Major Computer Crash! - Doh!

We got back from dinner at my mom's house last night and blammo...my computer is dead! on my wife's right now but, in the words of a pirate..."Aaargh!"

I'll be back up by this afternoon (hopefully!)

Racer X

Our Third of Four RSS Contest Winners!

Our third RSS Contest Winner was picked last night. I once again used Random.org to give me a number to determine the second winner of The FruitfulTime TaskManager Software.

The software selected JayMSluyter!

I haven't heard back yet from JayM so I could give you a a link to their Blog! But Congratualtions!

Remember there is one more chance to win the contest, next week at the same time I will pick the next winner. Just register for my Email RSS Feed, or stay registered! I look forward to picking your name next!

Best of the Week, Winners and Milestones

Just Picked and Notified our third winner in the RSS Sign-up Contest. Hope to give a link and a quote during the mid-day update. Remember all you have to do is sign-up for the RSS feed HERE or on the main page, verify the email...and that's it! You are entered. If you are already on the list you are entered in to next weeks final drawing as well!

Great week for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Money as we hit new milestones, increased readership and had great traffic. It was a great week for some of my favorite blogs as well. so without any further ado...

The Best Of the Web for the Week:

• Brightside of Debt - This one is me trying to rally folk to go there and comment on the linked post! - Brightside is considering stopping her blogg as her Hubby found out about itand she's feeling guilty. I know so many of my readers read her blog. Go to this post and let her know how great her blog is and how you want her to stay!!!
• Iowa Hippie Chick -This is about her Financial Epiphany, but really it is about much more. One of the best written, most touching posts I have read in a long time. She is a favorite of mine for a reason!
• Finwikian - This new Personal Finance Wiki (pfWiki) was pulled together by Mrs Micah and could become a great repository for some great collected Finance knowledge!
• Hustler Money Blog - More then one single post Hustler does an amazing job compiling all of the current Credit card deals. I personally would rather chop them up, but if you are gonna have one, get the best deal!
• Plonkee - A great post and mini-Carnival that goes into great depth and explanation of Dave Ramsey's Baby' Steps. Great stuff...as usual!

My Most Read Post of the Week:

• LifeLock = Life Crock? - A look at the successful program. Is is really a good Value? Detective X takes a look! :)

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Money Milestones:

• 369 Visitors in one Day! - Biggest day ever by far (Feb 28th), due to msn MoneyBlog story
• Over 11,500 Page Views
• Over 4700 Total Visitors
• Over 50 Subscribers!
• Achieved PageRank with Google! PR2...bigger and better to come!

Thanks to all for being great supporters! I hope to be worthy!

Time For a Third Winner - Is it You?

It's nearly time! We will be picking our third out of four total winners for our FruitfulTime TaskManager RSS Contest!

All you have to do is sign up, or stay signed up, for our Email RSS feed and at 10PM PST tonight I will use a Random List generator to pick one of those subscribers as a winner!

As easy as pie! 2 minutes of your time for a chance to win Free Software?

Here is the Software description:

FruitfulTime TaskManager is a to do list software that helps you to organise yourself. It allows you to input your tasks, split them in subtasks, keep track of notes, contacts, files and WebPages related to a particular task. FruitfulTime TaskManager also allows you to set due dates and assign reminders to accordingly. This will make sure that you will never miss a deadline again. FruitfulTime TaskManager is the best to do list software that can help you get things done and beat procrastination as recommended in this free procrastination ebook.

Get signed up now! Just sign up HERE!

I will email the winner tonight and let them know they have won. I will also give you a free plug for your website or Blog!

Also, There is a great Carnival of Ethics and Personal Finance going on right now. Tons of great articles all in one handy Blog!

Best of Luck!

Is Suze Orman's Advice Too Basic?

First let me say I believe Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman have brought more people to consider their personal finances than most other financial writers. Orman has additionally brought more women into thinking more about their finances and take control of their financial futures. However, every time I see her (which, to be fair is not that much) something troubles me.

Her advise is often very simplistic.

I watched the show awhile ago and there was a segment on the show called "Can I afford It?" No offence to the people that called in, but it was like a bad SNL skit.

• Caller: Suze...Can I afford a Plasma TV?
• Suze: Tell me, do you have any cash on hand for Emergencies?
• Caller: No...
• Suze: Any Retirement savings
• Caller: Yeah I have $2500 in my 401K
• Suze: How old are you?
• Caller: 50
• Suze: I wouldn't...get some bonds right away...

That was totally made up but it isn't that far off the calls received. It isn't her problem who calls in, but the way real radio or TV works is that they feed the callers and queue them...some someone tosses her some real softballs...at least when I watched.

Her tips that I have read out on the web were pretty pedestrian as well.

• Don't Eat Lunch out
• Search your closet for lost money
• Use Self-Serve pumps at gas stations

They might as well also include:

• Don't put your money in a pile and burn it
• Don't eat dirt
• Don't try All of the get rich quick schemes...its not fair to others that want to get rich too...

Love to hear you opinion, am I being too hard on her based on the few shows I have seen? Is one of her books a must read? Let us all know!

Nothing wrong with simple, just simplistic! It really comes down to this: If you want to create wealth first you need to spend less than you make. Period. Then topics like Budget, Emergency Fund, 401K, debt management and investing should be reviewed in depth.

Personal Finance QuickTake:Yahoo + AOL - Microsoft Fight Round III

According to a report from AP today, Yahoo has found another delaying tactic to keep Microsoft at bay. By delaying their Annual Shareholders Meeting, Microsoft no longer has until March 14th to nominate a new board of directors for shareholder vote.

Yahoo continues to use this time to try and either find a white knight, someone they prefer to swing in, to buy them, or find another business merger partner in order to go it alone.

On the White Knight side, Yahoo is apparently still negotiating with NewsCorp's myspace for an online hookup. This would fill-in each others needs nicely as myspace and other sites are becoming a key way to share and search for information. NewsCorp has made it clear that online is a major on-going concern for the company.

On the merger side apparently Yahoo is talking with TimeWarners AOL. Speculation that a bought Yahoo would drive up the value of an AOL and allow TimeWarner to finally dump this anchor (my words...but maybe their's too) has been running rampant. Outside shareholders have begged TimeWarner to do something with AOL, as they have moved away from their subscription based model. This really seems like the worst of both world's to me. I would think they both need stronger partners not grab on to weaker ones.

Regardless, Round III is on, it will be interesting to see Microsoft's next move, as well as how this all shakes out. regardless of what happens, it is going to be well different a year from now!

LifeLock = Life Crock?

I was reading some of my favorite blogs and I came across a post about how the blogger had just signed up for LifeLock and they were very happy to have their credit protected for $198/year for the family. Now, I applaud taking extra measures to protect yourself, and I had heard the radio ads so I was interested in what this was all about.

But after I read the post, and then checked out their website I was concerned.

Here is there 5 point plan from their website:

Here is what LifeLock Offers You

• Proactive Identity Theft Protection
• Reduce Junk Mail
• Reduce Credit Card Offers
• $1 Million Service Guarantee
• Only $10 per Month

The only problem with that is that is a free service that the credit bureaus offer. People can easily place a fraud alert on their own account, for free, by calling Experian at 1-888-397-3742. A Fraud Alert blocks your name being rented to Credit Card Companies which reduce the junk mail, the proactive protection is LifeLock working with Experian to set the free lock.

So what you get, is the $1 million insurance policy. $198 for $1MM in protection isn't crazy, but like a bad potato the deeper I peeled the more rotten this looked to me...

It must work the CEO gives out his Social Security Number!

Well sort of, this protects you from someone opening a regular credit card at a bank as they all use the big clearing houses like Experian. Actually after the ads hit CEO Todd Davis WAS hit with identity theft as this Phoenix New Times piece explains further. He found out when a collection agency contacted him about a $500 loan he took out and didn't pay on, surprising him as he never took out the loan!

Other disturbing things came up as well. Apparently the Founder of LifeLock Robert J Maynard's story of starting LifeLock didn't check out either. He was arrested because of HIS own gambling debts not due to identity theft, in fact his own father accused Mr. Maynard of committing Identity theft...on him!

After that story hit in May, Mr Maynard resigned from LifeLock and is no longer involved in the company.

So how did the Identity Theft work out for the current CEO Todd Davis? It did get resolved...the company hired an outside firm to fix it!

Too many warning bells for me. Run Forrest!

Detective Racer X...out :)