Actually, this should read – Last Week in Personal Finance!

This weekend we’ve been busy with parties and milling around so I didn’t get a chance to write a round-up post.

So, here we are – a rainy Memorial Day – yes, more rain!  I figured I could write a quick post.

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a fly by. 

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click!

• Personal Finance Journey asks if it is unethical to bring snacks into a movie theatre.
• Fickle Finance talks about 25 lessons in entrepreneurship from rappers - this was near and dear to my heart since I am a closet Rap and Hip Hop fan!
• Go Banking Rates ask how much you need to retire!
• Sound Mind Investing takes a look at mortgage-savings programs and figures out if they are a good idea or not.
• Out Of Your Rut has some good thoughts on mistakes that can make your financial life difficult.
• Matt Jabs from Debt Free Adventure is on a mission to be debt free – and he’s got a scooter to prove it.

Carnivals

Yakezie Carnival at College for $10K!

Rain, rain, go away!  Here in Indiana we’ve been getting drenched with rain.

Normally I wouldn’t mind, we obviously need it – but we are trying to get our landscaping done.

Getting sod down when it’s soaking wet proves to be a difficult challenge.

Hopefully this week will dry up a bit and we’ll be able to keep moving along with the outside work that needs to be done!!

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a fly by. 

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click!

• Fickle Finance brings it with this article called Slavery Didn’t Die – It Just Evolved.
• Bible Money Matters tells us why Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps Work!  Also, don’t forget to check out my post over there as well called Finding Your Retirement Sweet Spot!
• Parenting Teens gives us 50 Graduation Gift Ideas!
• Kevin Deyoung on The Gospel Coalition Blog has a great post called Are Christians Meant to Feel Guilty All The Time?
• Personal Finance By The Book shares some awesome insights into carrying loads and burdens in Deciding Whom to Help
• Coupon Sherpa brings us The Good and The Bad of Recessionary Wages
• Deliver Away Debt brings his experience in Making a Second Job Work
• Debt Free Adventure talks about 401k Contributions With Outstanding Debt
• Christian PF has How Much Should I Save for Retirement?
• Good Financial Cents talks about Credit Cards and How to Effectively Lower Your Interest Rate
• Financial Samurai offers his opinion on the Emergency Fund Fallacy
• Out of Your Rut shows us 10 Financial Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make

Carnivals

• Carnival of Money Stories hosted at PF Journey
• Yakezie Carnival hosted at Well Heeled Blog
• Finance Blog Carnival at Maximizing Money
• Rich Money Habits Carnival at Rich Money Habits

I can’t believe it’s been a week since my trip to Knoxville, TN! 

God is doing some amazing things down there with a group of churches that are working across denomination, cultural and racial lines for the good of the kingdom and the good of the city!

I’ve got hope that some good things like that can happen here in my community as well!

I also can’t believe May is half over – seriously, where is this year going?  It’s amazing how quickly time speeds up when you have a couple of rugrats runnin’ around to keep you occupied.

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a fly by of the week. 

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click!

• Debt Free Adventure asks what you should do with car repairs – scrap it, park it or fix it?
• Bible Money Matters has a post on getting by with one income before you need to!
• Christian PF asks why gather money little by little – also check out my post over there called 4 Things the Apostle Paul Teaches Us About Money.
• Len Penzo dot com brings out the 5 Crazy Ideas That Resulted in Million Dollar Paydays
• Cash Money Life offers 8 Tips to Help You Make a Major Financial Decision
• Provident Planning brings it home with Preaching Christ Crucified!
• Fiscal Geek takes a look at money buying happiness!
• Out of Your Rut gives his take on why leasing a car is a bad deal!
• Frugal Dad has some ways to save on the summer electric bill
• Free Money Finance shows how to get rich on an average salary
• Deliver Away Debt says to stop using a credit card and write a budget!!

Carnivals

• Christian Finance Carnival #2 over at Personal Finance Journey
• Christian Family Information Exchange Carnival at OLine Publishing

I’m writing this from sunny, balmy Knoxville, TN!

A group of eight of us from church came down to what’s called the Salt and Light conference.

The conference is put on by the Compassion Coalition , a non-profit org. that desires to see churches live out Matthew 5:14, which calls believers to be salt and light in their cities, communities and centers of influence.

Our church is currently doing a county-wide assessment of the biggest needs, issues and concerns as well as taking a look at the biggest assets and strengths with the goal being more partnership with other believers and organizations in our county to seek the common good of our area.

This conference is about how to do it effectively.

Tim Keller says that the best way to show Christianity to others is to seek the common good of our cities.  Essentially to live out mercy and justice (not at the expense of sharing what the gospel is, but in addition to).

I’m really excited about this trip and I’ll be sure to share some highlights in some future posts!

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a fly by of the week. 

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click! 

• Financial Highway gives us  a list of 10 Unique and Frugal Mother’s Day Gift Ideas!
• Out of Your Rut warns us against the dangers of late-night infomercials and other hazardous get rich quick schemes!
• Here’s a challenge by Debt Free Adventure to start living on one income!
• Here’s 8 Steps You Can Take to Protect Your Identity from Fiscal Geek.
• Wealth Pilgrim answers the age-old question, “Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage or Invest?”
• Fickle Finance asks a question that I love to ask – Where Does Your Happiness Come From?
• If you like satire, you’ll love Personal Finance By the Book’s post on How to Ensure You Will Never Be a Millionairre!

Carnivals

Carnival of Taxes at Don’t Mess With Taxes

So this weekend I started the Garden Project! 

Yep, that’s right – we’re planting a 16′x8′ garden. 

We’re doing it for a few reasons: 

1. We love fresh food and love to grill, so it’ll be great to just go out and pick some veggies, 
2. My wife likes to eat organic – so this is a good way to know we are getting organic food
3. This should save us some money in the long run!

Hopefully I’ll throw a few posts up about our experience.  Today was just getting the initial frame of the garden up. 

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a fly by of the week. 

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click! 

• Financial Samurai provides good commentary on Searching For Love And A Little More Money.
• Out of Your Rut looks at Why Earning More Money is More Important Than Frugality!
• Free From Broke shares How An Excellent Credit Score Has Helped Us Save Money at Free From Broke
• Money Funk touches on a subject that I really want to tackle on this blog with Private School: Worth the Money?
• Fickle Finance delivers with 10 Things I Would Rather Wait For Or Buy Used
• Joe Taxpayer challenges studies with Spend More With Plastic
• One Money Design reminds us that You Cant Take Money to Eternity
• Consumer Boomer has a post that’s a little older, but worth noting – Roth IRA Conversion Calculator
• Debt Free Adventure has Debt Plan – Facing Bankruptcy & Foreclosure 
• Provident Plan shares a post that some may disagree with in Debt Is Not Evil 
• Green Panda Treehouse looks at Finding The Balance Between a Sideline and a Day Job 
• Solid post by Frugal Dad who asks Are You Obsessed With Your Finances?
• Bible Money Matters asks an interesting question – Should Your Finances be in Order Before Having Children?
• Personal Finance by the Book has a great post on Why We Procrastinate

Carnivals I Participated In

• Economy and Your Finances Carnival
• Best of Money Carnival
• Yakezie Carnival
• Carnival of Personal Finance

Another week in the books. 

It’s hard to believe that we are heading into the last week of April and May is sneaking up quickly!

I got my grill set up last weekend and had my first meal of the season – Smothered Grilled Chicken with Asparugus and Sweet Potato Wedges!

It was de-lish!

Maybe I’ll share the recipe some time.

One of the reasons I do these posts is to highlight other great articles from the week from other bloggers.

Any blog likes to receive links back to their own content and so I like to do that for others – like paying it forward!

This week’s TWIPF is going to be a quick one since it was a busy week and I just didn’t have time to make it around the web.

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a quick tour.  

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena.

So give these articles a click!

• Christian PF writes about How to Help a Financially-Troubled Person.  Also, don’t forget to check out my post at Christian PF this week called 7 Reasons to Review Your Life Insurance Policy!
• Bible Money Matters discusses 7 Lies That Can Kill Your Financial Future.  Also, check out my post on BMM this week called Should You Use a Roth IRA for College Savings?
• Great post by Joe @ Personal Finance by the Book – 5 Wrong Reasons to Build Wealth and One Right One - we need to hear stuff like this more!
• Fickle Finance is new to the block, but writes some good stuff!  Here’s his 21 Ways to Save Money post that includes some great ideas!

I’m included with a lot of other great articles at the Yakezie Carnival hosted at My Money Minute

By the way, if you haven’t signed up yet – please don’t miss another post! 

Get Redeeming Riches delivered straight to your inbox!

Another week in the books!  Every time I write one of these posts I just can’t but think how fast the time flies! 

It seems like yesterday I was writing last week’s round up post!

Anyways, it’s been a gorgeous week with the weather in my neck of the woods!  Upper 70′s, low 80′s is tough to beat for Spring!

I’m excited about this weekend though – I’m hoping to get my new grill put together and kick off this grilling season!

Grilling out is one of my favorite things to do and we just got our organic cow a couple weeks ago so I am ready!  By the way – do you know what a cow, a red box and hair clippers have in common?

At any rate, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a quick tour.  

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena.

So give these articles a click!

• Neal Frankle from Wealth Pilgrim is a financial planner and all around great guy – check out his great article on overlooked tax tips for the self-employed!
• I was a big Star Wars fan growing up so Jason Price’s article, Financial Wisdom from Yoda, posted at Christian PF struck a chord with me.
• Check out some extreme frugal tips for an early retirement from Jacob over at Monevator
• Good post from Narrow Bridge on Dave Barry’s 16 Things It Took Me 50 Years to Learn
• Joe from Personal Finance by The Book always writes insightful posts and this is another good one – How to Get What You Really Want, Give It Away!
• I really like Lakita’s writing over at Personal Finance Journey and she provides a great post on whether we should tithe on our income tax refunds - I’m hoping to tackle the idea of tithing and giving in some future posts soon! 
• For all you Microsoft Excel geeks out there, Elle from Couple Money offers some retirement planning tips using Excel
• Evolution of Wealth discusses some disappointing things about group disability insurance.
• Daniel from Sweating the Big Stuff offers up some things we should sweat over with regards to credit cards!
• Consumer Boomer offers up some good questions to ask before you buy insurance!

Christian Finance Carnival

Craig from Money Help for Christians created this carnival, which was a GREAT idea!  A Carnival is basically a way for bloggers to send in their posts they want highlighted.  So, this month my post on The Best Debt Everyone Should Have and Never Pay Off was included!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks around the R2 household and office!  There seems to be just a lot of stuff going on.

I’m really looking forward to some rest this weekend!

But, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a quick tour.  

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena.

So give these articles from a few Yakezie Challenge Members a click!

• Free Money Finance has a great and convicting post on giving that exposes our lack of it!
• Peak Personal Finance offers up a look at the new Credit Card Act and the resulting increase in bank fees to be on the look out for!
• Personal Finance by the Book takes a look at the Fair Tax and whether it’s too good to be true!  Great overview by Joe!
• Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme talks about his Extreme Retirement Method over at Monevator – he’s got an interesting story so be sure to check it out!
• Not Made of Money cautions against store credit cards - but it’s so tempting to get an additional 10% off!
• Cool to Be Frugal asks about your family’s money dynamic and if you’re able to talk freely about money or if it’s a taboo subject!?
• Free From Broke takes a look at the different Bank Cards and Their Uses
• Daniel from Sweating the Big Stuff writes about the correlation between debt and credit – an interesting look at debt’s affect on credit scores!
• Jeff at Deliver Away Debt is talking about Christmas in April – but he’s talking about a debt-free Christmas, which is GREAT!
• Canadian Finance Blog asks, “Which Car is Right for You?” and takes a look at how to answer that question as well!

R2 Around the Web

This week I had a post called Can You Afford Retirement up at Christian PF.

Friday’s  here!  But Sunday’s coming!!  Welcome to the the Good Friday edition of TWIPF.  

It’s a great day to reflect on what Jesus did 2,000 some years ago as His life of 33 years was about to be ended.  But He would soon conquer sin and death with his resurrection just three days later.

If you’re not a Christian, it’s also a great day to check the claims that this Jesus of Nazareth made!  

He said some pretty bold and amazing things that only some good moral teacher would say – He was radically different and it’s worth doing some investigative research into whether these things were true or not.

I’m looking forward to our church’s Good Friday service tonight – it is really one of the highlights of the year.

But, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a quick tour.  This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena.

So give these articles from a few Yakezie Challenge Members a click!

• Financial Samurai: Insuring The Uninsured Is Worth It – Sam delivers hard-hitting viewpoints and gets lots of discussion going on his blog, this one’s no different.
• Eliminate the Muda!: What Sacrifices are You Willing to Make?
• Planting Dollars: Where Do You Store Your Financial Records?
• Free From Broke: Certificate of Deposit–What Is It?: 
• Sweating the Big Stuff: How Much Do You Need For Retirement?
• Canadian Finance Blog: What is Financial Literacy? Part 3:
• Money Energy: How would you change your investment strategy if the Chinese Yuan becomes a reserve currency?
• 20′s Money: Disparity in Economic Recovery: Unfair or Unhealthy?
• Fiscal Geek: Why Tax Deferral May Be A Sucker’s Bet!
• Out of Your Rut: Over 50 – No Pension or 401k – What Now?

Don’t miss another post!  Get Redeeming Riches delivered straight to your inbox!

Carnivals I Participated In

• Economy and Your Finances Carnival included my post 5 Tips to Pay Off Your Credit Card
• Last Week I was in the Yakezie Challenge Carnival which used my post How to Grab and Extra $150,000 for Retirement.
• This Week the Yakezie Challenge Carnival included my 5 Tips to Pay Off Your Credit Card post

Guest Posts

Head on over to ChristianPF.com to check out my posts:  3 Things Moses Teaches Us About Money, Are You Making These 4 Credit Card Mistakes

It’s been a busy week, but a great week – we’re finally getting over our sicknesses at the R2 household! 

It’s also a great week because the NCAA tournament begins!  I love March Madness - the games are always full of good sports drama and usually very exciting! 

But, it’s another week in the books and it’s time for a quick tour.  This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click!

Don’t miss another post! Get Redeeming Riches delivered straight to your inbox!

• Consumer Boomer talks about all kinds of rules with Roth IRAs
• My Journey to Millions discusses a bartering concept in Cairo called LETs, which is designed to sustain communities longer.
• Sweating the Big Stuff identifies some lessons learned from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
• Here’s a scary stat: 43% of American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement!  20′s Money talks about this here.
• The Canadian Finance Blog posts about passive income in retirement.
• Want to sell your car?  Fiscal Fizzle shows you how to sell your car on Craigslist!
• Here’s an interesting post from Ultimate Money Blog - Is it More Frugal to be a Minimalist or a Hoarder?
• Financial Samurai gives a pointed review of Michael Moore’s new documentary called “Capitalism a Love Story”.
• Planting Dollars discusses a Fear of Success!
• Money Help for Christians talks about how to help teens work through consumerism and spending.
• Consumerism Commentary makes a good point about using less detergent when washing clothes and therefore saving money.
• The Consumerist reports that banks are so inept at handling mortgage modifications that many folks have less than a 50-50 chance of getting one done!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Want to win a FREE Netbook?  Head over to Couple Money and follow the rules!