Based on the results of a recent survey, millions of Brits go to work drunk (or get drunk while they’re there, I guess). More specifically, one in six Brits admit to having been “under the influence of alcohol at work in the last six months.” And to think that the World Cup hasn’t even started yet!

[Source: The Register]

Well, I’m off to close on our new house. The final walkthrough was relatively uneventful, although a couple of items that the inspector found were still unattended to. While this was a bit annoying, it’s nothing that can’t be worked out in short order. I’m going to drop by the house on the way to the closing, and if these things still haven’t been put to rest, we’re going to put them in writing. Then it’s a mad dash back home (a bit over 300 miles) so we can turn around and come back for good with all of our stuff on Thursday. Thankfully, it’s a full service move.

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

Leave it to Texas to raise the speed limit in the face of ever-increasing oil prices… That’s right, the state of Texas is raising the speed limit along 500 miles of interstate to 80 mph. To be fair, the increase is limited to ten fairly desolate counties in west Texas. But still… [more]

The past week has felt like a bit of a tightrope act… As I’ve noted previously, we closed on our current former house last Thursday, and are closing on our new house tomorrow. And while we could afford to carry both houses for awhile if necessary, our intention has been to take the money from our previous house and put it straight into the new one. The problem here is funds availability… Even if the first close went well (it did), we needed to get our hands on the money quickly. As it turns out, banks are now placing relatively lengthy holds on cashier’s checks. [more]

After an uneventful final walkthrough last week on the eve of selling our house, I’m off for the final walkthrough on our new house this morning. The home inspector didn’t turn up too much, so I’m expecting (and hoping for!) an uneventful walkthrough. Once this is taken care of, our next step will be to head to the closing table tomorrow morning.

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

I’ve been meaning to do this for quite some time now, but I just haven’t been able to swing it with all that’s been going on around here… Anyway, now that FiveCentNickel is over a year old, I thought that it might be a good idea to start pointing out posts from back in the day (before most of you were reading the site) that I think are worth highlighting. My plan was to do this on a weekly basis, but I’m nearly a month behind. Thus, I’m going to cover a few weeks this time around…

A year ago this past week:

• E-mail Overload: Digging out from Under - I have a really bad habit of letting my inbox get out of control. And it hasn’t gotten any better over the past year.
• Personal Finance Blogging Takes Off - April and May of 2005 marked the leading edge of the explosion of personal finance blogs. PFBlogs.org now aggregates an amazing 469 weblogs in this area (and counting).
• Home Values, Appraisals, and Fraud - Talks about the potential effects of fraudulent (or at least biased) home appraisals on the real estate market.
• Don’t Believe Everything that You Read - A cautionary note about the risks of taking personal finance writings (including mine!) at face value.
• Don’t Believe Everything that You Read

The week before…

• Kids & Money: Setting an Allowance - I first laid out the details of our allowance system (which has continued to evolve somewhat over time).
• Pay Down Your Mortgage With ‘Found’ Money - My thoughts on throwing unforseen windfalls at your mortgage.
• Tracking CDs with Quicken - As the name suggests, a quick tip on how to track CDs in Quicken.

The week before that…

• Saving for College - Tips on prioritizing your investment needs in the context of planning for your kids to go to college.
• Kids as a Tax Dodge - A tongue-in-cheek article about how best to minimize your tax burden.
• Why Gas Won’t Get Cheaper - A particularly prescient piece on why the price of gas won’t go down (guess what? it didn’t).
• Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math - The most talked about article that I’ve written. Provides a mathematical analysis of various debt reduction strategies. Despite the name, this was really intended to be an indictment of David Bach’s debt reduction strategy, which is just plain dumb. And yes, I do realize the psychological benefits of Ramsey’s approach. I even mentioned it prominently in the article, although many devoted Ramsey-ites seem to have missed that point.

And the week before that…

• Time is Money - A review of one of my all-time favorite personal finance books.
• Reshuffle Your Retirement, Part Deux - More thoughts on structuring your retirement savings.
• The Upside of Costly Gas - Some thoughts on the silver lining when it comes to high gas prices.
• Turn $1/Day into $67,815 - A bit of simple math to underscore the important of regular investing.
• The Best Dollar(s) that I’ve Ever Spent - How we bribed our son into learning to ride a bike.
• Max that Roth! - Thoughts on why you should max out your Roth IRA, even if you’re not sure that you can afford to do so.
• Get Yourself a Fax Machine - This is just plain great advice, especially if you’re going to be buying and selling a house (trust me, after the past two months, I speak from experience).
• eBay, Taxes, and You - A quick rundown of the rules when it comes to the tax consequences of selling stuff on eBay.
• Reshuffle Your Retirement - Throughts on structuring your retirement investments.
• From the Mouths of Babes: Made in China - Insights into globalization from none other than my seven year old son (he’s now eight, and just as wise as ever).

Once again, I have homebuying on the brain… We officially sold our house last Thursday, and will be closing on our new one this Wednesday. With that in mind, I got to wondering about how many of y’all own vs. rent your homes. So, without further ado, I bring you Money Poll #14. [more]

Here’s a quick look at what’s been going on around the MoneyBlogNetwork and beyond over the past week… [more]

The other day I wrote a bit about the home office tax deduction, and today I thought I’d expand on it a bit by talking about ‘regular and exclusive’ usage, as well as how you can substantiate your claim to the IRS… [more]

Unlucky Money Poll #13 has now run its course, with fully 50% of repondents reporting that they have cable TV of some sort — a bit over half of those had ‘expanded’ cable with the balance subscribing to ‘limited’ cable. Next up was paid satellite service, weighing in at 22% (although the gap will narrow just a tiny bit next week when we move and drop Comcast cable for Dish Network). A plain old antenna was next, capturing 19% of respondents. Finally, 6% reported downloading their TV fix over the internet, whereas 2% don’t watch TV. For the full results, as well as comments, please visit the TV Service Poll post.