Photo by: artct45If you’re between 20-40 years old, don’t do anything. Stay where you’re at, markets fluxuate. That is their nature and that should have been something you learned before you got it. If this is your first time hearing about it, don’t worry and more importantly, don’t run. Let the traders panic. That is their job. They’re pounding down 15 cups a coffee per day and enjoy the stress. Let them deal with it. You’re paying a person that the traders are relaying information to in your mutual funds. You’re 3rd tier on that – sit back and enjoy the cheap stocks you’re getting into.If you haven’t sold, you haven’t lost. Stick to your guns and don’t get scared out of the market, recessions happen. But they always come back. As long as you still have a job, you shouldn’t be worrying. If you HAVE lost your job, you should probably not be reading this blog, try this one.

Related posts:

1. Monthly Net Worth Update March 2008 (+2.42%)
2. Weekly Roundup #14 (January 26, 2008)
3. How Do I Plan To Reach My Investing Goals For Retirement?

Photo by: A Fighting FaithNo, I’m not talking about the ol’ “Bill Gates will send you money if you forward this email” spoof.  I am talking about Microsoft’s Usability Research team.  Clearly Microsoft has a lot of new products that need testing, and it can’t all be done in house; they need a larger audience of NON-Microsoft employees.  That’s where we come in.  Before you jump off this post because you think it is a tag to get you to buy Microsoft stuff, don’t!  I went over to the corporate office in Redmond, WA last week, took 45 mins worth of testing a new Windows Mobile product, gave my opinion, and walked out the door with a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 (currently on Amazon for 399.99).

I have no reason to use the product, so it’s likely going to find a home on Ebay.  But that works out to $533.32 an hour!  How about them apples?  Well worth my 45 minutes to roll over basic questions and give your opinion.

“But Hank,  I don’t have an ounce of technical savvy blood in my body.  How can I make any money off it?”

Easy answer – they don’t always want the experts to give the opinions on their products.  They want the entire gamut of people to test out their products; not just experts.  Toss your name out there, you never know if you’re what they are looking for.  It takes about 5 minutes to sign up and tell them what you do.

“Ok Hank it DOES sound like a good idea, but I don’t live anywhere near Redmond, WA.”

Again, no problem.  A lot of their questions can come over the phone, or through a web interface to test out and poll on certain product aspects.  Sign up and you may be pleasantly surprised what they can call you on.

“Fair enough, I’ll sign up; but what about tax-wise?  They’ve given me a gift?  Don’t I have to pay it on taxes?”

They’ll put your name in their database and send you out a 1099 form if your gifts are over $1000 for the year.  Currently the most expensive piece of software I saw on the list was Microsoft Visio 2007 at 559.99.  You can get calls back for as many of the items that you can qualify for.  I signed up in December and got my first call last month, so I guess we’ll see how many times they call.  Yea, they tax you, but the tax is only on free money.  You’ll probably pay $100 of your $1000 to Uncle Sam, and that’s not too bad.

Yes, they’ve been dubbed “the Evil Empire,” but as frugal guy, I don’t care who is giving out the money, I’m happy (and so should you) to take the gratuity for a short stint of my time and quick returns like that.  This new found cash is likely headed into my Charles Schwab ROTH IRA before the April 15 deadline.

Related posts:

1. Should I Go To College Or Graduate School To Make More Money?
2. Money Hacks Carnival #18 — The History Of Money!
3. 10 Things You Can Do To Make Extra Money While At Work

A question as old as college I suppose. Colleges need to make money too! What better way to market it than to say you’re DEFINITELY make more money by attending it. Colleges have marketing departments also; they’re businesses just like Walmart and Macys. They’re in the game to make money. Do you NEED to go to one to make money? Some think you do.

But how about your specific job? Could you benefit in your current position from going to a place of higher education? Will that make you rich? I don’t know, I suppose it could, but it really depends on the person and what they’re driven by. There are several VERY wealthy people out there that didn’t need higher education and they made it, a few on the list include:

Richard Branson is an English entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies. Branson’s first successful business venture was at age 15, when he published a magazine called Student. He then set up a record mail-order business in 1970. In 1971, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, now known as Virgin Megastores. At sixteen, Branson left school and moved to London, where he began his first successful business, Student magazine. When he was seventeen, he opened his first charity, the “Student Advisory Centre.”

Bill Gates is an American entrepreneur, software executive, philanthropist and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft he has held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and he remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8% of the common stock. He enrolled at Harvard College in the fall of 1973 intending to get a pre-law degree,^[20] but did not have a definite study plan and eventually left without his degree.

Michael Dell is an American businessman and the founder and CEO of Dell, Inc. While at the University of Texas at Austin, he started a computer company called PC’s Limited in his room in Dobie Center. The company became successful enough that, with the help of an additional loan from his grandparents, Dell dropped out of college at the age of 19 to run PC’s Limited, which later became Dell Computer Corporation, then ultimately Dell Inc.

Walt Disney dropped out of high school at 16 to join the Army, but then was rejected there because he was too young, but went on to be arguably the most influential and successful cartoonists in history.

Debbi Fields was a 20 year old housewife with no business experience when she started Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chippery. Try to name someone else that has a better selling recipe for chocolate chip cookies. In 1969, Oakland Athletics owner Charles O. Finley introduced “ballgirls” (young girls who would sit in foul territory near the baselines to retrieve baseballs grounded foul by batters) to major league baseball. Debbi was one of the first ones he hired. She was paid five dollars an hour and would use the money to buy ingredients for what would become her famous cookies. She began her business in 1977 in Palo Alto, California, and since it has grown into over 650 retail bakeries in the United States and over 80 in 11 different countries. Fields began franchising in 1990, and, though she sold the business to an investment group in the early 1990s, she remains as the company’s spokesperson.

At the age of 16, Henry Ford left home for the nearby city of Detroit, Michigan, to work as an apprentice machinist, first with James F. Flower & Bros., and later with the Detroit Dry Dock Co. In 1882, he returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm and became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. He later started Ford Motor Company to manufacture automobiles. Ford’s first major success, the Model T, allowed Ford to open a large factory and later start the assembly line production, revolutionalizing the auto-making industry.

One thing to note I found when crafting up this article is that my mindset changed while crafting it.  Initially I thought to myself, wow, these people that didn’t have an education really excelled; and that is a fact.  But think of the devils-advocate post on it.  How many people DID go to college and are wealthy billionaires now?  I bet that list is pages upon pages longer than this list – but nonetheless, the point of the article is that it IS possible to become wealthy by ditching the traditional school systems, so congratulations to those people that have…

Related posts:

1. Another Way To Make Money Online; Courtesy Of Microsoft…
2. A Book Review: High School Money by Don Silver – And Some Tips And Tricks With Your Money
3. How Can I Make More Money?

I’m a fan of numbers, but I try not to get too wrapped up in them.  They’re good markers, but the main point is to drive through with them and continue improving them.  They can go up and down and really frustrate you if you let them.

I’ve more than paid for my site but people like to read and learn about how everyone is doing it, so I’m happy to share the past years traffic numbers (and some financials as well)…

MY Personal Finance Numbers

My 401k Through T-Rowe Price

I’m not immune to the stock market diving by any stretch of the imagination but that doesn’t mean I’m keeping my money out of it.  It’s an opportune time to buy right now and you’re getting stocks/bonds/mutual funds at all-time historic lows.

I can see Carl’s point when he says: “You all want to leave your retirement money in the stock market right now? Are you insane? I’m 31 years old, self-employed, and all I have (had) so far is $8200.00 to put into a ROTH-IRA. This was 4 months ago. Since then, I’ve lost $2200.00 and the bottom is STILL dropping out.

You expect me to ride this nonsense out? If this continues and I lose almost 2-5% of my money almost every day, I won’t have anything left to bounce back with. I’ll gladly take the $500.00 penalty for early withdrawal before i have nothing left to withdraw.

I’m probably the least savvy when it comes to managing finances but I’d rather bank on the guarantee that if I have the money physically in my hands, nobody, no bank and no government can find a way to molest me. I’m furious about all of this and I don’t know what else to do.”

But the problem I see with the numbers there is that he is only 31 years old.  You’re in a ROTH IRA and the point and benefit of a ROTH is for long term investing.  You’re not taking that out for almost 30 more years!  The stock market is risky, that’s part of the game, but if you’re confident in your fund choices, you should know that you’ll need to occasionally ride out a storm as your money isn’t always going to be headed in the black.

In the past 365 days my 401k has dropped  23.00% [see screenshot1]

My ROTH IRA Through Charles Schwab and Edward Jones

The ROTH IRA funds haven’t been without bumps in the road either.  I’ve stopped contributing to my Edward Jones “B” shares ROTH contribution this year and have put it all to my Charles Schwab fund SWEGX.

I am still on pace to contribute the $5000 and max out my ROTH contributions for the 2008 year, however, like my 401k they have taken a beating.  An upside to the downside of the market is that I made a good choice stopping contributing to my Edward Jones ROTH IRA as it has dropped over 1/3 its price in the last year (-36.87%) while SWEGX in my Schwab account has “only” dropped (-32.45%).

But Hank, you just lost 1/3rd of your retirement in both your long term retirement accounts!  Why are you still in it?

Like I said about my 401k above, and Carl’s comment., I’m only 30 years old.

I’ve got at LEAST 30 more before I plan on taking that money out.

I look at it with a “glass half full mentality”, I’m BUYING funds now for 1/3rd of the cost I was previously paying for them.

I may have lost a good chunk of the capital in there, and that’s demoralizing, but know the game and how it is played and you’ll fair better.

In the past 365 days my cumulative ROTH IRA has dropped  34.66% [see screenshots 2, and 3 above]

My Day-Job Salary

My day-job salary has been the one thing that has kept me in the stock market.  Yes, if my salary had dropped or I lost my job I’d certainly have cut contributions to my 401k and ROTH, but it hasn’t, so I’m not.

My salary since Oct 2007 has had a promotion and cost of living increase added to it to help pad the long-term investments a bit more while they’re cheap.

Additionally, my online income has increased from $0.00 in Oct 2007 to…  well, that’s in the next section. This is for salary.

In the past 365 days my salary has increase 36.11%

Website Numbers @ The MiB

Top Referrers

I’m happy to have a strong referral base to complement the big dogs (Google/Yahoo) driving traffic.  Clearly social networking plays a HUGE role in the success of the blogs MiB not withstanding, and I encourage you all to check out each and every one of them on my Where Am I page.  Feel free to “friend” me in each of the respective sites.

These social powerhouses drive thousands of visitors to my site each month and are a staple if you plan on sticking it out for a year or more!

However, without the people in the blogosphere sending folks my way, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  Furthermore, without the constant participation and idea brainstorming at the other sites that link to me, I’d probably have stopped in the first month or 2.

Seeing as though this is the year long compilation of stats, I figured I’d bump it up from the standard top 10 referrals to the top 20 shout out to my referrers.  Without you guys, nobody would ever find me. 

The top referrer to my site in the year was…

1. FrugaHacks.com  – it’s strange because I’m buried deep in the pile, but apparently people check it out enough to dig deep!  Thank you very much FrugalHacks!

The rest o’ the pack; all with at least 100 people sent my way – thank you all for your support!

2.  BibleMoneyMatters.com – (a close second actually – thanks Pete!)
3.  Moolanomy.com
4.  RemodelingThisLife.com
5.  pfblogs.org
6.  MoneyLifeNetwork.com
7.  FreeFromBroke.com
8.  SenseToSave.com
9.  FrugalDad.com
10.  PFBuzz.com
11.  PTMoney.com
12. TheWildInvestor.com
13.  TheDigeratiLife.com
14.  BeingFrugal.net
15.  GatherLittleByLittle.com
16.  FreeMoneyFinance.com
17.  Finwikian.com
18.  MoneyHackers.net
19.  MoneySmartLife.com
20.  MyDollarPlan.com

Total Traffic

This one can be summed up with the combo of Google Analytics and WordPress Dashboard charts to the right and above.  I’d say no counter is perfect, but I’d imagine that

combining both and taking an average should be close to around 125,000-ish viewers this year!  Hopefully some of you will stick around, eh?  It’s funny to watch the spikes in the big traffic drives you see over the year.

I started off somehow managing 2 and 3 thousand in the first few months, but then I had almost 40k in February/March when StumbleUpon came to be.

It tapered off, but it has been a pretty good boost for all bloggers to have it around I’m sure.

Additionally, I’d mentioned prior that I’d gotten drop from PR4 to PR2 from Google, but my Alexa score has hopped several hundred thousand  (125,602 on 10/7/2008) and I’m approaching the top 100k of all sites.  We’ll see how it looks in year 2.

Total Posts/Comments

I’ve changed up my posting routine a lot in the past year for multiple times per day, to once daily, to once every other day, but haven’t missed 2 posts a week.

I like the change and it gives me some freedom to step away from they keyboard, but the thing I’ve learned in the past year is that you don’t need to post daily to get the readership you want.

Sometimes writing daily is too much for people to keep up with.  Personally, I’m not able to keep up with the 100+ feeds I’m subscribed to and will likely give the reader a once over every week and pick my favorite articles that jump out at me to read/comment on.

I wish I could get to them, but I really just don’t have the time to do so!

I’d like to say I’m extremely happy with Akismet, and rightfully so, they’ve saved me from almost 6,000 spams.

However, I dug around a bit in the past few weeks and had to manually release maybe 20-30 valid comments I’d previously just deleted.  Sorry if you were actually one of “the missing” in there folks and dumped you!

But all things considered, I’d rather release 20-30 than block 6000.  So I’ll keep my thanks there.

As for the comments, they speak for themselves (literally).  People have been very gracious in stopping by and leaving their thoughts, and it is a driving factor to keep going.  People clearly find value in some of the things I write – Specifically, people have been interested enough to sign up for the feed! Thanks to all of you as well!

MiB SiteStock Traffic/Growth

In August I was pretty excited to start my first app that I coded in PHP.

I had no prior experience in PHP but had enough to get me started with what I wanted to do.

Basically the goal was to find a way to consolidate all these types of stats on this post into one number.  One dollar value metric, and I did that with SiteStock.

I’ve got tracking numbers detailing when it was used and the numbers of queries run against it in the past 2 months but unfortunately aside from guessing don’t have the number of folks actually using it.

However, in the past 2 months, I’ve seen 3,542 queries looking as to how their sites rank against the rest of the folks on the internet!

I hope that number will grow and I’m completely open to feedback on ways to improve/advance it.  Thanks to all for using it!

Website Revenue For The MiB

Google Ads

It’s been the steady horse here over the past year.  Slowly increase month over month from less than $10 the first month to $250 last month.  I can’t actually post numbers and/or click through rates without breaking the Google Policy, but I can say that my best day was Saturday, August 9, 2008 when I made $41.15 that day.

A tip to Google Adsense implementers – Use AdsBlacklist, seriously.  Or else you’ll never make more than pennies from Adsense.  It takes 2 minutes to sign up and makes a world of difference.  It’s free, fairly easy to use, and I’m happy to say dumps the low paying clicks from your site.

In the past 365 days my Google Adsense revenue has produced $1,320.28

Individual Link/Banner Sales

I’ve had good and bad things to say about these.  I like that they pay well (between $150-400 per 6 month contract) but they’ll certainly slap your Google PR rank.  I was up to a Google PR4 for a while and am sitting at PR2 now.  My advertisers page states that I can change the nofollow tag at will, but haven’t seen a decrease in Google traffic since the downgrade to PR2.

We’ll see how this one flies in the coming weeks/months.

In the past 365 days my Individual Link/Banner revenue has produced $1,200.00

“The Rest”

I’ve written about it in the past that I’ve experimented with a couple of different money makers to no avail.  Either they were far too intrustive (Kontera $0.02 in 1 day) to the reading or they just didn’t produce (JobsThread – $3.12 in 5 months) in addition to Amazon Affiliates that took up too much space ($8.29 in 1 month) on the site.

I’ve been experimenting with Microsoft Ads ($44.20 in 3 months) and the previously unenchanted Forbes Ad Network ($34.21 in 4 months).  With those numbers though, I may fall back into disenchantment shortly.

However all the prior are better than Performancing Ads ($0.00 in 2 months) and Commission Junction ($0.00 in 3 months AND over 40,000 impressions).

Conclusion

You can put a number on pretty much any metric. As you can see through this post, I’ve tried. But can you really put a value on what you’ve learned over the past year? Or how about the relationships you’ve made? I get some pretty solid feedback from a handful of close “associates” I keep close to the hip.

From Blogging Tips to Joint Giveways; from Writing Improvement to Wordless Wednesdays – I find that the monetary value of the site is climbing fast indeed, but not nearly as fast as the relationship/networking potential that this site has given me.

Thanks to you all for a great year!

Related posts:

1. Money Hacks Carnival #18 — The History Of Money!
2. Hanks Weekly Hangouts #18 (February 23, 2008)
3. Weekly Roundup #13 (January 19, 2008)

Kevin over at 20smoney.com is cooking up a little contest giving away $250 to one lucky reader.  Couldn’t hurt to head over and toss your name in the hat!

There are a handful of ways to get in:
1. RSS Subscribe To 20s Money – 3 Entries
2. Stumble This Page – 2 Entries
3. Write A Blog Post About This Contest – 5 Entries
4. Leave A Comment Telling Me About What Content You’d Like To See On This Blog – 1 Entry
5. Goto SmallBlogging.com And Signup For the Email List – 3 Entries
6. Get a Bonus 4 Entries For Completing All of the Above – 4 Entries

I’ve actually been a big fan of Kevin’s writing for a while now.  His site cooked up in April 2008 and has been growing very fast in the past 5 months and is pulling in almost $500 extra dollars per month now! Ask I write this, he’s got himself 624 loyal readers to the site, and always looking to add more!

He’s got a very keen eye on the stock world to which he illuminates his readers with in his post and is very good at getting back to users that do comment on the site. His site is very clean and easy to navigate and provides a wealth of knowledge.

My favorite 5 articles are:

I’m In A Good Position Financially, What Can I Do To Take My Personal Finances To The Next Level?
The 20s Money Retirement Plan
Where To Put A Little Girl’s Money
Will Energy Rebound? If It Does, I’ll Make A Lot Of Money
20 Must Reads For 20-Somethings

Kevin’s bio says that the site is in existence for the following:

* Most people in their 20s are not sufficiently preparing for their financial future. Unfortunately for most 20-somethings, the math simply does not add up to a financial future where they will be able to attain certain financial goals whether it be a desired lifestyle, sense of security or retirement

* Most of the financial advice and information geared towards 20-somethings comes in either one of two flavors: “start early” or “time is on your side”. We find it hard to believe that the advice to simply “start early” equates to a comprehensive solution to your financial future. We want to give you practical steps to help you build a bright future.

* Most financial “experts” on TV and on the internet can’t tell you what direction a stock or the overall market is going better than any average investor. It’s time to stop investing based on CNBC.

* There are a number of financial challenges that people in their 20s will face that people closer to retirement age will not face. How do we factor into our financial strategy necessary actions that will address these unique obstacles?

* We want to encourage young people to take control of their financial future. Social security will be long gone by the time you hit your retirement years, and don’t even consider the idea of a pension. You should look to nobody but yourself to provide for yourself later in life.

So head on over to 20smoney to get your name in the hat to take home $250!

Related posts:

1. Million Dollar Journey Turns 1 – Check out their giveaway birthday gifts!
2. Completely new to the personal finance blogs? How about taking a free class to get up to speed?
3. “Summer Savings Series” Tip #8 – Watch Movies And Play Video Games For Free!

I’d have to say that this contest was leaps and bounds better than the last 2 I’ve run here at the MiB!  Maybe it had to do with the $300 of cold-hard-giftcard-cash we were handing out, but who knows.   

The Stats

First I’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to answer the question and put their names in the contest.  It looks like most people (52% of the votes) would pay down debt first – probably not a bad idea!

We had a total of 12,310 entries into the drawing which was MUCH more than I had anticipated when starting it up.  We had over 1500 pageviews, almost 200 comments, 100 “favoritizations”, 150 referrals, and people spent 4 minutes reading through on average.

We also broke records in RSS subscriptions! We added almost 350 people to the MiB RSS feed and 45 to the MoneyLifeNetwork feed in the past 3 weeks! I hope you all stay onboard and see what else we cook up in the future here! You won’t be disappointed as we’ve got some handy dandies cooked up in the coming weeks!

There are a lot of comments that I hoped helped other people out in realizing the best way to utilize a financial bump like this!  Obviously paying off the debt is first on my list of things to do!

The Next Contest

Keep an eye out for the next contest here as well! This one was a smashing success which means that we’ll most certainly be having one in the very near future – which is reason enough to stay subscribed, eh?

On To The Winners

Now this is assuming you all gave me valid email addresses, so if you’re reading this, don’t give up hope yet, if these users don’t get back to me within 3 days of their acceptance, they’re back on the market!

That being said… drumroll please…
The 3rd place $50 giftcard winner is: Jophillips (Digg submission, RSS Feed).

The 2nd place $100 giftcard winner is:  GLBLGuy (comment, StumbleUpon, Subscribed RSS feed, Refer a friend > Lynnae from BeingFrugal.net, Added your site to my BlogRoll, article write-up)

The grand prize winner of the $150 giftcard is: NH Mom of 3! (comment, blogroll addition, RSS Feed, post about contest, Added MoneyLifeNetwork to RSS)

A big shoutout to MarketLeverage for providing the prizes and thank you all very much for participating in Hank’s Holiday Handout #3 – and keep an ear to the ground for the next contest very soon!

Related posts:

1. The Winners Of Hanks Holiday Handout #2 Are…
2. What Did You Learn Last Year? Winners of Hanks Holiday Handout #4
3. Hanks Holiday Handout winners! and a few year end financial tips…

So here we are at week #41 of Hank’s Weekly Hangouts and we’ve made some good progress on many fronts.  We’re approaching 10,000 entries in Hank’s Holiday Handout #3! We’ve had some amazing participation and there is still 3 days left to get your name in the hat!

Don’t know if anyone noticed, but I changed things up a bit in my header based on what you guys recommended a few weeks back.  Hope you like it!

The MoneyLifeNetwork has updated the Frugal Things To Do In… group writing project that is still looking for more submissions to join the storm and writing about your own patch of earth!

From Stumbleupon and the RSS Reader

1. HerEveryCentCounts finds 5 Ways to Save Money on Car Insurance

2. PracticalHacks lets us know The 8 strategies you need to survive a recession.
3. FiscalLiberty on the other hand debates 3 reasons America NEEDS a recession.
.

From The Money Life Network

4. RemodelingThisLife presents A Wedding Quilt
5. PrimeTimeMoney presents Build a One-Sheet, Dashboard-Style View of Your Finances

6. FreeFromBroke presents Been Crazy Busy At Work And Home

7. BibleMoneyMatters presents A credit card you can use to help others, and get a good rate too!

8. SenseToSave presents Calling an expert was the right thing to do

9. MilkYourMoney presents Mortgage Buster: Scam or Savior?

photos by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magicfoundry/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/34517490@N00/

Related posts:

1. Hanks Weekly Hangouts #42 (August 11, 2008)
2. Teaming Up With RSSHugger.com! – Hanks Weekly Hangouts #43 (August 17, 2008)
3. Hanks Weekly Hangouts #46 (August 31, 2008)

The Q1-2008 MQ and Q2-2008 MQ saw some good traffic and excitement and the idea has had a lot of publicity and interest generated with a healthy dose of new entries from folks wanting to get in. I figured out a more in depth way to go about evaluating each blog in the realm with BETTER efficiency and deeper analysis of each…

The Recap

So I’m still looking for ways to automate this process, and I’ve come up with a few scripts, but at this time I’m still doing it manually – if you’ve got any programming/background experience with writing apps, ping me and we may be able to come up with a quick and dirty way to kick it off automated in the future!

Anywho, the whole point of the Magic Quadrant is to give an overall picture based solely on measurable statistics. Gartners Magic Quadrant is a term acquired by Gartner, but Wiki says it is:

…a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner Inc., a US based research and advisory firm. It is designed to provide an unbiased qualitative analysis of a “markets’ direction, maturity, and participants.

The Rules

Each Personal Finance Blog (minus MyInvestingBlog – details below) in the mix needs to have at least THREE months of posts and needs to have had at least ONE post in the last week; based on that initial information, they are then rated based on the following metrics:

Hard Metrics:

* – new metric added to the list since last run.

• Technorati authority
• Alexa ranking
• How much is their blog worth?
• Load time from iwebtool and Pingdom*
• Google PageRank courtesy of DigPageRank and Blogflux*
• Link Popularity*
• Search Engine Saturization*
• Backlink depth*
• URL fan*

Soft Metrics

• Blogging frequency – how often do they post?
• Commenter involvement – I randomly choose 10 posts on their blog to see how responsive they are to readers and the comments left on their blogs
• Site Design
• Readability/Grammar
• Post Originality – How unique are the posts?

The List

(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER):
* – new site added to the list since last run.

AllFinancialMatters.com
ALongLongRoad
Bargaineer.com
BeingFrugal.net
BibleMoneyMatters.com*
BripBlap.com
CashMoneyLife.com
ChanceFavors.com
ChristianPF.com
ConsumerismCommentary.com
CreativeInvestor101.com
CubeFarmer.net
Debt-FreeRevolution.com
DoughRoller.net
FireFinance.com
FiveCentNickel.com
FreeFromBroke.com
FreeMoneyFinance.com
FrugalDad.com
FrugalForLife.com
GatherLittleByLittle.com
GirlsJustWannaHaveFunds.com
GenXFinance.com
GetRichSlowly.org
GrowingWallet.com
i-endeavors.com
LazyManAndMoney.com
LegalAndrew.com
MDMProofing.com
MilkYourMoney.com*
Moneyning.com
Moolanomy.com
MrsMicah.com
MyDollarPlan.com
MyMoneyBlog.com
MyTwoDollars.com
OnFinancialSuccess.com
PaidTwice.com
Plonkee.com
PrimeTimeMoney.com*
RemodelingThisLife.com*
SenseToSave.com*
SevenMillion7Years.com
Shauna26
SingleGuyMoney.com
TheDigeratiLife.com
TheSimpleDollar.com
YoungAndBroke.com
20sMoney.com*

MyInvestingBlog.com is missing, why?

Well, I figured this would be thought of as a “democratic process” if I included myself. If you really want to know where I fell, I’m happy to tell you, contact me.

The Graph

Click the image for a larger view (or right click and “Save As” to save for later):

The Movers

It was brought up that I should chart who moved up and who moved down on the list. In response to that, there really is no bad place to be. It’s a matrix just showing where sites have fit in the niche.

Think of it kind of like a mutual fund index, there is no bad place, just “other” places. That being said, the top right corner of most Magic Quadrants are generally considered the “the place to be” because of the Large/Growth idea, but by no means puts any less value on the other squares. Look at the metrics by which I’m judging, it’s a big pool!

The Forgotten

Know somebody I left off? Leave a comment on the post here, or contact me and I’m happy to throw them in the matrix for the next run of the “Magic Quadrant of Personal Finance Blogs”!

Related posts:

1. Q2-2008 Magic Quadrant of Personal Finance Blogs
2. The “Magic Quadrant” of the Personal Finance blogs…
3. When Are You Reading This? A Trending Look At Reading Personal Finance Blogs

So in cooking up my $300 giveaway (still have till Aug 6 to enter) this month, I stumbled across another handful of places that are giving away similar prizes and money that I thought my readers would find interesting (especially you new ones that have just signed up because of the contest). 

I mentioned a handful last month in Sometimes Money Does Grow on Trees Part I, but they’ve all since expired, so here’s the new batch o’ free goodies from the following sites:

TylerCruz

- http://www.tylercruz.com/affiliate-marketing-challenge-2/

1st Place: Dell 22? Widescreen Monitor with Built-In Webcam
2nd Place: Sony PSP + Secret Agent Clank
3rd Place: Mino Flip Video Camera
4th Place: iPod Nano
5th – 6th Place: $100 Prepaid Rewards Card

TheUniversityKid

- http://theuniversitykid.com/win-a-nintendo-wii/

1st prize: winner will get a Nintendo Wii.
2nd prize: winner will get a Flip Mino

DatMoney

- http://www.datmoney.com/2008/07/new-contest-prize-nintendo-wii-beats-the-ipod-touch-16-10-in-voting.html

1st prize: Nintendo Wii

MixedMarketArts

- http://mixedmarketarts.com/2008/07/20/marketleverage-contest-update/

1st prize: ONE Flip Mino ($179 value)
2nd prize: TEN 2GB USB Pens
3rd prize: FOUR $25 Giftcards

Enkay Blog

- http://www.enkayblog.com/mlcontest/

1st prize:Asus EEE PC
2nd prize: $50 AMEX Rewards
3rd prize: three 2GB USB Pens

BigMarketingOnline

- http://www.bigmarketingonline.com/largest-blog-contest-ever.html

InspiredMoneyMaker

- http://www.inspiredmoneymaker.com/2008/07/14/blog-contest-three-times-the-prizes/

First prize: Flip Mino and a 2GB USB Pen
2nd prize: $50 MarketLeverage Rewards Card
3rd prize: 2GB USB pen

Bloggin-Ads

- http://bloggin-ads.com/goodbye-bloggin-ads-and-final-contest

1. 8GB iPod Touch ($299 value)
   
2. $50 Market Leverage Credit Gift Card
3. $25 iTunes Gift Card

WPThemeDesigner

- http://www.wpthemedesigner.com/2008/07/20/contest-win-flip-mino/

1st Place – Flip Mino Video Camera
2nd place – $100 ML Reward
3rd place – $50 ML Reward

Baby Tea Leaves

- http://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2008/07/summer-of-me-season-finale.html

1st prize: Wii Fit console
2nd prize: 100$ AMEX gift card

Related posts:

1. Sometimes Money DOES Grow On Trees; You Just Need To Know Where To Look
2. The “Summer Savings Series” Is Upon Us; Time To Win $$$! (Presented By The Money Life Network)
3. Debunking The 25 Most Outrageous Money Myths (part 4 of 4)

We’ve broke some records here at MiB this past week in a few categories, and I think it has something to do with giving away the $300 of cold hard gift card cash at Hank’s Holiday Handout #3! Be sure to enter by August 6 to have a chance at the pirate booty prizes!  On top of that the MoneyLifeNetwork has spurred a viral media storm with their Frugal Things To Do In… group writing project!  Join the storm and writing about your own patch of earth!

From Stumbleupon and the RSS Reader

1. T20sMoney describes how to Take Your Personal Finance to the Next Level.

2. MoneySavingBlog touts 25 Ways to be Tech Saavy But Frugal.

3. AmateurAssetAllocator find some Common Misconceptions About Government Statistics.

From The Money Life Network

4. RemodelingThisLife presents Being An Imperfectionist

5. PrimeTimeMoney presents Would You Consider a Home Refinance to Pay Off Credit Cards?

6. FreeFromBroke presents There May Be Unclaimed Money Or Property Waiting For You

7. BibleMoneyMatters presents A quick review of Cashcrate.com: A little extra spending cash?

8. SenseToSave presents Strategies for saving money on maternity wear

9. MilkYourMoney presentsYour Guide to House Hunting

photos by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magicfoundry/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/34517490@N00/

Related posts:

1. Hanks Weekly Hangouts #39 (July 21, 2008)
2. Welcome to the Rebrand! Hanks Weekly Hangouts #41 (August 4, 2008)
3. Hanks Weekly Hangouts #37 (July 6, 2008)