Category Archives for Blogging

Interview at NarrowBridge.net – My Personal Finance Journey

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 3 sets of 500 business cards from AllBusinessCards.com.

Happy Saturday everyone! The Tour de France 2011 is now among us, as it officially started earlier today with Stage 1! I really enjoy this time of year.

Going along with the celebratory ambiance I am feeling today, I wanted to express my gratitude to Eric over at NarrowBridge.net for interviewing me about my experiences as a personal finance blogger so far.

You can view the complete interview at the link below.

Personal Finance Blogger Interview – Jacob @ My Personal Finance Journey

A summary of the various topics/questions addressed in the interview can be found below:

1) How did you get started in personal finance blogging? What was your inspiration?
2) On your site, you mention that you hope to “Unravel some of the myths around investing and personal finance that are ever-present in today’s society”. What is the biggest myth you have found since you started blogging? What is the real deal behind the myth?
3) If you wish you knew one personal finance tip when you were 18, what would it be?
4) What is the biggest personal finance lesson you learned the hard way?
5) Outside of blogging, what has been the biggest change you made to your financial life that made a difference? (i.e. making more money, frugal changes, budgeting, investing)

Some other good personal finance blogger interviews can also be found at NarrowBridge.net at the links below! Enjoy!

Interview – Evan @ My Journey to Millions
Interview – Glen @ Free From Broke

***Photo courtesy of http://www.rumor.net/gallery//d/758-2/DSC04978.JPG

Was The “Lost Decade” Really Lost For Investors? – Guest Post at Yakezie.com Today!

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 3 sets of 500 business cards from AllBusinessCards.com.

Good day all! Just a quick post today to recommend stopping by Yakezie.com whenever you have a chance to read my guest post that went live this morning (at the link below).

Was The “Lost Decade” Really Lost For Investors – Yakezie.com

In this post, I take a look at the performance of the stock market over the past 10 years, a time period often labeled as “The Lost Decade” for investors because the market basically ended up in 2011 at the level at which it started in 2001.

What I found was that by using dollar cost averaging, the returns delivered by the market over the past 10 years weren’t quite as bad as the financial media would have us believe!

How about you all? How did your investments fair the past 10 years? Was it actually a “lost decade” for you?  


Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://cdn.yakezie.com/badges/300-yakezie-01.png

Yakezie Carnival – Tour de France Financial Factoids – June 26th, 2011 Edition

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 3 sets of 500 business cards from AllBusinessCards.com.

Welcome everyone to the June 26th, 2011 edition of the Yakezie Carnival!

For those of you unfamiliar with the Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network, it is the web’s largest, most involved, and most organized group of personal finance and lifestyle bloggers. Participants in the network collaborate multiple times throughout each day on the Yakezie forums and through other mediums. You can view all of the details at the “About Yakezie” page by clicking here.

Each week, the members and challengers of the Yakezie Network submit their best articles to be featured in the Yakezie Carnival. And, today, it is My Personal Finance Journey’s honor to be the host!

The theme for today’s carnival is random Tour de France (the biggest cycling race in the world) financial facts. With this carnival being only 4 days away from the start of July and the Tour de France cycling race, I figured this would be a fitting theme!

In addition, it fits in nicely with the spirit of my site starting the Tour de Personal Finance this year. Each July from 2011 onward, I’ll be running/hosting the Tour de Personal Finance (sort of a Tour de France for PF blogging competition) on MyPersonalFinanceJourney.com. You can view all of the details and guidelines at the announcement below.

OK, enough with the introduction! I’m getting carried away. Let’s get to this week’s Yakezie Carnival articles.

The best thing about hosting a Yakezie Carnival is that the posts are all top notch, and not from spam sites talking about online dating of Ukranian brides! (haha – I’m not even joking. I have received carnival submissions like that in the past).

Top 3 Editor’s Picks

1. Frugal Confessions brings us We Were Scammed on Craigslist: How to Protect Yourself from Fraud, saying, “After snagging an interested buyer, Mary Hudson, for our $500 item we listed on Craigslist, we became increasingly alarmed at the strange requests and secondhand-English email correspondence. See how this scam played itself out.”

It really ticks me off how sophisticated of schemes the scam artists are coming up with these days. Just take a look at the one Amanda shares in this article!

When I got screwed over by a fake eBay supplier, the payment was also requested to be issued via Western Union. Maybe Western Union should change it’s slogan to, “Preferred by fraud artists worldwide!”

2. KNS Financial brings us Need To See A Doctor? Go Rob A Bank!, saying, “James Richard Verone robbed a bank in order to get medical care. Find out the details behind this strange story, and then weigh-in with your opinion!”

In this article, a man goes to some extreme measures to get medical care! Or, were they extreme…..

3. The Amateur Financier brings us What I Want to Pass on to My Children.

Passing along your life lessons to your children is what every parents wants. Personally, I think the biggest gift that my parents passed on to me is the gift of wanting – wanting to succeed, wanting to do my best, and wanting to learn more. What do you hope to pass on to your children?

And, listed below are the rest of this week’s submissions!

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Outlaw Finance brings us The Difference Between a Roth IRA and Traditional IRA, saying, “This article looks at the Roth and the traditional IRA individually and then compares the two. ”

Squirrelers brings us Memorable Examples of Witnessing Generosity.

Money Reasons brings us The Benefits of a High Credit Score, saying, “I describe how to take advantage of a high credit score if you have one.  Also I explain why having a high score is beneficial.”

Money Health Central brings us Did The Debit Card Revolution Kill The Balanced Checkbook?, saying, “We use debit cards for convenience.  In return, the transactions fly fast and furious.  Balancing your checkbook is nearly impossible, which can lead to other problems.”

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/dripps/2304151835/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Introducing The Tour de Personal Finance Competition – Submit Your Best Posts Today!

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition

I simply love the Tour de France.

There is truly something magical about watching this particular 3 week cycling race unfold in July each summer. In the race, the riders cover nearly 2,000 miles, including stages through the majestic Alpine Mountain range and the sunflower and vineyard fields of Southern France. As an avid cycling fan and past Category 2 road cycling racer (I raced once-upon-a-time from 2001-2005), July is a truly a glorious time of year.

And, now that I’ve been blogging for a little over a year and a half, I’ve decided that I want to bring the spirit of healthy (minus the occasional doping scandal) competition embodied by the Tour de France to the personal finance blogosphere in the form of the Tour de Personal Finance! 

What is the Goal of the Tour de Personal Finance?

Please let me know if you have any questions! Let the cycling (and blogging) begin!!!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/350582000/

FREE Business Cards Giveaway from All Business Cards! Enter Today!

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition

Good day readers! One of my higher priority blogging goals for the 2011 year is to offer several free giveaways on my site. As such, I’m always on the look out for cool offers that I can share with you all. I have a nice one today!

The giveaway is for 3 sets of 500 high-quality business cards from All Business Cards.com. I recently won a set of 500 business cards from an All Business Cards.com giveaway on MaximizingMoney.com, and they were gracious enough to agree to extend the same giveaway deal to My Personal Finance Journey!

How To Enter – Deadline to Enter is July 4th, 2011!

Follow the instructions below to accumulate points to qualify to win one of the three sets of 500 business cards! Due to shipping costs, this contest is only open to US and Canadian residents.

About The Cards

Remember, the deadline for entries will end on July 4th, 2011 at 11:59pm (3 weeks from today). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions.

sy of http://desizntech.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/allbusinesscards_screenshot.jpg

Proud To Be A Yakezie Blackbelt!

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition

Back in January of this year, I laid out several blogging goals I wanted to achieve in 2011.

One of these goals was to continue actively participating in the Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network. The Yakezie Network, a group of the best personal finance websites, has played an integral part in my development as a blogger this year. I’ve met many amazing people, learned a lot about the mechanics of blog-building, and also learned numerous advertising negotiation tactics/strategies.

After 5 months of progress in to the year, I am excited to share with you a very proud milestone – achieving the Yakezie Blackbelt Belt of Honor. 

To date, only 4 other Yakezie sites have made it to the Blackbelt level – Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Financial Samurai, KNS Financial, and Buy Like Buffett.

Side note: Back when I was 6-8 years old, I tried taking karate lessons, but I only made it to the yellow belt level! haha If only those sensei’s could see me now! 🙂

Achieving the Blackbelt level takes a pretty significant level of involvement, but it has also been a really rewarding experience. Several key accomplishments My Personal Finance Journey has realized over the past 5-6 months include the following:

• 1214 comments on the Yakezie Forums.
• Participated in 7 of the 8 total Yakezie Blog Swaps, including hosting the 4th edition.
• Coordinated 7 advertising campaigns, bringing in over $5000 for Yakezie Network sites.
• Weekly participation in the Yakezie Blog Carnival.

Overall, it’s been a truly amazing ride over the past half year. I look forward with excitement to our continued participation in the Yakezie community during the remainder of 2011 and beyond!

For the site owners out there – how about you all? What has enabled you to grow most as a blogger or site developer? 


Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://cdn2.yakezie.com/badges/300-yakezie-03.png

If We Could Have One Financial Do-Over…

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition

If you had one financial do-over, what would it be and why? When I saw this topic, the first thought that went through my head was, “Wow, that’s going to be difficult!”, not because I couldn’t think of any, but because there are so many financial mistakes that I would like to do over. On further reflection, one mistake stands out above the others. It’s not something I want to do over because of the magnitude of the error but because it hurt me at a time when I was financially very shaky. So here goes –

Buying My First Car – A New Honda Civic Hybrid

I had just completed grad school, and by working while studying and living off Ramen noodles, I graduated with about $5000 in the bank. I got a job that I liked, moved to a beautiful place, and was generally feeling on top of the world.

At that point, I decided I needed a car. I shopped around a little (mistake 1) and decided that I would go for a new Honda because they depreciated very slowly. In addition, I planned to travel quite a bit, so I decided to go for a Hybrid to get the better gas mileage.

So, I went down to the Honda dealership and started the haggling over a new Honda Civic Hybrid. After many trips and conversations with the dealer, I managed to whittle him down from $25000 to $22000 and congratulated myself on my excellent (in my own eyes, of course) negotiation skills.

In order to reduce the amount of money I had to borrow, I decided to put down most of my $5K savings. I brought the car home and a couple of days later while looking through the glove compartment, came across a sheet of paper that shipped with the car from the manufacturer. Across the top of the page in big, bold, black text were the words – “Recommended MSRP = $21000”. There I came crashing down from the cloud 9 I was floating on thinking I had made this great steal. Things just got worse from there. I didn’t understand the terms of my loan agreement properly (big big mistake). I assumed that any money I paid over the monthly requirement would be used toward reducing the principal. Nope. The loan said that I had to pay a certain amount of interest, period. So paying more than necessary each month just brought in the end date but didn’t reduce the amount I had to fork over.

In addition, I was stupid enough not to regularly check my statement to see if the principal was being reduced over time. I just kept paying as much as I could toward the loan every month. At the end of 3 years, I had paid off the 7 year loan, but I had next to nothing in savings. Would I have been better off paying the monthly amount and investing the remaining money elsewhere. You betcha!

Honda Civic Hybrid Break-Even Analysis

Now let’s look at the car itself. The difference in price between the Civic Hybrid I bought and a regular Civic, at the time, was $4500. I was betting that I would drive so much that the extra mileage from the Hybrid would save me money.

Now let’s look at the facts. I get on average 43 mpg. Friends of mine who own a regular Civic, bought at approximately the same time, get about 35 mpg. So that’s an average of 8 more mpg that I get. Over a tank of gas therefore, I get 80 miles more than a regular Civic. Over the 6 and a half years I have owned the car I have driven 100,000 miles. At 43 mpg, that works out to 2326 gallons approximately. At 35 mpg, I would have filled in 2857 gallons instead. A difference of 531 gallons over 6 and a half years.

How much did that save me? Given that I live in Southern California, I pay more for gas than the rest of the country. To keep the math simple, lets assume that over this period gas has on average been selling at $4 per gallon, which is higher than reality. Applying that number, owning a Hybrid has so far saved me $2124. But wait a minute, I put down $4500 extra to start with. So I’m still in a hole for $2376.

In addition, we have to add the money I would have earned if I had invested that $4500. But, I look bad enough as it is. I don’t have to make things worse. You might say that well, I haven’t got rid of the car, so as gas prices rise, I will continue to save. That’s true, but keep in mind that the Hybrid has a battery pack that doesn’t last forever. Let’s say I replace it in 10 years. At my current rate of driving, over 10 years I would have saved $3271 (still assuming an average of $4 a gallon). So, without having broken even, I now have to shell out money for the battery pack. Oops!

When I went through these numbers a year or so ago, I felt really depressed. By my own stupidity, I had wiped out money I had struggled to save, then gone on to pay a loan off early thinking I was saving interest when I wasn’t, and gambled on a car that wasn’t going to save me money at all. Pretty depressing. I guess the only silver lining in the cloud is that when gas prices go up, I actually feel a little better :)!

If I could go back in time, I would have bought a used car and saved myself a lot of money. 


If you had one financial do-over, what would it be and why?

Jacob’s Thoughts – Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.

• Sorry to hear that you paid $1000 over the MSRP price! Did you check around on any online resources to see what these cars were retailing for before buying? 
• Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with this. I really like how you performed/included the break-even analysis. 
• I performed a similar analysis on this site last year, comparing “green” hybrid cars to regular cars to determine which is more economically sensible. Turns out that I concluded pretty much the same as you did here – that owning a “green” car isn’t the most economically justified course of action.
• This really is unfortunate because it’d be nice if the economics of “saving-thy-planet” worked out in the consumers favor.
• Personally, I wouldn’t beat myself up too much for making a mistake like you did, provided that you learn how to improve for the next time you buy a car. You bought a reliable, fairly inexpensive car that will most likely save you money compared to a lot of vehicles on the market (for example, if you bought a $40,000 Suburban right out of college). 

Carnival of Personal Finance #310 – Most Expensive Hotel Rooms in the World – May 23rd, 2011 Edition

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! Thanks for stopping by from The Carnival of Personal Finance. If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, a weekly listing of the top personal finance articles around the blogosphere in the following categories – taxes, money management, investing, career, debt, frugality, credit, economy, finance, real estate, saving, and budgeting.

It’s amazing to think that it’s been almost 20 weeks/editions of the Carnival since the last time we hosted (back on January 17th of this year). Time sure does fly! However, it’s good to be back hosting again.

The theme for this week’s carnival is the most expensive per night hotel rooms in the world! I hope you enjoy the posts and amazingly pricey hotel room descriptions and that you can stop by My Personal Finance Journey on my non-carnival days as well!

This week, we had 67 total submissions, only 1 of which was spam (which has got to be a record for a blog carnival!). Flexo and Revanche must be doing a good job keeping spammers at bay. High five!

Listed below are this week’s top 3 editor’s picks. Congrats to the three winners!

1. Our #1 pick of this week is by Ashley from Money Talks, who presents An Argument for Privatizing Social Security. It’s a widely known fact that the Social Security system in the US will have serious difficulty in making sustained benefit payments as even more of the Baby Boomers continue to retire. However, did you know that by 2030, it’s projected that there will be just 2 workers per Social Security beneficiary in retirement (down from 42 to one in 1945)? Clearly, something needs to be done to improve the system. The question is, “WHAT?!”

Ashley proposes a solution involving the personalization of Social Security that definitely made me “think.” Personally, I think the plan would need to be modified slightly in order to work long-term, but it’s a start!

2. The #2 pick of this week is by Ye ole’ wise Squirrel from Squirrelers, who presents Are Stocks Ready to Take a Summer Vacation?, and says, “Historical data shows that stocks tend to show a low rate of retun from May through September, compared to most of the rest of the year. Will this year go any differently, now that we’re into May?” One thing that distinguishes Squirrelers apart from most other bloggers is that he is not afraid to actually dig in to historical performance data of equities and generate meaningful conclusions. This is in my mind, a very useful skill to have, and it’s not all that hard (just click on this link to go to Yahoo Finance where you can analyze prices of the S&P500 index since 1950).

In this post, Squirrelers examines some seasonal trends in stock prices that exist. He concludes that the stock performance in 2011 is poised to follow the historical trend of slightly lower performance in the summer months. I think this type of trend could be important for investors looking to profit from short term fluctuations in individual stocks. However, for a more long-term, passive investor such as myself, Jeremy Siegel proved in his book, Stocks for the Long Run, that it is better to invest money as you have it in low cost index mutual funds, rather than try to time the market. This is due in part to the fact that even a handful of days throughout the year can have a very significant impact on positive long term returns.

3. Our #3 pick for this week’s Carnival is by Peter from Bible Money Matters, who presents Make A Total Financial Picture Spreadsheet With Account Logins, Assets, Liabilities And Insurance.. Just In Case, and says, “I put together a “Total Financial Picture Spreadsheet” that gives a snapshot of your finances to your loved ones in case you were to die or become disabled.” Nowadays, with so many accounts being opened, closed, and managed online, keeping track of all of ones passwords, usernames, and logins can be a challenge when you are alive. However, just think about how impossible this task would be for your loved ones if you die! I think it’s important for everyone to list out their account locations and information so that loved ones can easily access it in the event of your death or a severe injury.

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And, listed below are the rest of this week’s great article submissions, separated by category for targeted reading.

Frugality

Cathy Moran from Money Health Central presents 3 Questions To Keep Perspective About An Underwater House, and says, “Think clearly about whether to keep paying on an underwater house.”

Bret from Hope to Prosper presents Real Estate 101 – Purchase and Finance, and says, “Here is the summary version of the important things everyone should know before they purchase a house.”

Money Thinker from Money Thinking presents It’s All About Location- In Regards to Housing.

FMF from Free Money Finance presents How To Impress With Your References, and says, “A very strong reference can make the difference between receiving an offer that you will absolutely accept and not receiving an offer. Here’s how to get one.”

Fanny from Living Richly on a Budget presents How to Ask for a Raise, and says, “How do you ask for a raise without creating problems? Here are three simple suggestions to help you navigate through the rocky terrain of raises.”

vh from Funny about Money presents How to Deal with a Workplace Bully, and says, “This is a guest post from my student Anita Martinez, an up-and-coming writer. She offers five strategies for dealing with workplace bullying and provides several resources to help.”

Bob from Christian Personal Finance presents 4 Things I Learned As A Grocery Bag Boy, and says, “I look back on my days as a grocery bag boy and a grin comes to my face. This grin has mixed emotion. Working at a grocery store was one of those jobs where you did it because it was the only thing you could think of at the time…”

Lahesha Williams from Career Help for Christians presents 8 Leadership Tips to Maximize Performance, and says, “Whether you are a formal or informal leader, these tips can help you maximize your success and the success of others.”

Glen Craig from Parenting Family Money presents How to Combine Children with Work-at-Home Jobs, and says, “These days more and more people are looking to find ways to work at home. But if you have kids it can be difficult. See how you can combine working at home with watching your kids.”

Kathryn @ Financial Highway from Financial Highway presents 30 Common Interview Questions and How to Answer Them, and says, “This guide not only tells you what the interview questions are but also provides insight into what the interviewer is really asking and what types of answers will help you get the job.”

FruGal from TotallyMoney Blogs presents Is it better to learn about money the hard way?, and says, “Looking at the best means of telling your teenage kids about money.”

Jim Yih from Retire Happy Blog presents Did you learn anything in Financial Literacy month?, and says, “In the US, the goal of Financial Literacy month is to heighten awareness about personal finance. However, awareness, alone, is not enough.”

Craig Ford from Money Help for Christians presents Should You Only Own a Single Target Retirement Fund?, and says, “Target retirement funds are growing in popularity. Is owning a single target retirement fund a good idea?”

Len Penzo from Len Penzo dot Com presents 14 “Dubious” Personal Finance Moves It’s OK to Do. (Really!).

Petsmart vs. Petco – Which Is More Affordable? – Guest Post Live Today At Budgeting In The Fun Stuff

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that I have a guest post up today over at one of my Yakezie friend’s sites, Budgeting in The Fun Stuff.

The post is a cost analysis between the two major pet supply stores we all know and love (or at least spend money at), Petco and Petsmart. The goal of the study was to determine whether driving the extra distance to one or the other will save you significant money in the long run.

Read all about it by clicking the link below!

Petsmart vs. Petco – Which Is More Affordable? – BITFS.com

How about you all? Do you shop at Petco or Petsmart? Why do you choose one over the other? Which do you find is cheaper? 


Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-305571892-hd.jpg

Yakezie Blog Swap # 6 Roundup and My Favorite Picks

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition


On Friday of last week (29-April-2011), My Personal Finance Journey participated in the 6th Yakezie Blog Swap. In this event, members and challenges of the Yakezie Personal Finance Network paired up and exchanged posts on the common topic of, “if you were homeless, what would you do to improve your situation?”


There were 16 bloggers who participated, and this blog swap was set up as a trail of crumbs. There were four total stops. At each stop, you were sent to the next post until you made it back to the first.


My Favorite Swapped Post


In this blog swap, I really had two favorite posts, each selected for different reasons. Read more about them below!

My Swap

The Rest

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcopapale/382187039/sizes/m/in/photostream/