This is just a quick note to tell you that we’re still on vacation — and no longer missing snow! We’re flying home on New Year’s Day, and life will (unfortunately) begin returning to normal shortly thereafter.

Before we get to the roundup, I wanted to let you know that the good folks at WiseBread have launched discussion forums dedicated to “Living Large on a Small Budget.”

Moreover, for the next two weeks (12/31/07 – 01/13/08), they’ll be giving away prizes (including Amazon gift certificates) every day for people that contribute to their forums.

With that said, here are some of my favorite articles from the past week…

NCN opened a Coverdell Savings Account for his son.

Flexo highlighted some tips for getting your finances on track in 2008.

JD talked about buying and selling gift cards.

JLP took us back to basics by explaining what an index is.

FMF have us a rundown of what the different presidential candidates want to do with regard to taxes.

Jim talked about calculating the value of your time, and MBH disagreed.

SVB put together a retrospective on the financial year that was 2007, and Lazy Man looked back at how he performed relative to his 2007 goals.

Jeremy reported that teens don’t save for retirement. Not terribly surprising. What is surprising is that CNN felt that this tidbit was newsworthy.

For those of you looking to invest in the biggest of the big American companies, Sun pointed out that Vanguard recently announced some new “Mega-ETFs.”

MoneySmartLife talked about shredding your credit card debt.

And finally… Holy crap! Madison has 181 financial accounts.