Welcome New Money Mavens Roundup

Back in April I announced that I had joined a new group of PF bloggers calling ourselves the Money Maven Network. We’ve been slowly gaining some traction, and recently invited a number of bloggers to join us as a couple had dropped out, selling their blogs. So in today’s roundup, I’d first like to introduce my new fellow Mavens.

First, let’s welcome Jeff Kosola who blogs at Deliver Away Debt. His blog was named for the fact that he started delivering pizza on Friday and Saturday night to make some coin to pay off his debt. Recently, his day job’s time demands grew to the point where he stopped delivering pizza, but his fellow bloggers all agreed the name was still valid, this was how he paid his debt, even if it was behind him. I’ll miss his clever tweets about the customers he delivered to, but am glad he still make the time to blog, and glad he accepted our invitation to join the Mavens. His post I’d like to highlight this week is How a Debt Snowball Works in which he offers a video to help explain it. Let me say two thing here. He uses actual snow to make the point. In Michigan. In the summer. Nice work, Jeff, welcome aboard.

Next we have Monevator asking Do You Hate Your Work? A pretty deep dive into how we think about our day jobs and a great read. Before he joined, I’ll admit, I hadn’t seen too much of his work, but I’ve started to see why the other Mavens added him to the list to join out group. A good choice, guys.

Next we have Kelly from The Centsible Life. Kelly, I’ve known for sometime, she’s a mom of four kids and an avid blogger. Her posts are often more personal than mine, sharing stories of her efforts to keep organized in Shoes, shoes and more shoes: what’s a mom to do? (Seems like she needs a custom shoe rack!) or sharing her Life List. She has a writing style that makes you want to invite her over for coffee and ask her for advice on one topic or another, and was a welcome addition the the Mavens. Now, I need to get my own list going, I love that idea.

The last addition is Ryan from The Military Wallet. If you don’t know, I have a soft spot in my heart for vets. One of the links (to the right) is to my favorite charity, The New England Center For Homeless Vets, and when any reader offers to throw me a tip, I suggest they donate to the Vets. Ryan fills in a nice gap in the blogging community, helping this special group of people understand their benefits and needs. His latest Get a Free Flu Shot from the VA is just one little benefit our vets need to be aware of. Welcome Ryan, I tip my hat to you.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere – Kevin at Out of Your Rut offered 10 Things You Should Buy Used, an interesting take on the things you can really save by buying second hand. This is a great list worth reading. In these tough times there’s some easy money you can save by being flexible and not thinking there’s anything wrong with “used.”

Free From Broke explains Why We Chose A 30 Year Mortgage When We Bought Our Home. Hey, you don’t need to explain it to me, that was the way I went. You can always pay extra, pay early, and accelerate your payoff. But in bad times, you’re not obligated to pay that higher amount. This is always an interesting topic as we all seem to have a mortgage and trying to navigate how to handle it.

Last this week, from another fellow Maven, Neal Frankle, Best Inheritance Tax Advice Neal discusses some of the ins and outs of the estate tax. I’m looking forward to the day this is no longer a topic for discussion, no more estate tax. But until then…

Joe