Money Blue Book Weekend Roundup - 2

By MoneyBlueBook

Let's take a walk around the the personal finance blogosphere. Here are a few blog posts that I found interesting and worth reading during the last few weeks. Feel free to check them out:

• Frugal For Life shares a tragic story involving love and finance with gold diggers C.C. and Bill.
• Money Smart Life shares a few tips about finding deals during the shopping off season.
• Single Guy Money hands over the arduous task of ironing his shirt and pants to his female friend in a modern day example of bartering. Personally, I think he should stick with buying only wrinkle free clothing like I do.
• Mrs. Micah shares her thoughts on living in the ghetto. I can relate to her ghetto housing experiences as I used to live in Baltimore City a while back as a student. Drug dealers, trauma helicopters, and gang members were common sights.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter talks about the ramifications of when bargain hunting zeal treads into addiction territory. I knew I was personally pushing the envelope a bit when I would order things online to save a measly 50 cents.
• I'm a big fan of using reward credit cards to maximize purchasing power, but The Digerati Life reveals a list of common ways that people can get themselves into credit card trouble.
• Wise Bread is trying to promote their new personal finance forum and is literally giving away $20 Amazon gift certificates each day to those who participate in the new
  

By MoneyBlueBook

Waiting for any freebie post?Here we tell you the latest offers that you would like to have it for yourslef Read the full article »

By MoneyBlueBook

Well a year has passed since I started earning and accumulating Citi ThankYou Reward Points using my squadron of Citibank credit cards, and now it's time to redeem them for some well deserved purchase rewards. I own three of them myself, and here are the top Citibank cards when it comes to earning ThankYou reward points:

By MoneyBlueBook

I would like to wish my readers and my lovely girl a Happy Valentine's Day! For those of you who don't have a clue where to take your Valentine's date, I recommend The Melting Pot, a classy fondue restaurant. Fondue is basically a communal type of dinner meal shared around an earthenware pot cooked over a small burner at your table. The light fondue cheese mix inside the pot is usually cooked with traces of wine and kept warm while diners use specially pronged forks to dip bread and other bits of food into it. Although it's deliciously fun, the dining experience can be rather expensive.

Love May Be Cheap, But Fondue Isn't

The Melting Pot is definitely not a place for patrons who are financially squeamish about opening up their wallets wide for a rare romantic dinner. On special occasions like Valentine's Day, expect reservations to be in demand and planned dinner courses for two to cost upwards of $130.00. On other days, the price doesn't fare all that much better - at around $85 per couple. It's amazing how high prices soar for love-related events and merchandise during special holiday occasions like Valentine's Day (just look at the price of online Valentine's day flowers in my last post).

I'm not really a high end restaurant connoisseur (usually preferring to save my money by going elsewhere), but I've been there a few times and enjoyed the food and ambiance. Don't get me wrong - a dinner at the Melting Pot is incredibly expensive,

By MoneyBlueBook

Well Valentine's Day is here again and it's time to carry out the age old tradition of sending flowers to that special girl in your life. While women today frequently send flowers as well, I think the great majority of gift flowers purchased for Valentine's Day are made by men for their love crush, their girlfriends, or for their wives. Anyway you look at it - women love flowers - the commercially universal symbol of love (that and diamonds). They love to receive them, look at them, show them off to friends and co-workers, and display them on their desks for all to see (I see it all the time). Today, flowers make great presents for any occasion, and they're no longer just for the major holidays and birthdays anymore either.

Since giving flowers during those special holidays is almost a given, for the guys, if you really want to score bonus points, try sending your special lady flowers for no special reason at all - it's even better when she's not expecting them. That will really brighten her day. Not that I am an expert in the flower-sending department or even have that extensive of an experience in wooing girls with flowers, but I've done it before - through both traditional local florists and through online flower delivery services. Both techniques have always yielded great results.

Flowers Are Expensive, But Buying and Sending Them Doesn't Have To Break The Bank

Now one of the biggest gripes with sending flower arrangements as gifts is that they're usually quite

By MoneyBlueBook

Update: Read About The Possibility Of A 2009 Second Stimulus Check

With both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate having nodded their respective approvals of the nearly $160 billion economic stimulus package (that's "B' as in Billion), the bill has finally been signed, sealed, and delivered to President Bush for final approval. The President has already indicated that he will quickly sign the economic aid into law - so I believe the rebate checks will soon be on their way to a mailbox or direct deposit account near you.

I shall try to explain how the 2008 economic stimulus package will work and how much you can expect to receive in the way of a rebate check.

1) Why Are We Getting A Tax Rebate Check?

The Tax Rebate Check is part of the U.S. government's emergency pro-growth economic stimulus plan to prevent the U.S. economy from stalling out and entering a period of prolonged recession. Due to the recent slowdown in the economy caused by housing bubble problems and subprime mortgage related issues, the federal government wants to keep the economy on the up and up by putting money into the hands of U.S. consumers to encourage increased consumer spending. Like jump starting a car, the government wants to hand consumers extra wads of cash to encourage increased business investment and consumer activity. Surveys have indicated that at least half of consumers intend to use the money to pay down existing debt, while the other half intends to either save or spent