Friday Round-Up: The Best in Personal Finance Blogs

This week, I can finally make my announcement: I’m pregnant! My husband and I are super-excited about welcoming a baby to our family, and we have roughly six months until D-day to focus on finding all that baby stuff we’ll need. And stocking up on sleep now. I heard that babies can make you slightly tired…

The past few months have been exhausting by themselves. It takes a lot of energy to bake a little bun in the oven, and I’ve had no problem adding more sleep to my days. Now, though, as I enter the second trimester, I have a renewed sense of energy. Or at least I don’t have to lay my head down for a daily 3 p.m. nap anymore. Maybe just every other day.

In other news on the blogosphere, I actually was able to peel my eyes away from baby sites for a few hours to take in more about finances than about booties and bonnets. Here are some of the best blog posts of the week:

• Can payday loans ever be a good thing? Check in with Retire By 40 to find out in his post ”Necessary Evil? Paycheck (Payday) Loans a Bridge to Financial Stability”.
• Big banks often get a bad rap nowadays, but should they? MoneyCone looks at this and more in his post ”If you are happy with your Big Bank, should you still switch to a Credit Union?” Check it out; you may be surprised.
• At Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, guest poster Brian Carr shares his story about how he worked extra hours to sell his home. It’s an impressive story about hard work, morals and ethics, and I was very impressed.
• April Dykman of Get Rich Slowly ponders her spending habits during stressful times and offers ”Five Free Ways to De-Stress”. This might be perfect timing, what with holiday stress building.
• Free Money Finance examines how beauty and cash are related in his post ”Being Beautiful Can Earn You a Fortune”. No wonder I’m not a millionaire.

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