Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

JD of Get Rich Slowly has the 105th Carnival of Personal Finance available now. He’s done it DJ-style. “Stacks of tracks on tons of wax, etc.” I think I can almost hear Casey Kasem.

Madame X at My Open Wallet with Who Do You Think You Are? I’m serious. I think I can hear the song play when I read that title. Anyone else remember it? “A star?”

Accumulating Money has a really fascinating post about buying experiences over things. I suppose this is one reason why I don’t own a TV. It forces me to do things I want to be doing like hobbies and chores.

Mighty Bargain Hunter explains exactly how being disorganized costs you money. If you’ve never been able to see the direct connection, he lays it all out for you and invites commenters to leave more.

Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has chosen his post Money isn’t everything and it isn’t you.

The Sun’s Financial Diary on opening a T-Bill account with Treasury Direct. He references Jonathan at My Money Blog, but I actually think you have to read Jonathan’s T-bill category for truly complete information.

Wealth Building Lessons on Canadian Royalty Trusts or “Canroys”, one way our northern neighbors save. It’s like an industry mutual fund, similar to an REIT.

SFOrdinaryGirl, my recent guest blogger, claims her best post is Giving Old Clothes a Second Chance. Pretty good advice since I’m about to go through my closet soon.

Clever Dudette with the famous packing your lunch post. This was put up on a high traffic website and has generated a lot of comments about lunch ideas. I highly recommend reading through all of them.

Five Cent Nickel says his best post is Ten Simple Ways to Cover Your Ass(ets). I agree! This is one of the best posts I’ve seen at his blog, but certainly not the only one. I definitely think you should take the long view on planning, and contingency planning like this is very important, especially if you have kids (say like, 4 boys).

A new blogger, Grace, at GRACEful Retirement only has 8 posts, but I do like this one on Special Needs Trusts. As many of you know, I’ve thought about something like this for my cousin. This might be the advice I’ve been looking for.

GolbGuru at the Tao of Making Money says his boss is lame, er, no. He writes about sharing knowledge about paying bills and investing. Though many couples decide on a division of labor, perhaps that’s not the wisest route. This is the only “couples” post I put on my list since most of them don’t apply to me. However, I watched my parents divide this labor and I think my dad is a disaster with money, so I agree a lot with the advice.

The Girl Money v Boy Money post has generated some very interesting discussion.

The main thing is, if *YOU* aren’t asking for a raise, *YOU* probably aren’t getting one. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it again, “You are Yourself Incorporated.” It was the favorite saying of my old boss and I have to say, it’s one of mine.

I’ve been there. I’ve gotten 2% annual raises two years in a row, wondering what exactly I needed to do to get a bigger raise, when I had done everything I could. (I turned around two unhappy clients into less unhappy clients. I’m not God and I don’t work miracles here, but I think making them less unhappy is a start.) And all I got to show for it was a third client yelling at me. Trust me. I was one of those beaten down office lackeys who often writes for desperate career advice. But today, I make a salary I am proud of.

I’m still slightly less compensated than I should be. It comes from fewer years of experience and no certification, things easily remedied by the passage of time and a test. I’ll be in training for the test next week, but I don’t feel like shelling out the extra money to actually take the exam. Maybe I might, but I don’t see a huge benefit from having the cert without the years of experience. The years in the trenches count most, and I can’t control time. Just saying I took the certification course may be enough.

Either way, I am better compensated than before and it’s because I have asked for more money and my management has gone to bat for me. No one is looking out for you except you. And what is the worst that can happen? They say no. But at least that can be turned into a “motivating No” instead of sitting and wondering whether or not you can get a raise.

I laugh a little at the gender flag. I work in IT, which is still male-dominated. And for the most part, as a woman, I’ve been better compensated than my male peers at some companies because I have the intelligence, guts, and arrogance to know my market worth and ask for fair compensation. I have only been lowballed once, and that was quickly remedied when my contribution was made clear to the company the following year. This may sound a bit like bragging, but I know if you don’t start out asking for a high salary, then 2% raises of a low salary look pretty awful. But 2% of a high salary looks a lot better. The only place you have to go in a new job salary negotiation is DOWN, so don’t start low. The first way to start earning your salary is asking for a good one in the first place.

I hope every woman out there who feels over-worked and under-paid gets off her duff and asks for more money. If not, you’ve got 8 more months this year to find a new job.