The Sunday Review #20: Interesting Paper Clip Edition

Grading undergraduate homeworks is usually a very boring job. However, every once in a while, something interesting pops up and makes you smile. Here is one such thing:

That’s a part of a broken paper clip bent around to hold the loose pages together. Also, the student was kind enough to point towards the object and write a few words of observation on the clip’s properties - although, that doesn’t explain why anyone would do that in the first place.

Lack of a stapler is an obvious cause for this action - but usually, most students who don’t have a stapler handy, just align the loose papers together and fold the top left corner to *sort-of* keep them together. If the student had an unbroken paper clip, I would imagine that it could have been used as it is - so probably that wasn’t the case. I had some other theories, but those didn’t pan out well.

May be you could try enlightening us as what could have been the cause of such creativity.

Now, let’s proceed with the review. This week’s review has materialized after a lot of arguments and counter-arguments, and some amount of soul searching. I finally decided to let it run (for the time being) for some reasons like these - for numerous readers who are not bloggers themselves and stumble upon personal finance blogs in search of a variety of information; to provide additional visibility to certain interesting articles -as a sort of an encouragement to bloggers who put considerable amount of efforts into creating their content; and on a selfish note, getting rid of the Sunday Review feature is going to make me feel like losing a finger (may be a limb) - it has sort of grown on me after 19 editions. However, I do acknowledge the *hate-feelings* of certain readers towards such collection of links, and will be on a lookout for a mutually agreeable solution.

• Retirement Planning: Focus on Spendable Net Worth by Super Saver @ My Wealth Builder. The post is hinting towards having more liquid funds available for a better retirement. If you think over this a bit - you can relate it to a very old debate in the area of personal finance - should the value of a house/property be considered in net worth. What’s the worth of *net worth*, if it’s not spendable?

• Stop Living the Stop-gap Life by Wanda @ Well Heeled. A simple, unconventional (but sensible) message:

Delayed gratification is good for financial planning, but be careful not to take it too far.

• O, That Special Gift: How Much Do You Pay For Sentiment? by SVB @ The Digerati Life. This is a must read for those who are in the habit of remembering their mothers only on Mother’s Day. It’s my theory that people who go overboard on such *days* are the ones who tend to ignore the person for the rest of the year - argue against it if you want.

• Generating Passive Income with Dividend-Paying ETFs and Stocks by Sun @ The Sun’s Financial Diary. A comprehensive list of ETFs and stocks that yield top dividends.

• New Diversification Requirements in the Pension Protection Act of 2006 Will Create Better Defined Contribution Plans by Jeremy @ Generation X Finance. The title says it all; here is an excerpt:

Under the new rules, individuals with plan accounts invested in employer securities must be provided with diversification rights. This includes participants, alternate payees and beneficiaries of a deceased participant with account balances comprising elective deferrals and employee contributions (and earnings thereon). Employee contributions include both after-tax and rollover contributions.

• Geometry Saved Me Money by Matt @ Binary Dollar. It’s more like “Geometry got me some extra pizza”. Read about how Matt compared two 8″ inch pizzas with one 12″ pizza and figured out which one is a better deal. 5th grade geometry (may be earlier - I don’t remember when the ‘area of a circle’ concept was introduced) does come in handy at times.

• Kindler, Gentler Credit Cards? Credit Card Reform Long Overdue by Ben @ Money Smart Life. Credit card companies getting rid of two-cycle billing and universal default? That’s a good sign for credit card users. For deadbeats - it has no meaning.

• Compound Interest Week: An Introduction by Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money. This post marks the start of a series of posts on compound interest and it’s effect on your returns. When you are there, make sure you read the rest of the posts in the series.

• The Downside of Debit Cards by Nickel @ Five Cent Nickel. Nickel muses over debit card refunds.

Having a portion of your credit line (or even your checking account balance) temporarily put on hold is fundamentally different from having money actually withdrawn from your checking account and then refunded to you in 7-10 days if it goes unspent.

• 18 Ways to Save on a Small Income by FMF @ Free Money Finance. It doesn’t matter how small your income is. A commensurate downsizing of your lifestyle will always help you earmark a part of your income for saving purposes… unfortunately that (downsizing) might just be the most difficult thing in the world to achieve.

• Shopping, and Reselling, for a Living by MBH @ Mighty Bargain Hunter. MBH’s commentary on a story about a woman who buys her merchandise at discount retail stores and sells the goods on eBay for a profit - an activity that earns her up to $50,000 a year!