Finances & Money

Clever Dude’s Week in Review Feb 17-24

I had a busy week of posting and updating the Clever Dude design. I’ve added a number of plugins, changed the layout and ad formats, and streamlined some stylesheet elements.

This week in Clever Dude:

• On Saturday, I added an Email Subscriptions option for those of you who don’t use RSS Readers. You can subscribe via email on the top right sidebar or right here. You can also subscribe to Clever Dude RSS feeds using your favorite reader.
• On Sunday, I added two new plugins. To promote more commenting, I’ve added the Top Commentators plugin. This plugin will show the top 5 commentators based on their numbers of comments, and reset every month. It’s another way to get a link on my site if you aren’t in my sidebar.The other plugin is more invisible. I added the Link Love plugin to help share the love with other writers. If you comment 20 times or more, then the plugin will remove the NoFollow tag from your comments and link back to your site (if you have one). Time will be the judge on how this one works out though.

  You can get links to the plugins from each article.

• Also on Sunday, I started a series called “Share the Love”, where I intend to write a review of each new (and some existing) links in my sidebar. I don’t want to just add a link without telling people why, and letting the owner know that I’ve added them. My first victim was MoneyBlogSite.com
• On Monday, I highlighted my favorites from the Carnival of Personal Finance #88. There were some hiccups with the hosting site, and it seemed that I was the only site with any available links to the participants until the afternoon. The Carnival came back up, though, and everyone was pleased.
• Also on Monday, I reviewed the new “Personal Windmills” called Skystreams. These windmills are relatively inexpensive for the right sites, but it will still take some time before they become mainstream in D.C., I’m sure.
• On Tuesday, I questioned “What is Personal Finance?” and provided my own definition. Personally, I don’t think personal finance is strictly limited to money. It’s also related to events and decisions that will lead in a change to one’s finances.
• On Wednesday, I let you a bit into my life and explained how we spent $22,000 on cars last year. Knowing the discussion this would spark, I added the Subscribe to Comments plugin so you could stay abreast of the conversation. And a number of you did!
• On Thursday, I explained why we were going to be spending even more this year on cars (even though we weren’t buying any new ones), and outlined some options for reducing our car debt and vehicles. I appreciate all the constructive comments and encourage you to write even more. We need help to decide what to do! Has anyone else suffered this predicament?
• Friday, I continued the Share the Love Review with issue #2 for RateLadder.com. Additionally, I wrote a detailed guide for dealing with the Maryland Notice of Security Interest Filing and Certification of Title documents you get from the Maryland MVA (aka DMV), and what you do with them when it comes time to sell that car. Considering our idea of selling our Malibu, we needed to know this information, and maybe you do too.And finally, late in the night, I thanked Chad from 22Dollars.com for the Personal Finance for Dummies book. Go check out his site! Cool and different design for a personal finance site.

Have a great weekend!