By Amanda Morrall
1) Top five business books
Unfortunately, my own book isn't available in stores until February otherwise I'd give it a shameless plug as a stocking stuffer. For those of you looking to pick up something in the way of a finance and or business book as a gift, check out Idealog's five top picks here.
2) Top five personal finance blogs
Blogs to bookmark, if you haven't already:
For the frugal and financially self aware lusting after early retirement: Mr. Money Moustache
For those ambitious types looking to grow their income and get ahead. Ramit Sethi of I will teach you to be rich.
For the seasoned investor, British finance blogger Monevator.com
For the financially questing type, research house Morningstar Australia. Less news and analysis on its sister website Morningstar NZ but watch that space for more content in 2013.
For a hybrid between well-being and personal finance Amanda Morrall's new blog. (see postscript).*
3) Tips for travellers
I was interested to note that the majority of readers who took part in our Xmas poll, said they would be spending their money on travel instead of gifts. With that in mind, here's iheartbudgets.net's top tips for the budget conscious traveller.
4) Five ways to curb Xmas expenses
Moneying.com looks at five ways to keeping a lid on Christmas spending.
5) 6 holiday gift ideas that make sense financially
Forbes Money with six holiday gift ideas that make good sense financially. You can substitute #2 (a 529 donation) with a KiwiSaver lump sum contribution for a young family member whose account balance may be languishing at the kick-start level of $1,000.
*On a personal note, I have some news to share. In the New Year, I will be venturing out on my own to pursue other interests. Yes, yoga is part of the picture. My column here will continue until Xmas and then resume in February on a daily basis. However, my other regular contributions to interest.co.nz will cease. For those of you interested in following my steps, I'll remain active on Twitter @amandamorrall and more active on my new blog www.amandamorrall.com
To read other Take Fives by Amanda Morrall click here.
3 Comments
interesting journalistic failure this morning, female but not you.
Kathryn Ryan on Nine-to-Noon, regarded as one of the better. She tried - and in my email I gave her credit for the trying. But - and I've given her heaps of stuff about it this year) she still misses it in spades.
Interviewing Dr Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist' , she asked about 'water shortages'. Yep, water will be a problem, but not because water is a 'shortage'.
With unlimited energy, you can desalinate until the cows come home. With unlimited plastic material, you can pipe it anywhere, and at any rate. The shortage is of the energy-source, and the fact that the plastic come from the same source compounds the problem. NSW desalination is 85% coal-fired, for instance.
Why is it that presumably able minds, don't get the correlation?
One of my favourite blogs is Marc Faber:
http://marcfaberblog.blogspot.com.au
Todays quote:
I think in general it is very difficult to beat compound interest. If you had invested money at the time of the birth of Christ at just 5%, you would have a higher net worth today than that of the entire world.
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