Aside from hosting the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances, I participated in a couple more carnivals last week:

The Finance Fiesta No. 3: The Spanish Money Proverbs Edition
and
The Carnival of Personal Finance #157: Third Anniversary Edition

Also this past week, Jim over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity alerted me that Poorer Than You was mentioned in Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational.

So I did the completely rational thing and told my parents about it, who immediately ran out to buy a copy of the book. I’ve been interested in reading the book since it came out, but since the last borrower never returned it to the library, I never had the chance to have the “OMG MY WEBSITE IS MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK” moment while reading it.

I’m not sure whether I feel that it was a “good” mention or a “bad” one. Ariely says, of this site and other debt bloggers:

Blogging about overspending is important and useful, but … what we truly need is a method to curb our consumption at the moment of temptation, rather than a way to complain about it after the fact.

I’m not sure I’d ever classify my blog as a “complaint” about my debt, although I can see how some debt blogs do fall into that category. In point of fact, I believe a blog can act as a way to curb consumption - mine has kept me accountable and focused on personal finance, which has done wonders for my situation.

Still… SWEET!

Hello, and welcome to the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances for June 16th, 2008! I’m Stephanie, and I’ll be your host as we highlight articles and posts from around the web-o-sphere that pertain to money matters for Generation Y.

And I have to tell you, this opportunity to act as host has sent me on a POWER TRIP!

That’s right, I’m hijacking the power given to me as the Editor of the carnival, and using it to rank the submissions sent in to me. Normally, you don’t see this level of competition and favoritism in a blog carnival. But I feel that by ranking the posts and weeding them out to the good, better, and best, I’m doing a service both to the writers of the articles, and to the readers of the carnival. So let’s GO!

WINNERS! (Editor’s Picks)

In the winners circle we find posts that cover and interesting topic, and cover it with style and good writing. Congratulations to the following:

GBlogger presents Early Savers: $69,000 Saved By Age 23 posted at CAN I GET RICH ON A SALARY.

Mark Butler presents You Control the Money or The Money Controls You posted at The Butler Project.

Writer’s Coin presents Three Ways Falling in Love is Good For Your Budget posted at The Writer’s Coin.

FIRE Finance presents Sneaky Credit Card Trick #1 - Over The Credit Limit Fees posted at FIRE Finance.

Lars presents Fix Your Credit Report - Simple Fixes You Can Easily Do Yourself posted at InsightsandAdvice.com.

2nd Placers

Good articles on interesting topics that piqued my interest. These posts are to be congratulated as well:

Mr Credit Card presents How to Stop Getting Credit Card Offers By Mail posted at Ask Mr Credit Card.

Raymond presents Why College Students Should Apply For Student Credit Cards posted at Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Credit is King in an Emergency posted at The Digerati Life.

Brooke presents Groundhog Day Goals - 6 June (late) posted at Dollar Frugal.

Katie Gregg presents Frugal Fabulous: Frugal Faucets posted at Frugal Fabulous.

Steve Faber presents What is The Highest Gas Mileage Car? - The Top 10 Real Cars for $4.00 a Gallon Gas posted at Debt Free.

Dorian Wales presents The Personal Financier: Actively Manage Your Career to Stay On Top of Your Game posted at The Personal Financier.

Hank presents The Wife And I Are Bumping Up The 401k Contributions to 15% - How Much SHOULD You Be Putting In Your 401k? posted at My Investing Blog.

Garret presents 7 Ways To Save Money On Your Fuel Bill posted at Personal Finance Basics.

Helen Anderson presents 5 Ways to Start Your Business With No Money! posted at Bankaholic.

Heather Johnson presents 5 Ways to Save Money in College posted at Grad Money Matters.

Steve Faber presents One of the Best Reasons to Quit Smoking - You Could Save a Half a Million Dollars! posted at Debt Free.

Margaret presents Dealing with Higher Gas Prices posted at Greener Chic. AND Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre posted at The Earthly Paradise.

James D Braush presents Another Thought Exercise posted at Internet Business Blog. [Editor's note: You'll have be familar with the recent news regarding the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in order to understand this article.] 

David Carter presents Bring Your Lunch to Work Day posted at David Makes Cents.com.

Sagar Satapathy presents 10 Surprising Implications of the Global Rise in Food Prices posted at Currency Trading.net.

Joy Harrison presents Debt management… personal budget, debt consolidation, or counseling? posted at Money Sense.

Livingalmostlarge presents Compromising a couple’s wants posted at LivingAlmostLarge.

Brice Hogan presents Fund Retirement Early posted at Financialzip.com.

Shamelle presents Money And Processions: Breaking Free From The Materialism Trap posted at Enhance Life.

Runners Up

Don’t forget about the guys at the back of the race - although these articles did not resonate with me, you might find one of these to be a diamond in the rough:

Thank you to the participants, and if you didn’t get the “rank” that you were hoping for, take heart, keep writing, and submit to the next edition of Twenty Something Finances using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page. Better luck next time!

Photo credits: Mr. Thumpz, Bukutgirl, and Patrick Mayon

The “Graduating?” series is wrapped up and I’ll admit - I’m kinda tired. Actually, I’m tired because I stayed up late last night discussing supernovas! (This conversation on supernovas may or may not have been sparked by a discussion on the end of the world or the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series.)

Here are the blog carnivals that I participated in last week:

Moolanomy hosted the 155th Carnival of Personal Finance - Time With Family edition. My post Graduating? Calculate Your Tax Withholding was included. A taste of the post I really enjoy from this carnival:

29 Free Or Low Cost Ways To Save Energy & Money.
Stop complaining about Gas Prices!
Five Things Indiana Jones Can Teach Us About Personal Finance

Girls Just Wanna Have Funds hosted the Carnival of Debt Reduction 142nd Edition: Sex And The City Style! My post Graduating? Plan Your Attack on Federal Student Loans was a “Carrie’s Pick.” Some other great articles:

Surviving Student Loans
Looking for Extra Money to Pay off Debts? Here Are 10 Things You Can Do Today to Free Up Money
Are These People Crazy?

Master Your Card hosted a brand new blog carnival, and my post Graduating? Evaluate Benefits for Job Offers was in the first ever Finance Fiesta! Some more good posts from the piñata:

Into the Wild… Without spending a lot of money
How Much is a Dollar Worth? How About $53.70
Should You Invest in a Non-Matching 401K?

I just want to give a big THANKS to all of the blog owners that posted these carnivals! It’s a lot of work, so I hope you readers check them out and find some awesome articles!

I’ve decided to jump back into participating in blog carnivals again this summer - I might even hop on the horse and host a few here!

This week, my post about making smart choices while buying my new cell phone was accepted into the Carnival of Personal Finance at Money and Values. The first post in my Graduating? series about job hunting was accepted into the Festival of Twenty Something Finances at My Beauty and Fashion.

Some posts from the carnivals that I really enjoyed:

Updating the college scholarship resume - This not only makes it easier for you to apply for scholarships, it forces you to think about what you’re doing (or not doing!) in school and how that will look to scholarship committees.

Student loans are not “good debt” and Are college degrees overrated?
These two posts echo my thoughts that a lot of people go to college for entirely the wrong reasons. I’m still not entirely sure whether or not I should be counted in that category! I think the over-valuing of the Bachelors degree in America has led to too many people getting them, which in turn causes too many employers “requiring” them for jobs that don’t actually need a four year degree.

Why? - Sarah at 20Saver beautifully answers the question that I get a lot too. When people try to argue I should spend money because I’m “only young once,” my response is “Yes. That’s exactly why I’m trying to save now.”

Before I get into the carnival and point out my favorites, I’d like to issue an apology. RSS feed subscribers were subjected to some wonkiness the last couple of days - not limited to duplicate items and truncated articles. I apologize - the feed was the injured party in my server move. I hope no one unsubscribed because they thought I have moved to partial feeds - it was just a glitch! This article and all future articles should publish the full article! And now, on to my carnival highlights!

This edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted by the Frugal Law Student and is the BEST WEEK EVER Edition (one of my favorite shows - it will probably be one of the only ones I start watching when I return home and have cable!). My College Freshman Checklist was included. Here are the other articles that I thoroughly enjoyed:

The Dough Roller shares 10 Things I Now Know at 40 That I Wish I Knew at 20 - maybe some of us that are 20 can take this advice and run with it!

Plonkee Money gives a lesson in British Money Slang - something that interests the linguist in me quite a bit! (That’s why I took Latin in high school instead of an modernly useful language.)

Millionaire Mommy let loose the secret of How I Became a Millionaire While Working In My Pajamas - what I like about her story is that there really is no secret to it!

Saving Advice did a wonderful photo essay of 25 Money Confessions.

Thanks again to the Frugal Law Student for hosting the carnival this week!

JD over at Get Rich Slowly has posted a very special edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance for the carnival’s second anniversary: Greatest Hits Edition. Instead of the best articles from the last two weeks, JD asked everyone to submit their best article from the last two years.

The result is more amazing articles than I can count! I tried to go through and pick out my favorites, but there were simply too many. You’re really going to have to check it out for yourself. (My three-parter offering money advice to college students was included, and picked as a favorite by JD!).

Speaking of interesting happenings in the blogosphere, John Chow is doing another insane give-away. This time he’s giving away a rather drool-worthy 24″ widescreen LCD monitor. Yeah, that would definitely beat my current 15″ LCD out of the water! To enter, you’ve just got to mention the contest on your blog (like this!). This contest is by the man that helps you make money is also sponsored by BlueFur, hosting Canada (and everywhere else).

Don’t have a blog? Or want another chance at winning a sexy (yet just slightly smaller) monitor? BlueFur is also giving away a 22″ widescreen LCD monitor on their blog! All you’ve got to do is vote for them as “best blogging host” at the Blogger’s Choice Awards. You can also get 3 additional entries into the contest by blogging about it.

The 99th Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Money, Matter, and More Musings - this is the Awesome Money Quotes Edition. My article about No Gas Day made the Travel and Vacation section. Here are some of the posts I most enjoyed from the carnival:

The Coin Jar’s oldest daughter, a sophomore in college, is already on her way to becoming a millionaire, with no student debt, $1,600 in a Roth IRA and time aplenty ahead of her: My daughter’s millionaire dreams aren’t far from reality.

Juan at Millionster just isn’t going to stand for his apartment hiking up the rent: Dear Apartment, You’re Charging Me Too Much For Rent!

Fire Finance reveals direct deposit’s dirty secret - your employer can take money out of your account as well! Direct Deposit to Bank Account - Handle With Care!

Thanks to Golbguru for hosting this edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance!

I flew home on the red eye last night, and I’m battling some wicked jet lag right now. It’s taken me a five hour nap and three hours of staring blankly at my computer screen to get to the point where I feel I can actually write something intelligible. Regardless, this might end up unintelligible anyway.

I’ve agreed to try my hand at hosting the Carnival of Credit Report Stories on Monday, April 30th. If you have a blog and a story about credit, credit scores, or credit reports, please submit it to me using the carnival submission form. I’d really like some good entries for my first carnival!

Also, if you wouldn’t mind spreading the word about the carnival on your blog, that would be helpful as well. When the boys over at Millionster hosted the carnival, they made this cute chicklet for promoting it:

If you’d like to use it as well, please upload it to your own server. And get those submissions in by 5PM Eastern on Sunday the 29th, please!

This here is a head’s up to my fellow bloggers: my boys over at Millionster are going to be hosting the Carnival of Credit Report Stories on Monday, and since it’s still a baby in the Blog Carnival world (this will only be the third edition!), they need your help!

So if you have an article about credit reports or credit scores, head over there and submit it! They even made this cute little chicklet for the occasion:

So if you’ve got something already, submit it, or maybe consider writing something for the occasion. I’m working on an article for it, which I will be posting tomorrow. Oh, I know, the anticipation is killing you. =)