Welcome to this week’s edition of the Carnival of Money!  Thank you to those of you who participated.

General Financial Advice

Jack presents Tips for a Great Financial Year posted at Money Saving Ethics, saying, “Improving your financial situation is not as difficult as it might sound, but it does require dedication and thought. It is really just a matter of starting and maintaining healthy financial habits.”

Danielle presents Financial Tips That Sound Bad but Work Well posted at Saving Without a Budget, saying, “If you ask most certified financial planners you will find that one of the things they are constantly warning their clients against is making bad money choices based on popular financial advice, which is often wrong.”

Matt presents The High Cost of Using Cash posted at Budget Snob, saying, “It has been calculated that the aggregate expense to all households in the United States for accessing and using their cash is $31 billion a year.”

Emily presents Accepting Money for a Favor posted at Evolving Personal Finance, saying, “If your friend offered you money for doing him a favor, would you accept it?”

Justin @ Root of Good presents Join the Military to Retire Early? posted at Root of Good, saying, “Retired nuclear submariner Doug Nordman explains how joining the military could lead to early retirement. However, it isn’t necessarily an easy path to riches.”

Marissa presents Hello, ING Direct, errr Tangerine posted at Thirty Six Months, saying, “ING Direct was acquired by ScotiaBank last year. As a result of the acquisition, ING Direct was required to change their name as they are not owned by the ING Group anymore.”

FI Pilgrim presents Flipping The Script: How I Learned To Live On Last Month’s Income posted at FI Journey, saying, “Nobody wants to live paycheck to paycheck, but for a long time I did just that. Here is how I flipped the script and began living on last month’s income.”

Kali presents Twenty Things Twenty-Somethings Should Know About Money posted at Common Sense Millennial, saying, “It takes work and time to figure out something as complicated as money and personal finance – and sometimes, it is overwhelming trying to understand it by yourself. I wanted to help by composing a list of the twenty things most important for twenty-somethings to know.”

Monica presents 8 Warning SIgns That You’re Living Beyond Your Means posted at Monica On Money, saying, “Read these tell-tale signs and stop living paycheck to paycheck!”

Debt

Amy presents How to Liberate Yourself from Student Loan Debt posted at Money Mishaps, saying, “The student loan crisis in America is absolutely massive and does not look like it is going to get better anytime soon.”

John Schmoll presents What is the Key to Success When Paying off Debt? posted at Frugal Rules, saying, “Many in our society struggle with paying off debt. There are various methods given to pay off debt, but they’ll all fail if you’re attitude isn’t in the right place desiring to kill the debt.”

Natalie presents Are We Enabling Bad Behavior? posted at Debt and the Girl, saying, “I was catching up on some blog reading lately. I came across a blog where the blog owner was talking about purchasing something that I considered to be a little ostentatious. ”

Real Estate

Hadley presents Build or Buy? posted at Epic Finances, saying, “Taking the big step to buy a home can be difficult. Buyers are often faced with the decision of whether they want to buy an existing home or build a new one. Here are some things to consider before making that big decision.”

Lily presents 5 Home Improvement Tips to Help you Sell your Home Quicker posted at Paying Debt Down, saying, “Selling a home these days is all about image. The problem that most people have is that they put a lot of effort into making the interior of their home look absolutely wonderful but fail to do the same for the exterior of their home.”

Bryan Chau presents The Ace of Trades – 7 Tips For Flips posted at Success Pen Pal, saying, “tips, investing, stocks, markets, positions, strategies, success”

Entrepreneurship

Sam presents 5 Mistakes that Successful Entrepreneurs Wish they Would have Avoided posted at The New Business Blog, saying, “Many successful small business owners and entrepreneurs made mistakes when they started their businesses that they wish they could go back and correct. ”

Alexa presents How to Pay Off Debt & Increase Your Income the Fun Way posted at Defeat Our Debt, saying, “In order to speed up your debt repayment you will have to locate extra funds to throw toward it. You can either continue down the path you’re on or earn extra money.”

Alexa presents How to Make Money Blogging (Plus a Challenge) posted at Single Moms Income, saying, “Want to know how to make money blogging? Join me in a challenge to grow your readership and make money blogging.”

Saving and Investing

Matt Becker presents How to Start Investing From Scratch – Part 2 posted at Mom and Dad Money, saying, “Welcome to Part 2 of my mini-series on how to start investing when you have little money or understanding of investing. This article will give you some simple steps you can take right now to get started on the right path.”

Graham presents Should I invest in emerging markets? posted at Moneystepper, saying, “Emerging markets are seen as a risky place to invest. But what have the returns from emerging markets been over the past 10 years? And should I invest now?”

Sumit Sinha presents How To Use Parkinson’s Law To Dramatically Reduce Your Spending (And Shoot Up Your Saving) posted at Sumit Sinha, saying, “So you have decided to kick start your journey to financial freedom? You are excited, perhaps even amazed at the idea of having your money work for you. You are committed to save more money this month because after all, each dollar you save is going to work hard to produce more dollars. You want to go through the month determined to spend only on the necessary stuffs. By month’s end, you realize you have spent almost all of your income.”

Sustainable PF presents The Importance of Saving Early posted at Sustainable Personal Finance, saying, “When my husband and I first married, we were poor and in debt. It was a difficult place to be, and, even as we made inroads and improved our finances, we still felt pinched. As a result, we decided that we could not afford to set aside money for the future.”

Ben presents The Twitter IPO: A Big Disappointment for the Little Guy posted at The Wealth Gospel, saying, “Twitter’s IPO was a big hit! That is, if you are an investment bank. For the rest of us, it may have been better to wait until it flops.”