PFI Weekly Updates – February 24 (2009)

photo credit: René Ehrhardt

Welcome to PFI and the weekly updates – The Guest Post Edition. As most of you know by now, I was on vacation in not-so-sunny Florida last week with my family. While the weather wasn’t the best – I had an awesome time with my two young boys and my wife. We were able to spend a little over a week on vacation and spent less than $300 (originally hoped for $200 but went over a little). I know that times are tough with most families budgets right now – but I would recommend taking a break every once in a while to get away and enjoy your family. Just as long as you do it on a budget and don’t break the bank!

While I was gone, I asked several fellow bloggers to write articles for me to post while on vacation. I first want to say THANKS to everyone who took the time writing a guest post. I would recommend this to anyone who is looking to keep their blog fresh and current while they are away. I saw lots of traffic come over from these other sites (hello new readers) and even saw a jump in new subscriptions to PFI. Including guest posts on your site while on vacation or away really has some advantages!

Due to some scheduling conflicts, I wasn’t able to include a post from Scott at The Passive Dad while I was away. Please look for this post this Thursday instead!

Writing a guest post for another site also has its advantages. It gives the writer an opportunity to showcase their skills and information to a new set of readers. If the host blog agrees – it also has the potential to create keyword links back to your site. I have participated in writing several guest posts for other sites and would also recommend this to anyone looking for more exposure.

Speak of writing a guest post – I was fortunate enough to write a guest post this week on Smart Passive Income called – Passive Income Creation – It’s Like Growing a New Lawn. This is one of my favorite blogs to read and is a must to check out if you have any interest in generating passive income

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Personal Finance Blog of the Week
As I was on vacation last week, I didn’t have a chance to read up a lot on other personal finance sites – so I will postpone the personal finance blog of the week until next week.

Carnivals
I participated in the following carnival over the past two weeks. Please check out some of the great reads from this carnival!

• Money Hacks Carnival #51 – The Office Edition – (Feb. 11, 2009) Recession in America – Home Foreclosures – hosted by Your Money Relationship.

Articles I liked this week
I would like to thank all of the fellow bloggers who wrote a guest post for PFI while I was out on vacation. As a sign of my thanks, I wanted to recognize a post from each of these bloggers sites that I enjoyed reading. Please show your support and check out these other sites!

1 – Dusty from Chasing The Bull discusses the importance of life insurance.

2 – Corrie from “Cents”able Momma teaches us how to save money on vacation.

3 – LuLu from How I Save Money touches on an interesting topic of frugal living – those who write about ways to save money but then go out and splurge on something that isn’t so frugal. I know I have done this myself on a few things from time to time.

4 – Studenomist shows us how to raise $1,000 for vacation without dipping into your personal savings.

5 – Pat from Smart Passive Income tells us why it is important to fail in order to succeed at making money online. I couldn’t agree more with this point. I think it is extremely important lesson to learn from your mistakes – which will make you stronger!

6 – Steve from The Personal Finance Start-Up Blog writes a very nice piece about frugal splurges. I can really relate to this article. While my wife and I consider ourselves very frugal people – just in the past two months we have purchased a new laptop, camcorder, flat screen television, and a dual DVD player for our vehicle (more to come on why these purchases didn’t break our budget in the future).

7 – Scott from The Passive Dad gives us some money saving tips – telling us why a sale item isn’t always worth buying. I can definitely relate to this article as I see so many people buy things that they don’t need – only because they are on sale.

Have an wonderful week!

Tagged as: Blogging for Money