Jim talks about which closing costs are negotiable. Definitely worth the read if you’re in the market for mortgage. The only thing that Jim doesn’t provide in his writeup is the backbone necessary to stand up to the lender and make them lower their fees.

Flexo talks about why it is that you don’t feel any richer despite having received raises over the past few years.

JLP has a list of five steps to a happy retirement. If you don’t have time to read all five, I have a one step plan for you… Save up a buttload of money — far more than you could ever hope to spend — and then kick back and relax.

FMF provides details on how he set his retirement number. Looks like he’s basically following my one-step plan for a happy retirement, although he’s taken a more scientific approach to identifying the exact size of a ‘buttload’.

MBH talks about the new rules for writing off charitable contributions. This post was actually inspired by an earlier post on FreeMoneyFinance on the same topic. It’s an interesting issue, although I don’t think it’ll have any effect on our contributions going forward.

LA Money Guy hates his HMO — kind of makes me glad that we picked the PPO over the cheaper HMO.