Hello everyone. This week just flew on by for me! Work was extremely busy, and I had enough time to come home and crank out an article before taking care of everything else that needed done. But it’s the weekend now, which means it’s time to finally put away the rest of the Christmas decorations, and relax a little bit!

Book Giveaway Announcement

Last week, I reviewed the book You’re Broke Because You Want to Be. I announced I would give the book away to a subscriber. I placed a secret phrase in the footer of each article that I published to my feed - both the RSS feed, and my e-mail feed. My intent when I give away books and other items is to thank those who subscribe to my blog. I have another book I will be giving away in a couple weeks, and I am sure there will be others. If you would like to be entered, or like what you read on my site, you can subscribe to get free daily updates!

The winner was selected with a random number generator from the website Psychic Science. To verify and label entries, I placed each entry in an Excel spreadsheet, assigned it a number, and then “rolled the virtual dice” so to speak.

Without further ado, the winner of a signed copy of You’re Broke Because You Want to Be is: Mrs. Micah! I have sent you an e-mail requesting your address so I can send it to you. Congratulations, and I hope you enjoy the book!

Cash Money Life blog review:

My website was recently reviewed by the website Friends and Money, a personal Finance website located in the UK. Thank you for the kind words regarding my blog.

Here are my favorite articles from the M-Network and around the personal finance blogosphere:

• Being Frugal - Making Sure Free is Really Free. Be careful about those free teaser rates, or “free for 30 days” offers. They can come back to bite you if you aren’t careful! Lynnae also destroyed her credit cards this week. Check out the fun pictures.
• Gather Little by Little - What to do when your debit card gets stolen. Glblguy had his debit card stolen a few months back. It was a horrible situation, and nearly ruined his vacation. Now, Glblguy gives everyone some solid tips about what you can do if this horrible situation happens to you.
• I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… On Being Proactive. paidtwice had some big car troubles recently, and decided to contact the car manufacturer about the problem. I understand her frustration. I hope all works out well!
• Moolanomy - 6 Easy Ways To Simplify Your Finance. Once you simplify your finances, you can set it and forget it. Then make your money work for you!
• My Two Dollars - David had an issue with Ikea customer service. He doesn’t think he will go there again soon, and I don’t blame him.
• Plonkee Money - Planning for Retirement: 3 Simple Steps. These three steps are really all you need to do to prepare. Yes, you should optimize these steps for the best returns, but in essence, this is all it takes.
  
• Single Guy Money - I Want to Handle My Own Escrow.Having an escrow account to pay your property taxes is convenient, but it ties your moneyup for hte better part of a year. If you handle it yourself, you can let the money work for you instead of the bank.
• The Dough Roller - The Dough Roller to donote 50% of its revenue to charity. DR and his wife have decided to Donate 50% of his blogging income to the charity Common Hope, which is dedicated to helping the children of Guatemala and their families in the areas of education, family development, health care and housing. In Guatemala, public education is not free. DR, I admire your desire to help people.
• Brip Blap - Learning how to let go. I grew up as a pack rat. I think at some base level I equated things with money. Now, I am trying to learn how to declutter my life and enjoy the things I have more. But I will still keep my baseball cards.
• Credit Withdrawal - How to Prevent Child Identity Theft. Unfortunately, this is becoming all too common in our world. Ifyou have children, please help protect their identity and future credit levels.
• Million Dollar Journey - VISA IPO is Going to Be Huge! I think so as well. If VISA performs anything like Mastercard has since it went public almost 2 years ago, it will indeed be huge!
• My Dollar Plan - What’s Your Retirement Story? This was a guest post by RocketC from Rocket Finance.

This week’s Carnivals and Festivals:

• The Festival of Frugality #107, The Little Things Edition, was hosted here at Cash Money Life. Thanks for everyone who participated and supported the FoF!
• The Carnival of Personal Finance #134, Building on the Basics, was hosted at Mrs. Micah. My article, Your Greatest Asset is The Ability to Create Income, was included.
• The Carnival of Money Tips was hosted at KCLau’s Money Tips. My article, How Much Does a Nintendo Wii Cost?, was included.

Thanks for stopping by everyone, and congratulations to Mrs. Micah, the winner of You’re Broke Because You Want to Be!

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