Carnival of Money Stories - Olympic Hangover Edition
Welcome to the 74th Carnival of Money Stories - Olympic Hangover Edition. Today we'll take a look at a variety of articles from across the PF blogosphere. The curtain has fallen on the Beijing Olympics (and the smog has settled back in), so here is one last look back on the 2008 games to help ease the transition back to normal life / fall TV schedules.
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On the Medal Stand this week (Editor's Picks)
- vh presents Lemonade from a Financial Lemon posted at Funny About Money. Very well written (as you may expect form an English Prof!). Death, a back-stabbing Ex, the evil step-mother, and a happy ending (paid-off house!). What more could you want?
- Mr. ToughMoneyLove presents On Money, Personal Finance and Being Judgmental posted at Tough Money Love » The Hard Truth about Money and Personal Finance. A no-holds-barred assessment of how comments and advice are received, sometimes poorly. A long post, but a great pay-off at the end.
- The Happy Rock presents A New Stage In My Financial Journey posted at The Happy Rock. I think you just understood the great misunderstanding - what a great place to be!
Business
The Olympics mean one thing to businesses - golden opportunity. And some cash in, or at least attempt to. McDonald's chicken sandwich w/ pickles :: Olympic athletes, just as Visa :: Michael Phelps (Remember those 'is-to' questions from the SAT? Fun.) That's right one has nothing to do with the other. It will be nice to see less commercials of athletes holding food items that they wouldn't eat if they had to.
- Nicole Kunstmann presents Ann Sieg and her Approach to Network Marketing posted at Learninggirl's Weblog.
- Curt presents How Often Do You Upgrade Your Computer? posted at PennyJobs.com.
- The Financial Blogger presents Passive Income Also Means Patient Income! posted at The Financial Blogger.
Credit
How about some carbon credits for Beijing? After a pre-Olympic ceremony was shrouded in a vale of disgusting smog, Chinese officials took action to save face. Too bad you can't eliminate decades of air pollution in a matter of weeks. They planted millions of trees, shut down nearly all construction and factories in the area, and took the majority of the vehicles off of the road. All typically commendable. In the end, they still had to cook the books on the true air quality. Too bad their range of influence doesn't include the AP and the BBC.
- CreditAddict presents Credit Card Declined? Start a Drunken Brawl posted at Credit Card Addict.
Debt
The cost of the opening ceremony is rumored to have cost more than the preparations in progress for the entire next winter Olympics in Vancouver. Not to mention the cost of the closing ceremony. Did you see that double-decker transforming bus? Wow. Here's to living within your means and not keeping up with the Jones' - or the Zhangs:
- Laura presents Cold turkey on magazines and confessions posted at No More Spending.net.
- Benjamin Dinsmore presents Trees Full of Money: Leasing My Toyota 4Runner was Dumb *Part 1* posted at Trees Full of Money.
General
In general, many Americans have been glued to the set every evening for the past 2 weeks - myself included. I'm not really much of a swimming fan - or gymnastics, or water polo, or track - but the people competing here are the best in the world. It becomes tough not to watch when records are being smashed and medals are won by hundredths or even thousandths of seconds. It sucks you in and like any good stimulant, it's tough to shake. I may have to replay some of the Redeem Team's games just to hold me over until the basketball season starts. I'll be ok. Really. I don't need it. I can stop any time I want.
- Del Sandeen presents Here is a Way to Stop Yourself from Making Impulse Purchases posted at Fiscal Liberty.
- AndrewB presents You Think Making More Money equals happiness? Think Again posted at Make More Money.
- MoneyNing presents Stop Worrying About Your Finances posted at Personal Finance Blog by Money Ning.
- Amy presents To Save, Play the Waiting Game posted at My Daily Dollars.
- FIRE Finance presents Back To School - Savers Guide posted at FIRE Finance.
- Joe Manausa presents How To Dispute Your Property Taxes posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog.
- Deborah presents Car Maintenance Fund (Or, my ING Sub-Accounts Addiction) posted at Pennies To Nickels.
- J. Money presents I just paid $4.02 for a Starbucks, and it tasted awesome! posted at Budgets are Sexy..
- Cooupon Artist presents Why I am Disappointed in my Certified Used Car Warranty (And Why You May Be Too) posted at artofthecoupon.com.
- Jim presents Stay Focused, Stay Balanced, Stay Healthy: Part One posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.
Investing
Olympic athletes invest amazing amounts of time into training. Michael Phelps claims to be up at 5:30am 365 / year and has done so for years. I tend to believe him. The US men's basketball team asks their players - NBA players - to commit 3 years to the team. It's very inspiring to see athletes who dedicate themselves and invest their time by their own free will for the chance to represent their country and the possibility of winning big.
- Ryan Suenaga presents Negative Return But More Dollars in the Bank: Not Quite Awful posted at Uncommon Cents.
Net Worth
From the beginning, it's been the US and China atop the medal standings. South Korea made a good showing, but fell off towards the end. Other perennial performers like Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Russia did well also. It was nice to see a few countries like Afghanistan and Togo earn their first medals ever! In the end, it was USA - 110, China - 100, and Russia - 72. Here are some folks focussed on their own 'medal count':
- MBB presents Chase High Interest Rates On Savings Accounts posted at Money Blue Book Personal Finance Blog.
Retirement
Here are some folks who are a long way from retirement - the Chinese Womens Gymnastics team. Are they 14 or 16? The world may never know. The IOC and FIG are in the hot-seat with so much conflicting information out there regarding the ages of two of the team members, as well as the admission of former gymnasts that they were guilty of the same. Let's look at some better plans and a different definition of 'starting early in life'.
- R presents Starting Early on Early Retirement posted at Retired At 47.
Other
Other?! Is there anything else to talk about? Yeah, we've been pretty rough on host country China, but we call it as we see it. We avoid Chinese-made products like the plague, not only for the traditional low quality and their predilection for toxic chemicals, but also for all of the injustice, pollution, and other stuff going on there. Hey! See! we did get 'other' in there. We'll end things on a high note with a pic of some of the amazing architecture generated for these games as well as some posts falling into the fine category of 'Other'.
- FMF presents We Have a Buyer for Our Home posted at Free Money Finance.
- Silicon Valley Blogger presents Sell Your House, Downsize and Give The Proceeds To Charity? posted at The Digerati Life.
- Stephanie presents I must be a slow learner posted at Stop the Ride!.
- Wenchypoo presents Two Games You Really Don't Need posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.
- Kevin presents How Inertia Can Devastate or Save Your Financial Future posted at No Debt Plan.
- Broke Grad Student presents Broke Grad Masters Science, Still Working on Student Loans posted at Broke Grad Student.
Thanks to everyone for submitting such great work. Come back as often as you need if you feel that Olympic withdrawal coming back - just go easy with the mouse if you get the shakes. Tune in next week to host blog Funny About Money for the 75th Carnival of Money Stories. If you didn't make the cut, then buck up, there's always London in 2012!
8 comments:
Nice job, thanks so much for your hard work. And thank you also for including my article, "Starting Early on Early Retirement".
Thanks a lot for including me in this carnival!
Great roundup of links and the Olympics! Thanks for including my post.
Word. Thanks!
Thanks for includuding my post jet set and for all your hard work in putting together the Carnival :)
-Laura
Wow! Thanks for selecting Funny's post on lemon from lemonades as an Editor's Pick! I'm very flattered! :-)
Great job and thanks for including my article.
good job!
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