Words of wisdom from great personal finance blogs

With so much information on the web it can be easy to get lost reading. ConsumerFu’s culled a few of this week’s favorites from fellow personal finance writers. Feel free to share your favorites in the comments.

A Young Pro – Finding Your Passion

A Young Pro writes about why it is so important to find your passion in life. He is a new college graduate with a family and his perspective is as pertinent to my empty nest situation as it is for a college student or young professional.
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Back when I was applying for every job I could see I was also taking every interview that I could. I learned a lot from those interviews, and one of the first lessons that I learned was to show passion. Potential employees that are passionate stand out from the crowd. If you are energetic, enthusiastic, and can talk intelligently about certain topics, employers will notice that you are in it for more than just the job.

And Then We Saved – The Power of Setting Goals

Anna at And Then We Saved hosts a guest post from Chelsea who shares a valuable lesson she’s learned while on her spending fast. The value of goals isn’t a new concept to most of us, but Chelsea has an interesting perspective on the importance of goals.
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Originally my goal was to put $1,000 towards my debt each month. This is an excellent goal but not very realistic. Goals need to be motivational, not discouraging. At $12.25 an hour, dropping a Grand each month is unlikely. I have set my new goal at paying $500 monthly. I feel that $500 is something that’s attainable and if I get awesome and exceed it then, well, that rocks! If there has been one thing I’ve learned these past few weeks, it’s that keeping things positive is a requirement for my Spending Fast journey.

Double Debt Single Woman – Still Dealing with Bad Past Financial Decisions

DDSW outlines the extreme measures she has taken to help pay off her $30k+ credit card debt and her $100+ student loan debt. The site in general is very well written with valuable lessons held in each post.
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The experience has been bittersweet. Although I’m glad to be disconnecting from this place and launching headfirst into debt freedom, it is sad seeing everything that I spent so much time carefully searching for and selecting over the past two years, sold for pennies on the dollar or given away. And even though I’ve met a lot of lovely people through Craigslist in the last couple of weeks, its a bit of a kick in the teeth to see another round of people benefiting from my financial ignorance. Never again will I let this happen to me. Another lesson learned the hard way. I have resolved that I’m not going to buy another piece of furniture until I am out of debt.

Frugal Rules – How to Afford Your Summer Vacation Ideas

John at Frugal Rules has a great post up this week on ways to make getting away from the grind a little more affordable. Vacations don’t always have to be elaborate ordeals that require a second mortgage.
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If you live in a big enough city then a stay-cation could be possible. We have done this in the past as there are numerous things in our city that we’ve not seen or done and would like to do. From sites we’d like to go see to restaurants the kids like to go to we can easily have fun for the week while still being budget conscious.

Sweating the Big Stuff – High School Students Can’t Make Financial Decisions About Money

Daniel at Sweating the Big Stuff writes an excellent piece about how he, and many teens, approach the decision making process for their college plans. As the mom of one college student and one heading off next year, I know that even the brightest student doesn’t have much of a concept of cost when it comes to college.
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It’s not fair to make high school students decide between two enormous amount of debt. Parents need to be extremely involved and not only lay out the realities of what life after school will be like, but guide their children because they are much better suited to look at the whole picture.