My post Is title insurance worth buying? was included in this week’s Money Hacks Carnival.  The host this week is the Canadian Finance Blog, which has some solid articles on personal finance with a little maple syrup flava’.  I’d like to learn more about the Canadian retirement system, so I plan to return and read more.

• I also liked the post by M is for Money on Knowing your partner’s credit — good advice for everyone.
• The Personal Financial Analyst points out in Cash for Clunkers: We never learn that most folks who drive cars that would be eligible for the rebate probably don’t have cash on hand to pay for a new car.  They’ll end up with more debt — perhaps not what we want to encourage, right now.  That’s a good point I haven’t heard elsewhere.
• Tisha at Fine-TunedFinances explains how to cancel your mortgage insurance when you reach 20-25% equity in your home.  Surprise!  The bank might not do this automatically — you have to ask.
• Sound Money Matters has a post about getting a second opinion about your first home, and I think you should do this for not just your first home but for every home that you purchase.  The problem is that you, the buyer, are not objective — you’re in love with your “soon to be new home.”  I try to drag someone — usually a guy in the office who’s handy with a hammer — over to crawl around in the attic and basement.  They always find stuff I’ve overlooked.  It also makes you appear more serious to the seller, who might now start to answer your questions about the green stuff on the basement walls.

My post was also accepted by the Carnival of Financial Planning, hosted this week at The Skilled Investor.  Here are some of the other posts I enjoyed:

• Patrick at Cash Money Life has a good article on Long-Term Care Insurance, although it probably should have been listed under the “Insurance” section of the Carnival.  In my CFP class on Insurance, it was drilled into us that you should only insure low-probability high-impact events, e.g. premature death (life insurance).  As life expectancy increases, more of us will spend some time in a nursing home — it’s no longer a low probability event.  Insurance companies need to charge high rates to cover the high incidence rate; therefore, it’s going to make greater sense to self-insure for long term care.  That’s a fancy way of saying “start saving now.”
• Free Money Finance talks about the importance of work — early and often.  He ends up sounding a bit like the commercial where “we make money the old fashioned way — we earn it,” but I think it’s a message that rings true (if painfully) for every generation.
• Spend On Life has a great post on Google’s ability to estimate your credit-worthiness.  And don’t miss Google’s response.

In addition to the Carnivals, there’s a fine article by Benny Kass at the Washington Post outlining which closing costs are negotaiable.  (Plot spoiler:  Everything’s negotiable except for government fees.)

Also, Jim Blankenship at Getting your Financial Ducks in a Row writes a good links page.  This may seem a bit self-serving, since I am (honored to be) included as one of the links this week, but I like the post because it taps into a collection of blogs written by independent advisors.  I don’t find these blogs anywhere else, so I look to Jim to help point them out.  In the great ecology of the blogosphere, there are many blogs that exist to be blogs.  They tend to spend more time promoting themselves.  Alternatively there are many blogs that exist because small companies (in this case, independent financial planners) want to have a voice on the web, but their primary objective is not necessarily to have the highest Google page rank or Technorati rank.  I’m not complaining about the blogs-for-blogs-sake, because I read them, too, and I also learn a great deal from them.  It’s just that Jim get us a little further down The Long Tail, and I recommend you check his website out, too.

Image credit: frankienose at Flickr

Tags: Google FICO, home inspection, long-term care insurance

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