Weekly Roundup – One Million Edition

I reached a major milestone on Cash Money Life this past week – this site experienced its one millionth unique visitor. Thanks to everyone who has visited, linked to, and otherwise helped make this site so successful. Without everyone else, this site would just be a set of lonely pixels floating in cyberspace. You all make this site so much fun! Thanks.

Free financial planning software – Financial Fate

Financial Fate is a new, and free, financial planning software program. With Financial Fate, users are able to enter their income, expenses, and future expectations for earnings and expenses. Then the internal magic happens an users will be given an idea of where they will be several years from now. Financial Fate is different from a financial software suite such as Quicken, because Quicken tracks your history and current expenses and investments. Financial Fate is geared toward planning for the future and takes into account things such as your income, expenses, taxes, assets, liabilities, future raises, and other future expectations.

While nothing can tell you exactly what will happen in the future, Financial Fate will give you a powerful tool to run some financial projections based on assumptions you input into the software. The biggest downfall to the software is that there is no automatic import function, so each bit of information must be manually entered. Still, this is a free piece of very useful software. The second downfall is that the software is PC only, so if you have a Mac, you won’t be able to use it. You can find out more information and download it at the Financial Fate website.

Ask the M-Network

Several members of the M-Network have answered some more questions on their blogs this week. Here are the latest questions and answers:

• Where Is The Best Place To Save & Grow Cash? The best place to grow your cash is probably in a high yield savings account or CD ladder.
• Ask The M-Network: Investing Newbie. A few quick tips on where and how to get started with investing.
• Which is better: Cash backs reward or points? I personally only use a cash rewards card, but there are times when points may be better.
• Ask the M-Network: Student Loan Debt. Tips on how to start a plan to get out of debt.

If you have a financial question, you can submit a question to us. Here are more details about how to Ask the M-Network.

Recommended personal finance articles

How Much Is A Trillion? This is one of the coolest articles I read last week. It;s amazing how easily we throw around words like billion and trillion without truly understanding how much that really is!

how to check out a hoax. Solid tips for investigating something that just doesn’t seem right. I highly recommend this article.

Who do You Trust? No one! I jest. A trust can be an important part of setting up your estate plan – good information if you don’t have an estate plan.

I am Not a Consumer; I am a Person. The title says it all.

Diversifying Beyond Asset Allocation. This is something I have been working hard on for the last two years. Diversification is more than just stocks and bonds. It can also include cash flow and income streams.

Why You Need a High Yield Savings Account. I found this article through a carnival I submitted to. I’ve been meaning to write an article like this for Cash Money Life for a long time. Seriously, if you are still only earning 0.20% interest from a brick and mortar bank, it’s time to upgrade to a high yield savings account.

Refinancing Made Easy: Our Story. Right now mortgage rates are near all time lows, and it may be worth investigating whether or not to refinance.

Earned Income Tax Credit. Information on Earned Income Tax Credits for 2008. Good info for the tax season!

This week’s carnivals:

• Carnival of Personal Finance 190: Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime? was hosted at Funny About Money.
• Carnival of Money Stories – Edition 95 was hosted at Dividend Tree.
• Fesitval of Frugality #163rd Edition was hosted at My Journey to Millions.
• Carnival of Personal Development – February 2, 2009 was hosted at Happiness is Better.
• 176th Carnival of Debt Reduction was hosted at Rocket Finance.
• Carnival of Financial Goals – Music Edition! was hosted at Pimp Your Finances.
• Carnival of Net Worth #12 was hosted at Llama Money.

Tagged as: Weekly Roundup