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Without further ado, let’s continue on with the 15th Stage (the first Stage of the 4th Round of competition!) of the 2012 My Personal Finance Journey Tour de Personal Finance (to follow all of the action, click on the Tour de Personal Finance category link and scroll down to read all the posts involved in this subject).
AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON PRIZES FOR THE COMPETITION
As I mentioned in the introduction post for the 2012 Tour de PF, I have reserved the reader portion of my 10% monthly blog income give back event for both June and July as prize money to the Yellow Jersey winner and runner-up/second place podium finisher. The Yellow Jersey winner will also select a charity of their choice to receive the charity portion of the 10% monthly blog income give back.
At the time that I mentioned these prizes, I did not yet know the exact quantities that they would be. However, I now have everything calculated, and the prizes will be as follows:
- Prize to Yellow Jersey Winner – $75.00
- Amount that will be given to a charity chosen by the Yellow Jersey Winner – $123.05
- Prize to 2nd place podium finisher – $50.00
Going along with Tour de France cycling tradition, I’ve listed each competition within each stage as an “intermediate sprint” (one post versus another) along with the description provided by the blog author when the post was submitted.
Also, if applicable, I will give a brief description of the stage of the Tour de France that took place the same day as (or that has happened since the previous Stage of) the competition.
HOW TO VOTE
You can vote for the two articles (one from each intermediate sprint) you’d like to see proceed in the Tour by commenting in the comments section below and telling which are your favorites.
I’ve listed a keyword after each post title to make it easy to vote (as a made-up example, you can just comment: Sprint 1: Mutual; Sprint 2: 401k, etc.) Be sure to comment which one you like the best out of each set of two! Criteria for the best article is completely up to you, but you can use these factors as a guide: 1) post of your favorite blogger, 2) most interesting post, 3) most thought-provoking post, 4) most unique post, or 5) most actionable post.
Here are today’s competitions:
Voting will continue until July 18th for this Stage!
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Pay Off Mortgage Early or Invest– The Complete Guide (Mortgage): Should I pay off my mortgage early or invest? Forget the dangerous half-truths and over-simplified conventional wisdom about getting out of debt. Instead, learn the many dimensions to paying off your mortgage early in this complete guide so you can make a smart financial decision that perfectly fits your personal situation.
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7 Financial Advisors I Would Like to Punch in the Face (Punch): There are plenty of financial advisors in my industry that give financial planning a bad name (Madoff anyone?), and unfortunately they’re everywhere. I’ve been in the business for almost 10 years, and I’ve had countless run-ins with these types of advisors and despite my laid back personality, I would like nothing more than to punch them in the face, seriously. Here are some financial advisor horror stories that other clients have shared with me, the lessons learned, and let’s just see if you would want to pull a Rocky Balboa on their face, too.
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Should You Charge Your Boomerang Kids Rent? (Boomerang): It’s no longer a given that kids will move out on their own when college ends. In fact, there’s a term for this group – Boomerang Kids. Should you charge rent to these boomerang kids?
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Online Poker: Is It as Legit as Stock Picking? (Poker): There are those that believe stock picking is a lot like gambling — and those that believe online poker is a safer bet than stock picking. Could online poker be as legit as picking stocks?
TOUR DE FRANCE DAILY RECAP
Today’s stage in the Tour de France (Stage 15) is a flat stage taking the riders 159 km from
Samatan – Pau. At the finish, breakaway rider, Pierrick Fedrigo of France took out the win. Bradley Wiggins finished safely in the pack, and so holds on to his yellow jersey going in to this coming week’s mountain stages and final time trial. Should be interesting to see if he can hold on. I think he will!
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamtraveller/3378064901/sizes/l/in/photostream/
