Keith over at Spend on Life sent me an email late last week to find out whether or not I had heard of a new service being offered by the site. It’s called Twinancial.

Twinancial pulls finance tweets off of Twitter, aggregating them in a way that makes it easy for you to read what is being said about a number of financial topics. It looks like a very interest service, although I haven’t delved too deeply into it. Twinancial offers RSS so that you can have the tweets delivered to your reader. Unfortunately, even though Twinancial uses Twitter, it does not offer a stream of tweets from those that Keith and the folks at Spend on Life are not subscribed to.

All in all, though, Twinancial is interesting for those who want to see what finance folks are tweeting about. Have you checked out this service? What do you think about Twinancial?

I received an interesting email recently about Mamapedia.com, a site devoted to helping moms connect to each other and share tips. Mamapedia has a finance section, in which you can post a question, and then get insights and help from other moms.

While the site is aimed at women, many of the tips and helps could apply to anyone. Money problems are in most cases, after all, money problems. There are some interesting topics available, such as debt mediation and credit repair.

However, as with all things you read on the Internet (including on this site), it is important to take things with a grain of salt. Some of the advice is quite good, and some of it not so much. But, in general, there is a lot of helpful money insight, and you might be able get direction from someone whose situation mirrors yours.

With the passage yesterday of the Credit CARD Act of 2009, it is little surprise that the subject of credit is on my mind. And one of the most interesting and informative books on the subject of credit and credit scoring is Your Credit Score: Your Money & What’s At Stake by Liz Pulliam Weston. It’s an update of an earlier book, written in 2004. This newer version goes in depth into this important number, and offers the facts about what you can do to improve your credit — and includes information on the new FICO 08, as well as practical advice for getting through tough financial times.

Pulliam starts out by explaining why your credit score matters, and continues with a history lesson, describing how credit scoring came to be, and why it is so prevalent now in every aspect of our financial lives — from jobs to securing insurance to getting a home loan. She also takes some time to describe how the credit scoring system works, as well as addressing VantageScore, a new competitor to FICO.

The bulk of the book, however, is concerned with the practical application of techniques, financial habits and practices that can help you improve your credit score. Your Credit Score even devotes a section to building a credit score when you don’t have credit. Pulliam offers step-by-step information that can help you resolve a number of credit issues, from mistakes on your credit report to reporting identity theft. She also tackles common credit myth that are continually perpetuated. This is, without a doubt, one of the most useful personal finance handbooks I have read recently.

I like Pulliam’s levelheaded approach to credit. She points this out: “You don’t have to live in debt to get a decent score, but you do need to use credit.” I enjoy her middle of the road view of credit. Pulliam doesn’t represent extremes. She simply offers you solid information and the knowledge you require to make a plan to improve your credit score and then keep it healthy.

Have you read Your Credit Score? Did you like it?

I’ve often said that I’m a boring investor. And I’m not alone. Mike Piper, The Oblivious Investor, is also a boring investor. He’s written an entire book, Oblivious Investing: Building Wealth by Ignoring the Noise on a simple buy-and-hold investing strategy that focuses on index funds. It’s not exciting, but you’re more likely to build enough long-term wealth than if you run around, trying to earn big-time returns in the short-term. The book is fairly short, only 113 pages. You can easily read it in an afternoon.

Oblivious Investing by Mike Piper

Oblivious Investing is set up as a parable. It follows the stock market exploits of Shannon as she learns how to engage in “oblivious investing” with the help of her Uncle Toby. Some of the dialogue in the book is kind of cheesy, but that doesn’t matter; the principles in the book are sound.

Piper takes the reader through an ordered approach to developing a long-term investing plan based on index funds. Each chapter starts with questions that will be answered, and ends with a succinct summary of the main point addressed. You learn how valuable investment planning skills such as:

• Figuring out your goals.
• Figuring out the timeframe you need to meet your goals.
• Understanding index funds.
• Why trying to time the market is a bad idea.
• Learning to ignore the “noise” around you.
• Understanding market fluctuation.
• Putting faith in long-term results, rather than focusing only on the short-term.
• The natures of volatility and risk — and why they are often confused.
• The all-inclusive “more”.

With the stock market in turmoil right now, Oblivious Investing comes at just the right time. The book is an appeal to think rationally and calmly about your investment strategy, and to prepare for the long term. At the back are a number of helpful, easy to understand charts that illustrate the points made throughout the book. Here are some of my favorite words of wisdom from Oblivious Investing:

“And the time frame for each goal isn’t form now until the time you start spending the money; it’s from now until the time you finish spending the money.”

“Perhaps we should call an action risky if it decreases your likelihood of meeting your financial goals.”

“Because I kept investing money during the entire time that the market went down, most of my shares were bought at fairly low prices. So now that the market has gone back up, my account balance is looking really good.”

And, finally, what this book is all about:

“Oblivious Investing is not about being uninformed. It’s about creating an intelligent investment plan and then consciuosly choosing to ignore anything that could trick you into giving up on it.”

Last week I mentioned that I was trying out Lending Club. And, now that I’ve given it a spin, here is the rundown of what Lending Club is all about. Oh, and one of you lucky readers can have a free $100 in your Lending Club account. Here are the rules of this $100 giveaway from Lending Club:

1. Leave a comment on this post by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time this Friday, March 13, 2009. Make sure you have a valid email address, or I won’t be able to contact you — if you win.
2. Sign up for Lending Club. It’s free. But you need to have an account, so that if you are the winner, your $100 can be added to your account. I suppose you could leave a comment, and then sign up if you win If you never use the account, that’s fine. You do not actually have to go through the “funding” process in order to have an account when you initially sign up. If you are already a member of Lending Club, you can still win the $100.

One winner will be chosen at random from the comments on this post to win the $100 account credit at Lending Club.

What is lending club all about?

With the economy making it difficult to get approved for loans, many people are turning to P2P lending. Lending Club is one of many P2P sites (like Prosper or Green Note) that offer ordinary people the chance to lend money to their peers in small chunks. It is possible to get loans for credit card consolidation, business expansion, auto loans or money for a down payment on a home. I gave it a try when I was approached by a representative of Lending Club.

$50 was placed in my newly-opened Lending Club account for me to try it out. Turns out that I enjoyed it so much that I actually added my own $50 (via PayPal) to do a little more funding. Here’s how it works if you want to invest:

• You look through loans requested from borrowers.
• You choose to fund part of the loan by buying $25 notes.
• You receive a portion of the interest earned on the loan, plus repayment of the principal that you lent.

The nice thing about Lending Club is that you can browse available notes and limit who you lend to. If you are more risk averse, and don’t mind getting a lower return, you can restrict your search to those with only A or B rated credit. If you have a little more to risk, you can earn higher returns by funding someone with lower credit ratings. Of course, the lower the credit rating, the higher the risk of default — so you could lose your investment.

Lending Club includes payment history information, risk information, and allows you to pose questions to the borrower. This helps you make a more informed decisions about whom you lend to. All of this is done without divulging telling personal information about the borrower.

Overall, I found Lending Club fairly easy to use. The interface is straightforward, and you can decide how many notes you want to buy — as long as you have at least $25 in your account. I like that you can use PayPal to fund your account, and the ease (in theory — since I haven’t started receiving payments yet) with which you can withdraw money from your Lending Club account when you start receiving your portion of the payments on the loans. It is also possible to reinvest your earnings fairly easily.

Since I’m the cautious sort, I’ll give it some time before I add further funds. But if my current notes yield some returns, I’ll probably start devoting a portion of my monthly earnings to notes at Lending Club as part of a long-term savings plan.

Do any of you have experience with Lending Club or other P2P Lending? Remember to leave comments by this Friday night in order to be eligible for the $100 giveaway.

image credit: US government

I just received an interesting proposal: Try out Lending Club and get $100 for one of my readers! The only condition is that I try that site out (they’ll give me $50 to put in my account), and the write about my experience.

I’ve toyed with the idea of microfinance through such organizations as Kiva.org. Now that I’ve connected with Lending Club, I’m excited to be entering the world of P2P lending, and sharing my thoughts.

I don’t have all the details worked out, but when I do, I will post contest rules. Stay tuned, you may be the one to get $100 for use in a Lending Club account.

image source: Lending Club Web site

“But we’re so tempted by the fantasy of instant wealth — of changing our lives overnight — that we’ll dip into our savings to try for it.” (Spencer Sherman in The Cure for Money Madness)

One of the more interesting books I’ve ready in the last few weeks is The Cure for Money Madness by Spencer Sherman. He tackles the ideas that have grown up in our consumer culture about money and wealth, and offers insight into how we can get over the “money madness” that makes normally rational people behave irrationally when money is involved. The book is easy to read, and contains actionable (and common sense) ideas for better wealth management:

• Don’t hide your spending from your spouse.
• Spend your money in a mindful manner.
• Employ diversity in your investing.
• Buy low and sell high - don’t give in to the culture of panic.
• Save money regularly.
• Spend less than you earn.

The Cure for Money Madness also challenges long-held assumptions about money. Sherman delves into such treasured concepts as leaving money to your kids (something I don’t really care to do), buying a home v. paying rent and the concept of true wealth. Sherman also spends time on cash flow and true net worth, and the importance of understanding how you use your money, rather than just figuring out how much you have and where it is going.

The Cure for Money Madness includes helpful worksheets to help you evaluate where you are at, and to make a plan for the future. Sherman also includes a chapter (”The Rainbow Portfolio: Madness-Free Investing — The Boring Way to Make More Money) on investing and asset allocation. The key is to plan to make money over the long term, rather than try to get rich quick. This means that now is a good time to buy, since investments are so inexpensive.

One of my favorite points of this book, though, comes in Chapter 10. It tackles the way we entwine money and status. Chapter 10 is all about looking at what you have and deciding how much it is worth to you, rather than always comparing yourself to others and deriving feelings of self-worth from your net worth. He also includes some feel-good stuff about how — with your talents, abilities, health and intelligence — you are worth more than your net worth, because of your future ability to make more down the road. But there is merit to “calculating…the market value of the resources you possess that are enabling you to gain those earnings.”

In the end, I found this a supremely useful book, and would recommend it to anyone. You can find out more on The Cure for Money Madness at the Web site Sherman set up to complement the book (take the test!).

Have you read The Cure for Money Madness? What did you think?

I’ve had several things brought to my attention in the last week or so. Many of them are interesting financial resources online. I thought I’d share them, and I invite you to share any of the interesting financial resources you’ve come across online in the comments section.

• Gnutrade.com offers a very interesting game. You can use play money to set up a practice account for investing — and you can also set up an account with real money and invest for real. It’s all set up like a game, though, which some might find helpful in learning how to invest.
• FinancialFate.com is concerned with helping you create a long-term financial plan — including estate planning, income forecasts, investments, and tax planning. You can also make adjustments to get an idea of how what you’re doing now (or might do later) will affect your ultimate outcome.
• CrashCourse is a video resource that includes episodes with financial and economic information, providing a base for better financial education.
• GoCollege.com offers insight into personal finance for college students — and tips for helping them get through college with as little debt as possible.

Also, a contest from DebtGoal.com (a free tool that can help you creat a debt reduction plan) is being run over on Facebook. You can win $250 for sharing a thrifty secret.

Now is the perfect time to get your stuff together for taxes. Tax preparation is something you should be doing right now, so that you are ready to go when your tax return is due. This is the time of year I start getting my stuff together for the accountant. And one of the things I do is itemize my deductions.

When to itemize your deductions

You want to itemize your deductions on Schedule A of Form 1040 if your deductions add up to more than the standard deduction that is offered. Mine do. Schedule A  includes deductions for your mortgage interest, as well as charity deductions, among other things. These are the main Schedule A deductions on most people’s taxes. The mortgage interest is pretty straightforward: Your lender will send you a statement.

The charity donations may not be as easy to figure out. This is where a Web site called CharityDeductions.com may be helpful. This site helps you figure out the fair market value of your items based on:

• Brand
• Current condition
• Age (in some cases)
• State you live in
• Other information

Keeping track of information on charity donations is now required, so if you are unsure of the fair market value, you can run an analysis. CharityDeductions.com gave me a special test code to put together my donation list to the local thrift store from back in May (I kept a record because you’re supposed to now).

When I donated, I just sort of guessed what the items were worth, and the thrift store just wrote down what I guessed. My guess was $196. Looks like I was off by $61. Of course, that’s not a huge deal to me, since it is more important to give than to worry about getting the tax deduction. But still, it sort of makes one wonder how many other taxpayers are underestimating the fair market value of their donations.

How CharityDeductions.com works for tax preparation

The idea is that you pay $19.95 per year to create reports of charity donations — including cash donations. Each time you make a donation, you are supposed to record it, and then you can print out a report that you can keep on file in case of audit, or give to your tax preparer as backup for your tax return deductions.

The service I find most helpful, though, is the fair market value report for donated goods. It helps you pinpoint what things are worth. However, you can look that information up on your own (but it is time consuming). If you donate several times a year to a thrift store or some other type of organization that accepts goods, this might be worth your while — especially if the amount you under-report equals more than $20 each year.

If you only donate goods once a year or so, however, you might be better off with guessing the fair market value. And cash donations are easy to record in personal finance software. I usually print off a report from my personal finance software to turn in to my accountant. But if you do your own taxes, or if you donate a lot of goods (including food to the food bank), you might find CharityDeductions.com helpful.

Last week, I posted a review of a new forex trading course from Forex Strategy Secrets. It’s called Launch Pad. A release date has been announced, and it’s tomorrow, May 14, at noon Eastern.

Just thought I’d let you know — especially those of you who are interested in forex trading.