12 October 2007 No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

This week I finally set up an RSS reader. I’m not an early adapter with technology, and prior to this week I just visited my favorite sites and blogs one by one. What this did was limit me because I wasted time looking at sites that did not have new posts, waited for slow servers to load and made me bored after the first five sites. I am currently using Google Reader. It’s an absolute fantastic piece of software. It reminds me of GMail. The reader will show you a list of websites which you have subscribed to and show a number next to them, the number means how many new articles there are. Like email, that number goes away once you view it. It does a great job of bringing the fresh new content to you instead of you having to search for it. If you’ve been thinking about trying out an RSS reader, click here to give Google Reader a shot. Then when you’re done, click here to subscribe to Money Socket’s RSS feed and get all the latest personal finance, investing and entrepreneurship content delivered straight to you.

Now lets go to some of my favorite articles from the sites I frequent.

6 ways you are passing up free money. Brip Blap churns out yet another excellent article. You don’t really notice these things, but the opportunity cost can really add up over the course of 20 or 30 years. I’m talking at least in the tens of thousands of dollars. I am still working on number 4 on that list.

7 personal finance lessons from the poker table. Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity made some really interesting analogies here. It’s definitely a great read. Remember not to go on tilt! For real estate investors this is the time to hang on and ride the sub-prime tide.

Use the right benchmark to accurately measure investment performance. The blogosphere’s resident stock expert introduces us to some great tools to help you accurately measure the performance of various assets.

How to eat at a swanky restaurant without blowing your monthly food budget. I love fine foods, but it’s very expensive as JD from Get Rich Slowly knows. When my friends came in from Maryland last week my girlfriend and I must have spent $300 on fine food just in those few days that they were here. I think the big thing here is to avoid drinks, especially alcoholic ones. It just isn’t worth it as water is perfectly fine and a lot healthier.

Roth IRA contributions vs. emergency fund savings. Jonathan at My Money Blog explains why Roth IRA contributions are the way to go and I couldn’t agree more. The potential risk of tying up your money is very small considering you can withdraw a decent amount should an emergency come up. In addition to that, you have many other options for money should you need it such as family, friends, 0% interest credit card offers among others.