There were 34 submissions for the Carnival this week, however only 17 of the articles satisfied the criteria set forth for the Carnival of Money Stories. There were quite a few quality posts providing tips and advice on personal finance but unfortunately they did not have a personal story or experience as part of the post. Hopefully those authors submitted their stories to other carnivals as well.

With all of that completed, I am happy to present you with the Carnival of Money Stories 16th Edition:

• MoneyNing shares a story about getting four tires for free but that sometimes the perfect money saving deal can go bad and cost you more in the end.
  
  
• Over at Cheap as Chips there is a nice discussion about how it is possible to get baby products cheaper outside the big city even though there is less competition from other stores.
  
  
• Have you ever thought about investing in real estate? Head on over to Adventures in Money Making to get the inside scoop on whether or not it is a good time to invest in real estate and why now is a good time to learn as much as possible.
  
  
• If you have ever had any questions about the 7 conditions of default under the Citibank credit card agreement, be sure to pay a visit to The Skilled Investor. Reading through this saga gives you the feeling that it is too hard to believe, but nobody could make this up unfortunately.
  
  
• Personal Finance Blog Articles provides us with a story about how John needs to create a top strategy for saving money.
  
  
• Over at HotStrategies.com you will find a personal experience on how change in business occurs and how sometimes you need to know when the time is right to sell your business.
  
  
• Marc and Angel share their story about how there are times when it makes financial sense to buy a car with a credit card. We did this with our son’s off-road motorcycle and it worked well for us as well.
  
  
• Do you have a whole-house fan in your house? We don’t but after FreeMoneyFinance shared his thoughts on how to save money with a whole-house fan, I will be doing a little research to determine the cost to add one to our home.
  
  
• My Wealth Builder shares a touching story about their daughter has developed a midas touch as she has recently won free airline tickets and $100 cash. I think I would be giving her the Business section of the paper to see if she can select a few winning stocks!
  
  
• Given that many people now run their own blog, you’ll want to check out The Blog Consultant to see how he has started with affiliate marketing to try and make some money.
  
  
• The Dividend Guy Blog shares a post on the power of reinvesting dividends with a listing of recent dividend transactions in his own account.
  
  
• Following the earlier idea of using your blog to make money, be sure to check out The Dough Roller’s list of 30 things he learned in his first 30 days of blogging. As we all try to build our own blogs and/or business, there are some valuable lessons to be learned here.
  
  
• Queercents does not disappoint with 10 money questions for Dan Butler and Richard Waterhouse. I loved the story about the time that Dan invited Richard to a movie!
  
  
• Money and Such tells us about how many young people at their employer do not currently save for retirement and then shares five strategies for planning your retirement while still in your 20′s. It is scary to see how many people of all ages have not planned properly for their retirement so these strategies are important for everyone.
  
  
• Check in on the progress that Stop Swimming has made on the challenge to double the emergency fund. It’s amazing what you can do when you challenge yourself to do something!
  
  
• Andy at Money Walks shares some exciting news that his fiance has been crowned Miss Maryland and saved money in the process. Congratulations!
  
  
• Right here at My New Choice, I shared my thoughts on how sometimes you really need to take a step back and look at the big picture to appreciate how far you have come with your finances.
  
  

Thank you to everyone for their participation in the carnival. It was a pleasure reading through all of your posts and taking part in your experiences. As a reminder, be sure to submit your post for the next edition of the carnival as soon as possible.

Hopefully you have enjoyed this edition of the Carnival of Money Stories and have shared your comments with each of the authors on their site.

If you are interested in hosting a future edition of the carnival, please contact Andy over at Money Walks.

If you are new to the Carnival of Money Stories or are thinking about submitting one of your posts, here is a little background on the type of post that we are looking for:

Here in CoMS we talk about personal experiences or the experiences of others on saving, investing, finance, money management, money generating, business ventures, success and tales of struggle. We would love to hear how you are handling your financial and business challenges as well as your opinions on money news and stories you come across.

To get a flavor for the type of posts you can expect, be sure to check out the current edition of the carnival that is being hosted over at Retire Young and Wealthy.

Please submit your story now to be considered for this edition of the Carnival of Money Stories. Deadline for submissions will be July 1st.

I’m looking forward to hosting the carnival and hope to see some great stories from everyone!

The carnivals are picking up as my post on is included in the latest edition of the Carnival of Debt Management.

As is usually the case with the personal finance carnivals, there are some great posts in this edition. I encourage you to spend some time reading through each post and making a habit of checking these sites on a regular basis, as you will likely learn many new things that have the potential to be saving you money on a regular basis.

Without further ado, here are my favorite posts from the carnival:

Test Your Buyer’s IQ
Over at The Digerati Life, you can test your buyer’s IQ to see if you need to quit wasting money on overpriced items. Is cheaper always better? I guess that depends on the wallet of the beholder but I was able to correctly identify the overpriced item in each pairing.

Slicing Your Income Pie
Debt Free bellies up to the table to discuss some ideas on how you should slice your income pie. While these numbers will not work for everyone, I think they are a good starting point if you are in the process of creating your spending plan or looking to improve your money management.

What To Do After Debt
Simple Guru shares some ideas on what to do after getting out of debt. As I have mentioned before, writing down your goals is critical to success and after eliminating debt is a great opportunity to create or revise your goals. In addition, if you were following the snowball method of debt elimination, you can use this same principle to snowball your savings goals.

There you have a few of the posts that I thought stood out in the latest edition of the Carnival of Debt Management. Enjoy the carnival!

The latest Carnival of Credit Cards has been posted and includes my post about being careful with your credit cards. Be sure to check out the entire carnival but here are a few of my favorites:

Paying Off 0% Card
Living Almost Large talks about paying off their 0% credit card. It is very tempting to use the 0% offers to earn interest but as Living Almost Large mentions, it is certainly not for everyone. While I have done it in the past and am doing it again right now, I caution anyone thinking about it to really take the time to understand the process.

Little Known Facts
The Free Geek shares 12 Little Known Facts Every Cardholder Should Know. This is a quality list of facts and tips that everyone should understand if you are using credit cards.

Credit Card Secrets
Continuing with the list of facts and tips, Getting Green writes about 10 Facts the Credit Card Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know. There are a few generalizations that I don’t agree with regarding the use of credit cards but still a quality read.

Making Money With Credit Cards
To counter Getting Green’s comment that credit cards only serve one purpose, you should check out the post from Nickel about How to Profit from 0% Balance Transfer Credit Card Offers. As someone that has done this before, I think Nickel offers a very good overview on the process and things to watch out for if you want to play the game.

Enjoy the carnival!

As you may remember, I had submitted a few of my posts to the March Madness Finance Tournament over at Free Money Finance and had made it into the 3rd round.

Unfortunately, I ran up against some outstanding posts and did not make it through the 3rd round. It is still quite satisfying to see that my posts made it as far as they did because there were some very high quality personal finance blogs in this tournament and I think I held my own.

I’d just like to take a moment to thank Free Money Finance for organizing the March Madness Finance Tournament. It was exciting for me to see how far I could make it in the tournament and I think it brought some good exposure to my new blog.

The remainder of the tournament should be really interesting as the quality of the posts will make it more and more difficult to select a winner in each matchup. Be sure to check it out and vote for your preferred posts and in case you do not remember, adding your comments to select a winner makes you eligible for a prize courtest of Free Money Finance.

There is a new carnival that I have found and will likely become a regular participant in each month, The Networth Carnival hosted by makingourway

My Net Worth.
In an effort to track my progress towards my financial goals for 2007, I’ve been posting my net worth progress each month and find it is a great motivational tool for me. While I have yet to disclose specific numbers, I do share how I am doing and my thoughts on the progress I am making towards my goals.

As a recap of my goals and net worth progress through 2007, please reference the following posts:

• 2007 Financial Goals
• January 2007 Update
• February 2007 Update

Be sure to check out the carnival as there are some very inspirational posts included this month and it is always enjoyable to see how others are doing with their goals. Keep up the good work!

Over at Free Money Finance, we are now in Round 3 of the March Madness Tournament and I still have two posts in contention for the crown!

Tournament Recap.
For anyone that may be new to the site, I am participating in a March Madness Finance Tournament where personal finance blogs are squared off with post versus post.

Here is a little more information on the tournament and my submissions:

• March Madness – Finance Style
• March Madness – Round 1

Your Vote Counts.
Through the first two rounds, I have had two of my four submissions survive and I would like to thank all of you for voting for my posts. One of the deciding factors in which posts win the round is the comments from visitors to each tournament bracket.

I’m matched up against some very tough posts this round so I would encourage you to get over to Free Money Finance and VOTE (for me of course).

In an effort to see how powerful the evil blog network can be, I’ll be sure to let you know that people commenting on each round are eligible to win a prize from Free Money Finance. Are you still here? GO VOTE!

This week my post discussing Financial Accountability has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance being hosted at Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge.

My Favorites.
Wow, there are so many quality posts in this carnival that I had a hard time pulling out a few of my favorites. It looks like Mapgirl had a fair amount of work to do this week and did an outstanding job of categorizing the posts.

Since there are so many great posts, I encourage you to browse through the entire carnival but here are a few of my personal favorites:

Frugal Lunch.
While I am sure most of us have come across the Frugal Lunch post over at Clever Dude, I had to call this out again because I think this is a fantastic post. Personally, I can eat the same thing every day and am thinking about giving this a try.

Day to Day Numbers.
Debt Be Gone shares a nice look at the day to day numbers on how they manage their finances. It is always nice to see how other people approach their spending as that provides ideas on how to refine your own plan.

Buying a Condo.
Why I bought a condo at 21 is a post over at Blunt Money about the opportunity to save money by buying rather than renting. The buying vs. renting decision is often discussed and here the timing was right to take advantage of a buying opportunity.

Eating in Orlando.
At It’s Just Money, you’ll find a nice post about eating in Orlando for $50 a day. Since I will be traveling to Orlando in May for business and likely returning later in the year for personal travel, this post had some great money saving tips that I will be sure to utilize.

Be sure to visit the carnival to enjoy the wealth of outstanding posts this week!

This week my post discussing the I’m In Debt – MTV True Life episode has been included in the Carnival of Debt Reduction being hosted at Climbing Out of Debt.

My Favorites.
As usual, I like to read through the carnival submissions and highlight a few of my favorite posts that I think you will enjoy. This week, Climbing Out of Debt cuts his teeth by hosting his first ever carnival and I think he has done an outstanding job.

Here are a few of my favorite posts from this latest carnival:

You Can Go Out and Payoff Debt
We’re In Debt has a nice post about how you can go out and payoff debt. There are a couple of great low (or no) cost options that you can use as a starting point to find even more ways to stay entertained while paying down your debt.

Merging Lives, Merging Money
If you have met someone special and have been thinking about making a commitment or recently made a commitment to your sweetheart, be sure to check out Merging Lives, Merging Money over at Simple Guru. My wife and I have always used joint accounts but I found this discussion to be quite interesting.

Skipping EVEN MORE Nickels and Dimes for Bigger Savings
Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket has a post about saving even more nickels and dimes on a variety of items. There are some really interesting ideas here so be sure to check it out.

Enjoy the carnival!

Be sure to visit the FMF March Madness tournament and support my entries with your comments and feedback!