I’m living in a world of wonder where the Patriots are 16-0. The Lisa Olsen incident seems so far away. Last night, a person introduced himself to me (I was wearing my Patriots shirt) as Adam Vinatieri’s cousin. More than 12 hours later, I still don’t know how I was supposed to react to that. While I think it over, here are some articles I wanted to highlight.

You can read an original Lazy Man article, Should You “Sweat the Small Stuff”?, that was published on the Prosper Blog earlier this week.

I’d like to thank MSN’s Smart Spending for highlighting my article on saving on wine.

The Digetari Life gives an awesome recap of her financial year. With many links to her previous articles and news, there’s really a lot here – just a great article full of information.

Generation X Finance isn’t surprised that teens don’t save for retirement.

Money Smart Life writes about the blessing of income tax. I always believed in, “If you had to pay more income tax last year, it means you also earned more in spendable income.”

Sun’s Financial Diary has a list of online savings and checking rates. I like the inclusion of Flagstar Bank as a comparison point.

Money, Matter, and More Musings bought a new Honda Civic. The Civic is a nice car that doesn’t depreciate very fast – thus it’s a very solid choice for a new car.

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity gives a quick way to calculate the value of your time. I had done the annual salary divided by 2000 in the past, but I never thought about dividing in half again to account for taxes.

Mighty Bargain Hunter picks up where Blueprint for Financial Prosperity left off by asking the question of “Your Time is Worth How Much?”

Free Money Finance says that you should buy term insurance and invest the difference over permanent life insurance. This makes a lot of sense. If you think life insurance, you just need to cover your dependents – perhaps your significant other and your children until they are old enough to fend for themselves.

If you are self employed, you need to read Five Cent Nickel’s article about social security taxes in 2008. It looks like my taxes will go up quite a bit in 2008, unless I can find some deductions.

No Credit Needed continues his financial review of 2007. I have shamelessly copied the idea for myself. I hope he’s flattered ;-).

Today I’m off to Napa Valley for wine tasting with my wife’s mom and sister. It sounds like a perfect activity for dealing with the in-laws – if I didn’t have to be the designated driver.

My first article of the round-up is my own… I wrote an Do You Need a Budget for my side Prosper.com writing gig.

Generation X Finance has some last minute gift ideas.

SVB from The Digerati Life gives us here thoughts on a heavy debt load.

The Sun’s Financial Diary tells you how to get $100 in free money.

Money Smart Life warns of merry mob madness mentality. Say that 5 times fast.

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity gives his tips for saving on wine. I’m flattered that he liked my post on saving on wine, enough to add his own thoughts.

Free Money Finance says that you can study for an interview. He’s right and with my job search, I’ve found that I simply haven’t prepared very well. Part of that is that my mind isn’t on a day job.

Blockbuster is increasing it’s prices on Five Cent Nickel. One has to wonder how long the war between them and Netflix can last. Either way consumers win.

Mighty Bargain Hunter says be careful about tipping your hand. I liked this line at the end the most, “If this kicks off a mutually beneficial exchange, then some trust is built.” I’ve found that this trust is often worth more than the ideas.

No Credit Needed tells the story of why he started his debt reduction blog.

I opened up this month’s Money Magazine and found a surprise. On page 68, there’s a mention to two of my favorite blogs: Get Rich Slowly and Consumerism Commentary. If you’ve been reading this site for some time, it should be no surprise that the magazine singled them out.

Money Magazine didn’t particularly have a lot good to say about personal finance blogs, “… the blogosphere has scores of options, some worth your time and plenty not.” I suppose it depends on the value of your time, but I’ve learned a lot more reading blogs than I have from Money Magazine. I guess we may have to disagree on this one. Onto the links that I liked this week:

Golbguru of Money, Matter, and More Musings says that an asset is best appreciated when lost. Oddly enough it was about a year ago today, that Golbguru left a comment on my post about Self Appreciation Day. It’s funny how sometimes things come around like that.

One of the best ways to make this list is to write an article about one of my articles. Mighty Bargain Hunter did just that by with his article When Recruiters Compete, You Win?. To answer one of his questions, I assumed an Ebay model, where the owner of the product (a job in this case) pays to get that product listed in front of an audience. It’s seems that’s only part of Monster’s revenue streams.

Money Smart Life has an way of earning some extra money creating video product reviews.

The Digerati Life has 16 tips for saving money on groceries. My favorite is the last one of not shopping with the kids if possible.

The Sun’s Financial Diary asks if he should pay off his car loan. I like his idea of getting a 0% credit card as he’ll save 4.9% during that time – and he has the cash to pay it off in full if he needs to.

Generation X Finance says maybe you shouldn’t be tapping into home equity for the holidays. It’s odd to me that people even think like that.

While on the topic of home equity, Blueprint for Financial Prosperity suggests not using home equity to pay off unsecured debt.

No Credit Needed has one of the better ideas that I’ve seen, reviewing all his articles this year. I may have to do this.

If you are still reading this you deserve to win something. Give your luck a try at some budgeting software from Free Money Finance.

Five Cent Nickel is planning a cruise. I just came back from a cruise a month ago. My advice to him would be to watch out for the excursions – they get pricey real quickly.

Earlier this week, I read about an opportunity that I just knew my wife and I had to take advantage of. I’ve talked about being a huge football fan in the past. My wife is a big fan American Idol and the combination of reality/game show that have recently become popular – she simply Doesn’t Forget the Lyrics. Sometimes in this wacky world two complete opposites come together nicely. This was the case yesterday when we went to the Jerry Rice Toy Drive.

It’s my opinion that Jerry Rice should need no introduction. In sports everyone likes to debate everything, but it’s been undisputed that Jerry Rice is the best wide receiver to ever play the game of football. If you are my wife, Jerry Rice was a guy who learned to do a mean foxtrot on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. She once cheered him for what seemed like 5 minutes. So when the opportunity came to donate a toy to charity and get a picture with him, we were there. I expected Mr. Rice to settle into pattern of “take picture and move on”, etc. However, I was wrong. As excited as the fans were to meet him, he seemed more excited to meet the fans – with an electric smile and hearty handshake for all.

Let’s move onto this weeks links:

By far my favorite link was Internet Bubble 2.0 from Digerati Life. The YouTube video is professionally done and brilliant written. That would be enough to recommend on it’s own. However Silicon Valley Blogger takes it one step further and matches up the lyrics of the song with stories that she’s written in the past. I hear the “fraction of a fraction of a pie” loud and clear.

Ben from Money Smart Life has found a way to sell on Ebay without doing any work.

Generation X Finance asks how do you keep track of your finances. The spreadsheet option is winning and it’s what I use.

The Sun’s Financial Diary is finding the funds that beat the S&P 500

Golbguru makes a case that there’s no such thing as bad debt.

Might Bargain Hunter shares his 2008 Financial Resolution.

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity gives us 7 ways to spend a holiday bonus. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never gotten a holiday bonus.

Free Money Finance says that a 401k match trumps debt repayment. It’s been years since I’ve gotten a 401k match too.

Five Cent Nickel and gives his thoughts on the subprime mortgage bailout.

Not to be outdone No Credit Needed adds his thoughts on the mortgage bailout.

I’ve started to realize recently that not having money is not fun. As a software engineer in Silicon Valley it’s not a surprise for me to say that I make 6 figures. Even though we can live on my wife’s income, going from 6 figures a year to the monthly number you see in the top right column under Alternative Income is not good. I love having all the extra time and I’m starting to get some other goals I had accomplished. However, cutting corners with the budget all the time can be as stressful as having a job. I’ll be keeping you updated with my progress along the way, but first allow me to link you to some articles from The Money Writers and beyond.

The article that I liked the most this was The Digerati Life’s Quitting My Job, Retiring Early: 5 Steps To Lifestyle Change. Does it come as a surprise that after that introduction that I like this article.

Continuing the career theme, Money, Matter, and More Musings has some lessons from his job hunting expedition.

Maybe all us job hunters should submit questions to Free Money Finance. I think he got some good feedback there.

Generation X Finance has a poll asking if anyone sees opportunities in real estate with all the foreclosures. I do see a lot of opportunities to be honest. I’d love to pick up some investment property at prices I’ve been seeing, but it requires having cash available – and that requires me to get a job first.

Sun, like he usually does, broke the news on about a new global dividend ETF. This one pays a hefty 4.95% divident with a 0.60% expense ratio. It almost seems fit for helping me with my Alternative Income goals.

Money Smart Life asks “What are you teaching your children this Christmas?” I’m ashamed to admit that I was bought up to understand it as a time of receiving presents. I’m smarter than that now though, and that’s all that matters to me.

Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has a credit bureau wish list. I like the idea of the an easy way to freeze your account. However, this should also be free. Maybe Credit Bureau Santa will bring Jim a gift this Christmas.

Mighty Bargain Hunter says you should invest in yourself by learning things of value. That’s what got me started with a website about money. I figure that I share my ideas, I read your ideas, we all win.

Five Cent Nickel has broken his long drought of bad customer service. That business was very smart and made a sale because of it. There’s a lesson for any business to be learned here.

No Credit Needed has changed his past habits. Well he did it a long time ago, but now we get to see what worked.

I’d like to thank Cheap Healthy Good for including me in the most recent Festival of Frugality