Carnival of Personal Finance: 118th Edition

Posted on September 18, 2007

The 118th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance was released by Money, Matter, and More Musings and has tons of great content. Check out some of the posts that caught my attention:

A Look at Salary Data (from an MBA perspective). Interesting and well researched numbers documenting salary in relation to gaining an MBA. I am heavily weighing my options with going back for an MBA and articles like this always appeal to me.
The Cost of Fear. Sometimes just asking can make all the difference in the world.
Why Zero Down is a Big Fat Zero for You. I see these zero down advertisements all the time and often times it can be tempting. My thought process is if you do one zero percent down offer, then it’s so easy to just do them all because from a monthly payment perspective it looks so much more affordable than as a whole.
Are Annual Fees Worth The Rewards. There is one instance where annual fees are worth the rewards and that is for a business traveler that uses the product/company consistently. The first commenter in the post captures this as well. I was a very frequent traveler and had a Delta Gold SkyMiles card that I used consistently to purchase tickets, hotel, rooms, and rental cars. I earned double rewards very frequently and racked up a ton of miles. I would have never got even a fraction of the rewards with a basic card due to all the double and tripling of points. With my new job I rarely travel, and as a result have canceled all the annual fee cards because they are no longer worth the cost.