Broke Grad Student read the book Paying For College Without Going Broke.  Is getting a financial aid the answer?

Cash Money Life check out the new version of Amazon Kindle. I know I will never get one for myself even without reading the review.

The Financial Buff reviewed JChristopher Browne’s book The Little Book of Value Investing.The concept may be simple, but not every one masters it, let alone applying it.

Finally, some carnival participation lately:

• Money Hacks Carnival #51 – The Office Edition
• Carnival of Personal Finance – Wizard of Oz Edition

No related posts.

The Budget Babe checked out Mint, the online free personal finance management tool. I posted a review of Mint early on. It’s indeed an excellent tool which can make managing your money and budget a lot easier.

Canadian Dream also posted a review of book Crash Proof by Peter D. Schiff. Did the book actually predict the crush of the stock markets in 2008? Read it to find out.

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity reviewed LifeLock,  a service to help you prevent identity theft. I am not a fan of these prevention services and so far I haven’t had any headache, so I am not sure whether it’s worth it or not.

Prime Time Money took a look at Ebates.com, an online shopping portal that lets you earn cashback for shopping through them. I use them (why not?). It’s always nice to get some back when buying stuff you need to buy.

Related posts:

1. LifeLock Coupon Code For 10% Off
2. Can LifeLock Prevent Identity Theft?

Queercents checked out the book Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is by Natalie Pace. But when it talks about the difference between ETFs and mutual funds, I found this quite confusing “ETFs select their companies by using computers and preselected screens, instead of having a professional actively manage the fund.” Is that so?

Cash Money Life took a look at ING Business Savings Account. I have a personal ING Direct Savings Account, which could make opening a business account a little easier according to the post. I may such an account later.

Mrs. Micah reviewed Nuru Personal Finance Cards. Those cards look nice and can be useful.

No related posts.

Christian Personal Finance discussed a website called DIYplanner.com, which allows you to print free Franklin Planner templates for every size so you can replace those missing pages in your planner.

Money Blue Book reviewed FNBO Direct High Yield Savings Account. It was a nice account and I used it a lot last year. But currently at 2.80% APY, I don’t see it as an attractive savings account any more.

Armchair Fiduciary reviewed book The 4-Hour Week and summarized 4 key principles from the book that can be applied to personal finance. Check out the original post to see what he read from the book.

No related posts.

Money Blue Book reviewed E*Trade Financial’s savings and checking accounts. While I don’t personally use E*Trade bank, their 3.01% APY does look attractive now when a lot of banks cut down their rates to below 3.00%, including FNBO Direct and ING Direct.

Seeking Alpha reviewed book Beat the Market by Charles Kirkpatrick, which “reinforces the idea that one needs to pay attention to valuation (in a rudimentary way), and also to momentum.” But pay attention to valuation isn’t new, is it?

Trader’s Narrative reviewed An American Hedge Fund, a book about how Timothy Sykes, the author, turned $12,00o into over $1 million by trading penny stocks. Together with the review, you can actually win a copy of the book by leaving a comment.

Chief Family Officer checked out Graco Nautilus, a convertible car seat.

In addition, some of my articles were submitted to and were accepted by these blog carnivals last week:

• 44th Money Hacks Carnival – The Merry Christmas Edition hosted at Where You Are Now
• The 157th Festival of Frugality: The Queen’s Speech Edition at Miss Thrifty
• Carnival of Personal Finance #185: Cheesehead Edition at The Fraud File Blog

No related posts.

Credit Karma Blog offered some good tips on improving credit score in the coming new year. We all know how important credit score is these days. If there’s only one tip I can give, then it is “Don’t be late.”

BudgetCents reviewed SaveOnFaxes.com, a service that’s supposed to save you money on faxes. I have been using jConnect for some time. It’s free, but good enough for me for the time being.

Money and Such took a look at a site called Credit Room. It’s a web site that helps people compare and find credit cards that meet their needs. Aren’t there too many such sites already. I wonder how much different this one is.

Moolanomy showed how MoneyAisle works. It’s an interesting idea. I never knew interest rate can be auctioned. Sound pretty much like the Lending Tree commercial: “When banks compete, you win.” I hope that’s the case.

MyMoneyBlog reviewed new changes at Lending Club after they filed their paperwork with the SEC. Looks like LC is the only P2P operator that’s functioning now in U.S. And as getting credits from banks is becoming harder and harder, maybe it’s time to checkign P2P sites like LC.

No related posts.

2 million’s Personal Finance Blog reviewed Ooma, a Voice over IP telephone system that’s supposed to help you eliminate the need of a landline, except that you have to purchase the device of course. Right now since I am paying about $15 a month for my landline, I don’t have a strong desire to get rid of the phone line just yet. But it’s nice to know there’s such an option out there.

Smith’s Trading Post posted review on H&R Block’s TaxCut (is the tax season coming yet?). I used TaxCut a couple of times in the past, but lately have been using TurboTax. From my experience, I think TurboTax is a little better, though I can’t tell exactly which part is.

Christan Personal Finance reveiwed the book, Becoming a Millionaire God’s Way.

No related posts.

Did you read the government unemployment report this morning? 533,000 jobs were lost in a single month, the most in a single month in 34 years! That’s more half a million people! Looks like the economic situation is getting worse, despite the various efforts from the government to stabilize the market.

I such an environment, it’s lucky to just have a job!!

Anyway, here are a couple of review posts that I found for your weekend reading:

Breaking Even reviewed the book The Tightwad Gazette. I heard this is a nice book on frugal living, but never got the chance to read it (I have way too many books that I have no time to read). Actually, if the book is just about frugal living tips, then I suppose I can find most of the contents on the internet.

Money Blue Book looked at some business credt cards from Advanta. I don’t know about this bank, but it lloks like they have some pretty nice credit cards. Maybe I should check it out because I probably will need to get a business card soon.

Well, that’s all for today.

No related posts.

Anyway, here are a few reviews around the blogosphere:

Daily Markets posted a review of The WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index and the the exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the index the PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio ETF (PBD). Could investing in alternative energy become mainstream when Obama takes office? That’s a possibility.

Amateur Asset Allocator reviewed TradeKing Discount Brokerage. I also use TradeKing to do some stock trades in small amount and I like it quite a lot. At $4.95 per trade, the commission is relatively cheap and its website is one of the best among brokers I used before and am using now.

Finance and Law Adventures compared Emigrant Direct agained ING Direct. In my opinion, both suck on interest rates. Even though ING Direct has a good reputation for its customer service and easy-to-use website, I stayed away from it because I won’t earn much from their rock-bottom 2.75% APY.

Related posts:

1. TradeKing Boune Promotion: Get $50 For Opening A New Account