My Favorite Articles of the Week

I just recently wrote about how I was going to post less frequently in order to focus on other self-employed income plans, as well as some other obligations. So far so good. I’ve brain stormed about different online income opportunities and will start implementing them soon. I’ve also cleaned my condo, and organized all of my mail. I’m super excited about the possibilities and what the future has in store, and I will keep you all updated as I go.

Today is my birthday and I will be out celebrating tonight, but tomorrow I am hoping to spend a significant amount of time working on some of my goals for 2009 and starting on some of the initial work to get these projects going.

Links

Pat at Smart Passive Income wrote about how guarantees can boost your sales. One of my potential online ventures involves developing a product and selling it online. This type of product will no doubt benefit from a guarantee. Pat makes a great point that guarantees provide a safety net for consumers to push them over the edge and make the purchase, and they most likely won’t take advantage of a guarantee and ask for a refund. I know I’ve never asked for a refund.

Kevin at No Debt Plan stirred the pot a little by claiming his 401k was terrible. I have no sympathy as I have an even worse 401k plan at my company. My company offers no match at all. Additionally, the investing options are pretty poor, which is why I don’t participate at all.

Jonathan at My Money Blog used a pretty graph to compare historical bear markets. Based on this chart it looks like we have at least a year left before we’re out of the bear market, but I can see it lasting longer. I could argue the market will take up to 3 years to recover and it wouldn’t be entirely shocking if it took slightly longer. Now where did I put my crystal ball…

Madison at My Dollar Plan compiled a great tax resource guide. I will most definitely be referring to this post when I file my taxes in the next week or two.

Jim at Bargaineering wonders how accurate are credit estimators? He compared his actual credit score that was acquired through myFICO’s Score Watch with a credit score obtained through credit karma and myFICO’s credit estimator. Interestingly enough the estimated credit scores were lower than his actual score by about one tier. I have plans to use credit karma in the near future and will let you all know how that goes.

Carnivals

I tried to participate in more carnivals this week, but a few of my posts weren’t accepted, which is disappointing because I really like the posts that I submitted. Oh well, I will definitely keep at it and submit to carnivals every week. This week I participated in the 165th Festival of Frugality hosted by Jeff Rose at Good Financial Cents. The festival feature my post about using Walgreen’s EasySaver Catalog to make money.

Random Thought

The basketball trading deadline passed without a big name coming to my Bulls to pair with DRose. Over the past week there were rumors of Amar’e Stoudemire and Chris Bosh coming to Chicago. Either of these moves makes the Bulls an instant playoff team and a title contender in the next few years with the right filler pieces. Instead, we ended up with Brad Miller and Tim Thomas for their second tours. UGH.

Anybody interested in joining me in a fantasy baseball league? If you’re interested just leave a comment or shoot me an email via my contact form and I’ll set one up. If nobody is interested I won’t be deterred. I will contact some fellow bloggers to join my league.