggers who then pick out their favorites and post them in the carnival edition.   One of the requirements of getting picked is a link back to the site that is hosting the carnival.   Here are this week’s linkbacks:

My article What a Cow, a Red Box and Hair Clippers Have in Common was included in three Money Carnivals this past week:

1. Editor’s Pick in the Carnival of Money Stories @ Canadian Finance Blog
2. Carnival of Financial Planning @ Skilled Investor
3. Carnival of Everything About Personal Finance @ Nil2Million

My article How Much Money Do You Need for Retirement was included in the Baby Boomers Blog Carnival @ Baby Boomers U.S.

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Don’t forget to receive my posts by email or RSS Feeds here and make sure you follow me on Twitter here.

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If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

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Guest Post

This week I was able to do a guest post at Suburban Dollar called Navigating Your Finances.  Just like GPS looks at your current location, your destination and your direction, we too need to look at those things from a personal finance stand point. 

Where are we now, where are we going and how do we get there are the big three questions being asked with some practical suggestions on how to answer them. If you haven’t checked it out yet please do.

Friday Finance Round Up

Friday Finance Round Up is a weekly post that includes interesting articles and blog posts on money found during the week from across the web.

In no particular order:

How Healthy Are Your Finances? – CNN Money

This is a very cool financial calculator that walks you through a few questions to give you a grade on your finances.  It’s a great place to start for those who are new to personal finance and also a good place to just “check in” to see how you’re doing.

Obama Health Care Reform and Wait Times Visualization (In Lego!) – Political Math

The guys at Political Math are very creative, insightful and provide good entertainment value.  I posted their video on the National Debt Road Trip a while back also.

Government Redistribution of Wealth: Is It Right? - Christian PF

This post is designed to get you thinking about whether redistribution is right or not.  Bob doesn’t pretend he has all the answers, but tries to look at it and ask how we as Christians should view this.

Use Spending Filters to Save on Just About Everything - Debt Free Adventure

Good post on being vigilant with thinking about your purchases before you go out and spend.  Matt runs through 6 filters he uses to help them save money.

Social Media Update: Quitting Facebook, or Maybe, Quitters Do Win – Owen Strachan

Interesting post looking at the NY Times piece on people quitting Facebook and why it might be a good thing.  Basically what Owen is getting at is can we redeem Social Media and use it for kingdom purposes?  Not a personal finance post, but interesting nonetheless.

This Week’s Links

Blog Carnivals are a way of reaching a larger audience for your blog posts.  You submit your posts to other bloggers who then pick out their favorites and post them in the carnival edition.   One of the requirements of getting picked is a link back to the site that is hosting the carnival.   Here are this week’s linkbacks: 

• How Much Money Do You Need to Retire was picked for the Best of the Financial and Investing World – August Edition held at 20’s Money.
• That post was also picked for the Carnival of Pecuniary Delights #22 held at Canadian Finance Blog

 Friday Finance Round Up is a weekly post that includes interesting articles and blog posts on money found during the week from across the web.

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Average Retirement Savings by Age – Bargaineering

 ”I don’t put much stock in most “averages,” whether they’re rules of thumb or average net worth, but every once and a while it’s good to know where you stand.”

How Facebook Ruins Friendships - Wall Street Journal

“Amidst all this heightened chatter, we’re not saying much that’s interesting, folks. Rather, we’re breaking a cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends.”

Who’s Underwater?! A Look at US States with Upside Down Mortgages - Go Banking Rates

“Over half of all negative equity mortgages can be accounted for by just 3 states”

The Final Numbers on ‘Clunkers’ - NY Times

“The top 10 traded-in vehicles were American brands and 8 of the top 10 purchased vehicles were foreign brands.”

A Price Comparison of 10 Sandwiches – Len Penzo dot Com

“…I was curious to know which sandwiches were the most economical and which ones, if we weren’t careful, could end up putting the squeeze on our grocery budget.”

This Week’s Links

Political Calculations declared If You Want to Get Ahead Stop Taking This Path “The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere!” in their On the Moneyed Midway section.  Wow, I don’t know about that, but I appreciate the sentiment!

Your Money Relationship included Who Can You Count on For Retirement in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance #219.

Hundred Goals made If You Want to Get Ahead Stop Taking This Path the Editor’s Pick for this week’s Carnival of Money Stories!

Wise Money Matters discussed Who Can You Count of For Retirement  in this week’s Wise Money Podcast.

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Friday Finance Round Up is a weekly post that includes interesting articles and blog posts on money found during the week from across the web

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US Debt Clock - US Debt Clock.org

Wow!  This is disturbing!!

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 The Nefarious Hidden Costs of Debt - The Personal MBA

Are you an indentured servant to your creditors?

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Backlash Against AARP – Sound Mind Investing

SMI takes a look at why AARP members are canceling their membership.

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Credit Score Changes – Gather Little By Little

Lending institutions continue to tighten the belt, will these changes affect your score?

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How to Make Money on Ebay – Money Help For Christians

I’ve been wanting to do a post like this myself.  Great stuff from Craig on how to make some extra cash on ebay.

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