By the time you read this, we’ll be deep into a roughly 3k mile roadtrip. The good news is that the bulk of the driving is packed into the first and last couple of days. As such, we’ll be able to recover (and fish, swim, etc.) in between. The better news is that I’ve lined up a number of great guest posts to fill the gaps in my absence.

While I’m hoping to pop in from time to time, don’t be surprised if I’m slow to respond to comments, and please don’t be offended if I don’t answer your e-mails promptly. A guy’s just gotta kick back and relax sometimes. Oh, and thanks to everyone that contributed a guest post — it’s very much appreciated!

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» One Year Ago This Week (December 10th – December 16th)
» The Best of FCN – Selections from 12/05
» Talk About an Allowance!
» SEP-IRA Funded for 2006
» Discover Open Road Rewards Changing (and Some Alternatives)
» Credit Card Payback (Literally)
» Improve Your Gas Mileage by Slowing Down
» On the Road

Wow. I can’t believe that I almost forgot about this, but… Today is FiveCentNickel’s fourth birthday. It’s really hard for me to believe that it’s been four years since I wrote these words:

Welcome to fivecentnickel.com, a new weblog about personal finance written from the perspective of a thirty-something family man.

(I’m still thirty-something, by the way.)

In case you’re not aware of how I came up with the domain name, it comes from the following quote from the Depression-era journalist Franklin P. Adams:

“There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.”

And now we have one.

For the numbers freaks amongst you (don’t worry, I’m a numbers freak too), I present the following data:

Total number of posts: 1900
Total number of words in posts: 486,749 (and not a single typo – hah!)
Total number of comments: 17,263 (not counting spam)
Total number of words in comments: 1,390,062

Breaking it down, that’s an average of roughly 256 words/post and 1.3 posts/day (including weekends). As far as comments go, you guys (and me, to a lesser extent) have left an average of 9 comments per post, with an average of roughly 81 words per comment.

The current comment champion is “Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math,” which was published just eight days after this site went live, on May 9th, 2005. As of this writing, that article has drawn 392 comments (and counting!).

And with that… All I can say is thanks for your support.

Hat tip to FD for reminding me!

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Highest Paid Celebrities Under Age 25
» How to Build a CD Ladder
» Average Net Worth Values
» The Definition of Overpaid
» Americans Moving Back Into the City
» A Bit of Investing Perspective
» Debt Freedom Rocks
» Pay Phones on Their Way Out

By the time you read this, we’ll be on our way out of town for a much needed vacation. Fear not… I’ve lined up a bunch of guest posts to fill the void, and I’ll also try to pop in every once in awhile to see how things are going.

Aside from that, I’ll be posting periodic updates on Twitter, so… If you’re stuck at work and want to vacation vicariously, I encourage you to create an account (if you don’t already have one) and start following me (you can find me @fcn).

As a side note, I’ve also created a dedicated Twitter account for my RSS feed, so you might also want to follow @fcnfeed. Or you might not. Whichever you prefer.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Vacation Slowdown
» Gas Prices, the Economy, and Vacation Plans
» On the Road
» Away for a Week
» Living Above Your Means: Thoughts from the High Seas
» Happy 4th of July!
» Money Moves for 2006, Part 1: Your Home
» Florida Travel Recommendations?

Are you having trouble leaving comments? If so, please let me know.

I recently had to implement a simple little challenge-response test for leaving comments due to a recent deluge of spam comments. When trying to leave comment, you should see a “captcha” image containing a financial word. Simply type the word into the required field and you should be good to go. I apologize for any inconvenience, but my spam filters were getting overwhelmed, so I had to act.

With that said, I’d appreciate some feedback as to whether or not it’s working properly. Comments are down overall since I made the change, which could either be natural variation, or it could signal difficulty leaving comments. If it works, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. If you’re having trouble, please contact me directly with details.

Update: I’ve implemented a new strategy that seems to: (1) allow legit comments through, and (2) do a reasonable job of blocking spam outright, before it even hits the filters.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» New Strategy for Blocking Comment Spam
» Four Years of FiveCentNickel
» Three Years of FiveCentNickel
» Recent Site Changes (Improvements?)
» Dreamhost Discount Code
» How Much Should You Tip a Cab Driver?
» Craigslist First Impressions: Lots of Scammers
» Should You Skip Your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) in 2009?

This is a just a quick (and nearly belated!) note to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July. We slept in this morning and then had a fairly lazy day, though we did go our to see Hancock. It rained late this afternoon, and our kids don’t handle late nights well at all, so we skipped the fireworks (though we watched the Capitol Fourth). Yep, we’re boring.

I also wanted to let everyone know that I’m in the final stages of preparing a new layout for this site. Lots of changes under the hood. The front end will look fairly similar to what you see now, though I’ve incorporated some visible tweaks and some new elements. I’m hoping to roll it out this weekend.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Happy 4th of July!
» Happy 4th of July (and Some Statistics)
» Weekend Roundup – New Layout Edition
» Late Payments on the Rise
» Happy Thanksgiving
» Estimated Tax Payment Reminder
» New Emigrant Direct Website, Access Code
» Lending Club – July 2009 Performance

Sorry for wandering off topic, but…

This is just a quick public service announcement to anyone out there that runs a WordPress-based website. There is a pretty nasty hack going around right now that hijacks your search traffic. In fact, FiveCentNickel was compromised on Thursday, though this has since been resolved without any lasting damage.

I posted to Twitter about this while it was happening, and have also written up details here (with a followup and links here).

If you run a WordPress-based site, do the following:

» Clear your cookies (the hack uses cookies to hide itself)
» Run a Google search for your site
» Click through a related result

If you wind up at your own site, good for you. But if you get redirected to (or through) anyresults.net, then you’ve been hacked. Depending on your browser, the responsible cookies seem to be somewhat sticky, so you might want to run through the above steps a few times to be sure you’re okay.

I have spot-checked a number of sites myself and have found a number that have been compromised.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Sunday Roundup – Hacked Edition
» Anniversary Giveaway, Final Update!
» Another Giveaway Winner: The 5GB Microdrive
» From the Archives (September 30th – October 6th)
» Yes, Quicken Online Really is Free
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #1
» Introducing Credit Addict (dot com)
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #5

Given that I’ve now been at this for three years, I though that it might be time to go about an write a series of basic articles for financial newbies. I’m thinking of something along the lines of a “Back to Basics” series. While this might not be as useful for the personal finance veterans out there, I thought it would be especially good for those that are just starting out. With that in mind, I’m curious as to the types of basic financial articles that you think might be useful?

Please leave a comment or contact me directly with any suggestions.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Weekly Roundup – On My Own Edition
» Late Monday Roundup – XLII Aftermath Edition
» Weekly Roundup – 02/03/06
» Help a Reader: CDs at a Defunct Bank
» Weekly Roundup – Still on Vacation Edition
» Halloween Treat Ideas (or Not)
» Weekly Roundup: Geocaching Edition
» Crash Course in Estate Planning

This is a bit hard for me to believe, but I launched FiveCentNickel three years ago today. Most of your probably don’t know this, but I actually started this site on a whim after reading a MacAddict article about weblogs in general, and WordPress in particular, back during the spring of 2005. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the time since that fateful day, I’ve published 1,475 articles and received 10,232 comments (plus countless spam comments). I’m also rapidly closing in on 2 million visitors — I should pass this milestone by Saturday at the latest.

All in all, this site has been a joy to maintain, largely because of contributions from readers such as yourselves. If you haven’t done so yet, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to receive everything I write via either RSS or e-mail.

I’d also like to encourage you to swing by our other sites, including both Credit Addict and Raising4Boys. The former is devoted to credit card tips and tricks, whereas the latter is our parenting site.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Highest Paid Celebrities Under Age 25
» How to Build a CD Ladder
» Average Net Worth Values
» The Definition of Overpaid
» Americans Moving Back Into the City
» A Bit of Investing Perspective
» Debt Freedom Rocks
» Pay Phones on Their Way Out

This is just a quick note to introduce you guys to CreditAddict.com…

Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed periodic links out to this site, as well as its presence in the RSS aggregator block near the bottom of every page here at FiveCentNickel. In case you haven’t made the connection, Credit Addict is a new project that I launched back in January.

In short, Credit Addict is a weblog dedicated to credit card news, tips, deals, and hacks. While there are still a few pages under construction, I’ve built the content up to the point that I’ve decided that it’s ready for public consumption — hence, this announcement.

If you’re curious, I invite you to click through and check it out. I’d also like to encourage you to subscribe via either RSS (feed link) or e-mail (signup link). As always, it’s free, and you’ll get the full-text of everything that I write delivered straight to your desktop whenever I write it.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Reduced Credit Limits? Share Your Experience
» Carnivals – Week of 03/17/08
» Carnivals – Week of 08/14/06
» Money Madness, Round Two
» Money Madness: Sweet Sixteen (Help Needed!)
» From the Archives (June 10th – June 16th)
» Chase Freedom Rewards – $50 Signup Bonus
» Weekly Roundup – Credit Addict Facelift Edition

By the time you read this, we’ll be well on our way to a relaxing (and much needed) vacation. But fear not… I’ve lined up a number of great guest posts to fill the void while I’m away. Over the coming days you’ll have an opportunity to enjoy fresh content from the likes of:

» Being Frugal
» Clever Dude
» Dylan Ross
» Moolanomy
» My Two Dollars
» No Credit Needed
» Paid Twice
» The Money Guy

While I hope to pop in from time to time, don’t be surprised if I’m slow to respond to comments, and please don’t be offended if I don’t promptly answer your e-mails. Oh, and thanks to everyone that contributed a guest post — it’s much appreciated!

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» You’re Doing Better Than You Think
» Weekly Roundup – 08/11/06
» Weekly Roundup – 03/09/07
» How I Dodged a Speeding Ticket
» Credit Card Payback (Literally)
» Discover Open Road Rewards Changing (and Some Alternatives)
» Buying Term Life Insurance (Again), Update #4
» Weekly Roundup – Witless Edition

If you’re a regular reader of this site (or would like to become one), you might be interested in subscribing to the FiveCentNickel RSS feed. In case you’re not familiar with RSS, it’s a means for syndicating frequently updated web content.

You can subscribe using any of a number of web-based or standalone RSS readers. Subscription buttons for a number of popular RSS services can be found in the left sidebar as well as at the end of each individual post, and here’s the direct link to the RSS feed. If you’re interested in keeping track of comments left on this site, then check out the comments feed.

(You can copy/paste the RSS links directly into your RSS reader of choice.)

Alternatively, you can subscribe to FiveCentNickel via e-mail. This service, provided by the good folks at FeedBurner, allows you to receive the latest posts via a single daily e-mail. To subscribe, simply click the e-mail subscription button in the left sidebar or at the end of any individual post. Alternatively, you can subscribe by entering your address in the form, below.

Note: Your e-mail address will only be used to deliver the daily updates, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Welcome New York Times Readers!
» TurboTax and Quicken Giveaway Winners
» Welcome Hartford Courant Readers (and Others)
» H&R Block USB Flash Drive Giveaway #5
» From the Archives (December 9th – December 15th)
» Changes Afoot: Full-Text RSS Feed and Daily Links
» Subscribe via RSS or E-mail (It’s Free!)
» Full-Text RSS Feed Problems Solved

Just a quick note to announce that FiveCentNickel recorded its one-millionth visitor at 9:42 PM on October 2, 2007. This particular visitor arrived from Google via a search for: dave ramsey baby steps. Not surprisingly, they landed on my article entitled Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps. The first million took 884 days. Any guesses as to how long the next million will take?

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Thanks For Your Support – September 2007
» Thanks for Your Support (July 2007)
» Thanks For Your Support – December 2007
» Thanks for Your Support (June 2007)
» Thanks For Your Support – October 2007
» Thanks for Your Support (August 2007)
» Thanks for Your Support – November 2007
» Three Years of FiveCentNickel

Just a quick note to let y’all know that NCN of No Credit Needed and J.D. of Get Rich Slowly have joined the MoneyBlogNetwork. If you’re not familiar with either of these guys, let me just say that they are both top-notch bloggers.

NCN has been helping people get out of debt since April 5th 2005. As you may or may not know, NCN also runs an excellent debt reduction podcast as well as a network of his own. You can read more about NCN and his sites here.

J.D. is an old school blogger who entered the personal finance realm when he launched Get Rich Slowly on April 9th, 2006. He also runs the Get Rich Slowly Forums. You can read more about J.D. and GRS here.

Needless to say, we’re thrilled to have them on board.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» The MoneyBlogNetwork
» Carnival of Personal Finance at MoneyBlogNetwork
» MoneyBlogNetwork in the News
» MightyBargainHunter Joins the MoneyBlogNetwork
» Weekly Roundup – 07/28/06
» Weekly Roundup – 10/05/06
» Weekly Roundup – 05/26/06
» Weekly Roundup – 06/02/06

And we’re off! By the time you read this, we’ll be well on our way… We’re headed out for a relaxing (and reasonably long) summer vacation that will involve a little better than 1300 miles driving in each direction (plus some local miles at the far end). I’ll have intermittent internet access, so I’ll try to pop in from time to time. However, most of the writing that you’ll see over the coming days was contributed by a bunch of guest bloggers. To all who contributed, thanks for your help — and be sure to watch this space… You’ll soon see your name in lights!

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Discover Open Road Rewards Changing (and Some Alternatives)
» On the Road
» On the Road
» Carnivals – Week of 07/17/06
» Carnivals – Week of 05/08/06
» On the Road Again (Literally)
» The Recession is… Over?
» From the Archives (April 29th – May 5th)

Just thought I’d point out that we’re also looking for guest bloggers over at Raising4Boys. See the call for submissions for more details.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Last Call for Guest Bloggers
» Weekly Roundup – 06/16/06
» Back in Town, Life Returning to Normal
» On the Road
» On the Road
» Weekly Roundup – New Voices Edition
» Guest Bloggers Wanted
» On the Road… But You’re in Good Hands

I’ll be out of town on vacation for the last 10 or so days of June, and I’m looking for some guest bloggers to fill my shoes… This is an open call to readers, whether or not you run a weblog of your own. Here’s what I ask… Submissions should be on topic (i.e., personal finance-related) and properly formatted for publication (I’m thinking here mainly of links).

Articles should be your own work – please don’t rip off someone else’s writing and try to pass it off as your own. While I’d prefer completely original content, I might consider republication of your own work.

What’s in it for you? Fame and fortune, of course. Actually, that’s not true. While there might be a small amount of fame involved, there really won’t be any fortune. Here’s what I’ll do: (1) properly attribute the writings to you, and (2) I’ll also provide a link back to your site (if you have one, and assuming that it’s non-spammy and family-friendly) right off the bat, at the top of the article. I’ll also provide a link to your RSS feed or an about (or welcome) page if you provide me with one.

If you’re interested, simply send your submissions to me via my handy-dandy contact form with the following subject: Guest Blog Submission. Please be sure to tell me: (1) whether or not you’ve published this elsewhere, and (2) the name (or pseudonym) that you wish me to use when acknowledging your efforts. Please also provide me with a link to your site, your about/welcome page and/or your RSS feed if you’d like those included in your acknowledgement. Title suggestions are also encouraged.

I can’t promise that I’ll publish every single submission, but I’ll try to run anything that is both coherent and on topic. Please note that I reserve the right to edit submissions prior to publication (mainly for grammar, typos, or perhaps a tiny bit of style). Also note that, once published, your work will become a permanent part of the FiveCentNickel Archives.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or drop me a line via my contact form. Thanks.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Last Call for Guest Bloggers
» Guest Bloggers Needed at Raising4Boys, Too
» Weekly Roundup – 06/16/06
» Guest Bloggers Wanted
» Back in Town
» On the Road
» On the Road
» Back in Town, Life Returning to Normal

In looking at my site stats, I’ve noticed that a number of people arrive here from search engines looking for answers to fairly specific question. In some cases, those answers can be found in one or more articles within my archives, but in other cases they can’t. Thus, I’ve decided to periodically pluck out some of these questions and spend a bit of time answering them.

Alternatively, if you have a question that you’d like for me to answer, please drop me a line. I love getting e-mail from readers, and I’m also always on the lookout for good article ideas. I can’t promise that I’ll tackle your question, but we’ll do our best to accommodate your interests.

As always, these articles will be categorized by subject matter, but they will also be cross-referenced in the Money Q&A category.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Series I Savings Bonds Now Paying 3.36%
» One Year Ago This Week (November 12th – November 18th)
» Back to Basics – Suggestions?
» One Year Ago This Week (November 19th – November 25th)
» On the Road
» Q&A: Earnest Money
» Converting Paper Savings Bonds to Electronic Form With SmartExchange
» What are Series I Savings Bonds?

If you’re reading this message, then it means that you’re now accessing FiveCentNickel from the new server. During the move I also took the opportunity to upgrade to the newest version of WordPress (the software that runs this site). While I’ve tested things fairly thoroughly and hope that I have the bugs worked out, it’s always possible (likely?) that something’s amiss.

If you notice any problems, please leave a comment at the end of this post, drop me a line via my contact form, or shoot me an e-mail (use ‘nickel‘ at this domain for the address).

Please also feel free to leave a comment letting me know that you’re able to see the site.

Update: I had some database problems, so comments left between Saturday-Sunday evening were lost. But, as of right now, all’s well.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» What are Vanguard Admiral Shares?
» How and Why to Freeze Your Credit
» Solving Firefox Problems on Intel-Powered Macs
» 2005 Federal Tax Refund Received
» Home Inspection Complete
» Home Inspection Today
» HSBC Direct Account Opening Bonus Received
» TurboTax E-File Progress Report

Guess what? FiveCentNickel is officially two years old! That’s right, I published the first post on this site on May 1, 2005. In the time that this site has been live, I have published a total 985 articles (check out the archives!) and received 5,574 comments. Thanks to all of you for your contributions!

If you’re new here, you might want to check out my welcome page, and you might even want to subscribe to this site — it’s free, and you’ll get every word that I write automatically delivered to you. No fuss, no muss. Just easy access to via either RSS or e-mail.

Anyway, in celebration of this milestone, I thought I’d give away some prizes. But this time, I thought I’d up the ante and give away something a bit more substantial than what I’ve given away in the past. So, without further ado, here are the prizes:

1. iPod nano (2GB)
2. iPod shuffle (1GB)
3. USB Microdrive (5GB)
4. Encyclopedia of Financial Planning
5. Time is Money (Here’s my review.)

There are two main ways of entering…

First, anyone that leaves a comment at the end of this post will get a single entry into the giveaway. You just have to promise to tell at least one friend about this site — I’ll just have to trust you on that.

Second, if you have a website of your own, you can earn three additional entries by sharing FiveCentNickel with your readers. Simply write a review of this site (including a link to the front page, my welcome page, and this contest announcement) or dig through the archives, pick out an article that I’ve written and write an article of your own highlighting it or responding to it (be sure to link to the front page, the article itself, and this contest announcement).

Once you’ve published your article, drop me a line using my contact form (or e-mail me directly if you happen to know my address) — and be sure to include the url of your entry. That’s it. Write an article and receive three additional entries. And just to add a bit more incentive, I’ll also link back to all submitted articles.

And please note that your review doesn’t have to be positive — while I like hearing good things about this site, I want your honest opinion. Likewise, you don’t have to agree with me when you highlight or respond to one of my posts. Call me out if you wish. It won’t hurt your odds of winning.

So… You can earn multiple entries; one for leaving a comment and three more for publishing a review/response — note that you can publish multiple reviews/responses if you have multiple websites, and you’ll receive three entries for each.

Oh, and I’ll be accepting entries for the next ten days, through 8PM EDT on Friday, May 11th.

Just to keep it interesting, I’ve decided to throw in a booby prize, as well… One lucky (?) participant will receive a box of bricks shipped to their door in a USPS flat-rate shipping box (if it fits in the box, you pay the flat rate no matter how much it weighs!). But I won’t tell you which prize you won until AFTER you give me your shipping address…

The Rules:
1. Only one comment entry per person – I’ll be watching and will delete your entries if you cheat
2. Review/response entries must:
– come from established websites with substantial content
– be standalone posts of at least 100 words in length, not daily links, weekly roundups, etc.
– include links to the appropriate pages (see above)
3. You must notify me via e-mail if you choose to enter by writing an article
4. All entries must accompanied by a valid e-mail address
5. You can’t win more than one prize
6. U.S. mailing addresses only (don’t post it; I’ll contact the winner and ask)
7. While I promise to send the prizes, I can’t guarantee their safe arrival
8. I am judge, jury and executioner — all disputes will be resolved by me alone
9. This list of rules might grow, shrink or change at my discretion
10. Entering this contest implies agreement with these terms

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Anniversary Giveaway, Final Update!
» Anniversary Giveaway Prizes On Their Way
» Anniversary Giveaway Winners
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #4
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #6
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #2
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #5
» Anniversary Giveaway, Update #1

Just a quick note to welcome those of you that found your way here via Gregory Karp’s article that was syndicated in today’s Hartford Courant (and perhaps elsewhere). If you’re a new visitor, then welcome. If you’ve been here before, then welcome back. Either way, I encourage you to poke around and see what this site has to offer. All content is organized into categories in the left sidebar, or you can dig directly into the archives, which are organized chronologically.

If you’d like to keep up with everything that I write, then I encourage you to subscribe to my full-text RSS feed (details). Alternatively, you can subscribe via e-mail and have everything delivered to you in a convenient daily e-mail.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» America’s Cleanest (and Dirtiest) Cities
» Money Poll #7: Online Banking
» Amex $150 Signup Bonus Still Alive?
» How Large is Your Emergency Fund?
» The Recession is… Over?
» Wal-Mart to Stop Offering Layaway
» Retirement Savings Rate Poll Results
» Welcome Newsweek Readers

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’m testing out a new strategy for blocking comment spam. It’s should be totally invisible to you, and it shouldn’t cause your comments to get trapped in a spam filter (that may still happen, but it won’t be the fault of the new measures). I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up in case problems arise. The problems in this case would be trouble accessing the comment form, or trouble actually submitting your comment. So… If you run into any such problems, please drop me a line and let me know. And if you do need to get in touch with me about this, please provide an e-mail address so I can get back to you. Thanks!

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Admin: Anti-Spam Images for Leaving Comments
» One Year Ago This Week (September 3rd – September 9th)
» Comment Tracking Services an Online Banking Security Concern?
» Blocking eBay Bidders
» Recent Site Changes (Improvements?)
» Four Years of FiveCentNickel
» Top 15 Commenters
» From the Archives (September 2nd – September 8th)

Just over a month ago, I announced that I was switching over to full-text RSS feeds, so you can imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a reader this morning stating that he had subscribed, and then immediately unsubscribed when he saw that I was only offering a summary feed. First off, no, this doesn’t signal a change of heart on my part. In fact, I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about at first. But then I realized that my RSS feed was being truncated at the ‘more‘ tag.

After a bit of digging, I learned that this is the default behavior of full-text feeds on WordPress 2.1 (to which I upgraded a week or two ago). Aaaaargh! The good news is that there’s now a third-party plugin to fix this ‘feature.’ I’ve installed it and it seems to be working.

As always, if you’d like to subscribe to the FiveCentNickel RSS feed, you can do so by copying the feed url and pasting it into your reader of choice, or by using one of the handy subscription buttons that can be found at the end of each post or in the left sidebar. You can also subscribe via e-mail by using the form below.

Follow me on Twitter!

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» RSS Feed Problems
» Changes Afoot: Full-Text RSS Feed and Daily Links
» Fixing a MacBook Pro Trackpad Button That Sticks
» Solving Firefox Problems on Intel-Powered Macs
» Welcome New York Times Readers!
» Welcome Hartford Courant Readers (and Others)
» H&R Block USB Flash Drive Giveaway #5
» How to Handle Marriage and Money Talks

In case you didn’t know, I love reading your comments. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve had a leader board over there in the right sidebar for quite some time. And until just recently, FMF of FreeMoneyFinance.com had a stranglehold on the all time lead. However, I just noticed that Blaine Moore of RunToWin.com and TheFirstTimeHomeowner.com has slowly but steadily crept into the lead.

Are you listening FMF? You’re no longer large and in charge…

The purpose of the leader board has been to give some recognition to those of you that are active members of the FCN community, and to give you a link back if you leave a URL when you comment. However, in looking at the leader board, I noticed that several of the people on the list haven’t been very active members of the FCN community in recent months. Thus, I decided to shake things up a bit in hopes of sharing the love with some of my newer readers. So… If you’ll look over in the right sidebar, you’ll now see a list of “Big talkers” from the past 30 days.

As an aside, I’ve also modified the right sidebar to improve usability. This has involved removing some of the advertising, adding in a “Recent articles” section, and modifying the “Recent comments” section such that it now includes a snippet of each comment rather than just the title of the associated post. This is the way it used to be, but the old plugin caused some glitches with the overall site layout.

Please let me know what you think about the changes. I’m all about usability.

Updated to add: I just recently changed to a different comment spam filter. If you make a comment and it doesn’t get through, please contact me so I can try to rescue your comment and train the filter.

Oh, and special thanks to Nate and Jeffrey of SavingAdvice.com and PFAdvice.com for modifying their commenter plugin to allow for comments to be tabulated based on a running window of arbitrary length.

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Just a quick note to welcome those of you that found your way here via Damon Darlin’s article in the New York Times. If you’re a new visitor, then welcome. If you’ve been here before, then welcome back. Either way, I encourage you to poke around and see what this site has to offer. All content is organized into categories in the left sidebar, or you can dig directly into the archives, which are organized chronologically.

If you’d like to keep up with everything that I write, then I encourage you to subscribe to my full-text RSS feed (details). Alternatively, you can subscribe via e-mail and have everything delivered to you in a convenient daily e-mail.

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Just a quick note to let say that I’ve decided to switch over to a full-text RSS feed. This means that you can get the entire content of my articles, including links and graphics, delivered to your doorstep (so to speak).

Note that the full feed is available regardless of whether you subscribe through a newsreader or via e-mail. For details on subscribing to this site (it’s free!), go here.

In short, you can grab the URL of the main feed or the comments feed and put it into your newsreader. Alternatively, you can use the handy-dandy subscription buttons included in the left sidebar and at the end of each entry.

If you want to subscribe via e-mail, simply follow this link or use the form at the end of this entry.

I’ve also decided to start including links to articles that I run across that I find interesting, but which I don’t have the time (or desire) to write about. I’ll be bookmarking these at del.icio.us, and they’ll be automatically aggregated and posted here once a day (at the most). Following the lead of J.D. at Get Rich Slowly, I’ve created a category called ‘Spare Change‘ to hold these entries.

That’s it! I hope you enjoy the changes, and that you have a great week.

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» Welcome to FiveCentNickel…

Just a quick note to say that I’m having issues with my RSS feed right now. I’ve been unable to make any modifications to it through the Feedburner interface pretty much all day today, and now I’m not even sure they’re picking up the feed. If you’re reading this via RSS, do me a favor and leave a comment so I know that it’s getting syndicated. More to follow…

Update: Solved. This was 100% Dreamhost’s fault. Feedburner was just an innocent bystander.

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Just a quick note to say that we’re back from Disney World. While we still haven’t recovered completely, things should be returning to normal around here shortly. I also wanted to give a quick shout out to the following guest bloggers that stepped in for me last week:

MoneySmartLife (RSS Feed) – The Biggest Saver
Not Made of Money (RSS Feed) – Savers vs. Spenders
Blunt Money (RSS Feed) – Property Taxes on my Mind
Lazy Man and Money (RSS Feed) – eBay to the Rescue

If you enjoyed what they wrote, I encourage you to stop by their sites and/or subscribe to their RSS feeds. Please also let me know what you thought about having guest bloggers step in for me…

Anyway, that’s it from here. Thanks again to those who helped out in my absence, and thanks also to all of your for stopping by.

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Greetings from Orlando (technically Lake Buena Vista)… We’re on vacation at Disney World for the week, so I have once again turned over the reins to a bevy of guest bloggers. To all who contributed, thanks again for your help, and be sure to watch this space… You’ll soon see your name in lights!

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Just a quick note to welcome those of you that found your way here via Sharon Harvey Rosenberg’s article in the Miami Herald. Some of you might also know Sharon as ‘The Frugal Duchess,’ which is her nom de plume in the world of blogs. If you’re a new visitor, then welcome. If you’ve been here before, then welcome back. Either way, I encourage you to poke around and explore what this site has to offer. All content is organized into categories in the left sidebar, or you can dig directly into the archives, which are organized chronologically. Finally, it’s easy to subscribe to the site feed with your preferred newsreader… Just use one of the buttons located in the left sidebar or at the end of each individual entry.

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Just a quick note to welcome those of you that found your way here via Catherine Hockmuth’s article in the Voice of San Diego. Also mentioned in the article was our sister site over at raising4boys.com (along with a number of other very worthwhile sites). If you’re a new visitor, then welcome. If you’ve been here before, then welcome back. Either way, I encourage you to poke around and explore what this site has to offer. All content is organized into categories in the left sidebar, or you can dig directly into the archives, which are organized chronologically. Finally, it’s easy to subscribe to the site feed with your preferred newsreader… Just use one of the buttons located in the left sidebar or at the end of each individual entry.

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Just a quick note to welcome those of you that found your way here via Bruce Brinkman’s article in the Rockford Register Star. If you’re a new visitor, then welcome. If you’ve been here before, then welcome back. Either way, I encourage you to poke around and explore what this site has to offer. All content is organized into categories in the left sidebar, or you can dig directly into the archives, which are organized chronologically. Finally, it’s easy to subscribe to the site feed with your preferred newsreader… Just use one of the buttons located in the left sidebar or at the end of each individual entry.

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My apologies if you were unable to reach this site yesterday evening… It seems that Dreamhost was having some file server problems that took down a great many sites including both FiveCentNickel and Raising4Boys. And even after they had it back up and running, I was still unable to reach my sites for the remainder of the evening (they warned that “there may be some slowness while things get caught up”). This is the first major outage that I’ve experienced at Dreamhost, but all seems to be running normal at this point.

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After nice long vacation that involved a lot of boating, fishing, swimming, reading, and laying around (not to mention a bit of GeoCaching as well as a whole lot of driving) we’re back in town and settling back in. We ended up covering close to 3000 miles in twelve days, most of which came at the front and back end of our trip. In fact, this past weekend we set a family record by driving 815 miles in one day (Saturday) with all four kids in the car en route to a two day total of 1380 miles. Not too shabby when you’re hauling kids ranging in age from 18 months to 8 years.

Anyway, things should now be returning to normal as far as this site goes. Along these lines, I’d like to thank all of the guest bloggers who helped to keep things chugging along last week. I’d also like to hear what you readers thought about the guest blogging ‘experiment’. Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Finally, I just wanted to mention that the Carnival of Personal Finance is up over at raising4boys.com.

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Just a quick not to let y’all know that I’ll be away for the next twelve days… It’s roadtrip time! But worry not… I’ve lined up a series of guest bloggers to keep you guys entertained and informed in my absence. To all who contributed — thanks again, and be sure to watch this space… You’ll soon see your name in lights!

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In case you missed it, I’m heading out of town this week for about ten days and I’m looking for some guest bloggers to grab the microphone in my place. While it’s possible that I’ll be able to jump online here and there while we’re on the road, I’d like to minimize the chances of having ‘dead air’ in my absence. So… If you run a blog and you’re looking for exposure, or if you don’t and you just want to spout off, this is your chance. Check out my guest blogger post for full details.

For those that don’t feel like clicking through, here’s the executive summary…

Submitted content should be your own work (republication is okay), and should be focused on some aspect of personal finance (broadly defined). Please do not submit time-sensitive articles (e.g., recent market news) that may end up being outdated by the time I publish them. Please also do not submit things that are too personal (e.g., your detailed budget) as that might end up creating some confusion between your situation and mine. And that’s about it as far as ‘rules’ go. If you’d like to submit something, please do so via my contact form using the subject line Guest Blog Submission. At the top of each article, I will: (1) give credit to you as the author (please provide your name or a pseudonym), (2) link back to your site if you have one, and (3) also provide a link to your RSS feed if you provide it to me.

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I’ll be on vacation in late June/early July, and I’m looking for some guest bloggers to fill my shoes… This is an open call to readers, whether or not you run a blog of your own. Here’s what I ask… Submissions should be on topic (i.e., personal finance-related) and properly formatted for publication (I’m thinking here mainly of links).

Articles should be your own work — please don’t rip off someone else’s writing and try to pass it off as your own. While I’d prefer completely original content, republication of your own work is allowable.

What’s in it for you? Fame and fortune, of course. Actually, that’s not true. While there might be a small amount of fame involved, there really won’t be any fortune. Here’s what I’ll do: (1) properly attribute the writings to you, and (2) I’ll also provide a link back to your site (if you have one, and assuming that it’s non-spammy and family-friendly) right off the bat, at the top of the article.

If you’re interested, simply send your submissions to me via my handy-dandy contact form with the following subject: Guest Blog Submission. Please be sure to tell me: (1) whether or not you’ve published this elsewhere, and (2) the name (or pseudonym) that you wish me to use when acknowledging your efforts. Title suggestions are also welcome.

I can’t promise that I’ll publish every single submission, but I’ll try to run anything that is both coherent and on topic. Please note that I reserve the right to edit submissions prior to publication (mainly for grammar, typos, or perhaps a tiny bit of style). Also note that, once published, your work will become a permanent part of the FiveCentNickel Archives.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or drop me a line via my contact form. Thanks.

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» Back in Town, Life Returning to Normal

Aaarrrggghhh! After promising that our DSL would be hooked up this past Friday, BellSouth managed to deliver to us a self-install kit without the modem. When I called, they apologized and sent one to us via UPS overnight. The package arrived yesterday while the movers were unloading our stuff, and last night I sat down to hook it up. Unfortunately, the modem can’t seem to make a connection. I called tech support, and then ran a variety of line tests, and also tried ‘re-provisioning’ our line. Still no luck. So now I have an appointment with a technician to check things out between 1:00-5:00 PM today. Hopefully this will be sorted out soon. Until then, please bear with me.

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Just a quick note to let y’all know that FiveCentNickel went live one year ago today (in case you’re curious, here’s a link to my inaugural post). I also want to say “Thank You” to all who have visited, commented, linked, and/or otherwise contributed to this site. It’s been a lot of fun thus far, and I’m looking forward to continued growth and success.

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The MoneyBlogNetwork was highlighted in Erika Smith’s Techno File column in today’s Indianapolis Star. Thanks for the mention Erika! We’re pleased to have been included.

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I’m pleased to announce the launch of the MoneyBlogNetwork, which is a joint venture between myself, JLP of AllThingsFinancial, Jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, Flexo of ConsumerismCommentary, and FMF of FreeMoneyFinance. More details are available here.

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I’m pleased to announce the launch of raising4boys.com, a blog about parenting. This site, which is a joint venture between my wife and myself, provides us with a place to share the trials and tribulations (and of course the endless joys) of bringing up four young boys. We’re intending to turn it into a useful resource for parenting tips, tricks, and insights based largely on our experiences. If nothing else, we’re hoping that others will be able to learn from our mistakes, as we’ve been known to make a few every once in awhile . I’ll be writing over there under the pseudonym ‘dad’ whereas my wife will (not surprisingly) fill the role of ‘mom’ — please stop by and check it out.

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Wow. After a week out of town, I returned to find that FiveCentNickel received top billing on Newsweek’s December 12th Money Tip Sheet. I guess I should go on vacation more often! Anyway, if you’re a new visitor, then welcome. If not, then welcome back. Either way, I encourage you to poke around and explore what this site has to offer. All content is organized into categories in the left sidebar, or you can dig directly into the archives, which are organized chronologically. Finally, it’s easy to subscribe to the site feed with your preferred newsreader… Just use one of the buttons located in the left sidebar or at the end of each individual entry.

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Just a quick note to let y’all know that I’ll be away through the end of next week on a much needed family vacation. I’ve scheduled a few entries to be published during my absence, but I won’t be able to respond to comments or e-mail until I get back. Have a great week!

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Just a quick note to explain the recent slowdown in activity here at FiveCentNickel. First off, I was out of town much of last week and didn’t have internet access. Second, my primary computer (a PowerBook G4) has been in for service, thereby making it difficult for me to work on the site in my spare moments. It’s been at the AppleCare service depot since July 19th, and is on seemingly eternal hold awaiting a backordered logic board. I’m hoping that this will get sorted out soon.

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I’m currently updating my WordPress installation to the newest version, so please bear with me if there is any resulting weirdness. Things should return to normal shortly.

Update: Okay, I’ve run through the upgrade. Now I just need to go back in and re-customize some things. If you see anything that isn’t working properly, please contact me. Thanks!

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I’ll be out of town on vacation for about a week, so things will be slowing down a bit around here. I have, however, scheduled a few new items for publication in my absence, so please check back regularly to see what’s new.

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Just a quick note to let y’all know that I’ve created an automagically updating list of the top 15 commenters in the right side bar. Right now Jose Anes has the lead, but FMF is a close second and jim isn’t far behind. Note that getting your name on the leader board gives you a link back to your site (or another link back to your site if you’re already in my links section). So there you have it. Go forth and comment.

Note: The rankings are based on the name that you use when you make a comment so, if you’re interested in getting/staying on the leader board, then you should be consistent from comment to comment.

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Just a quick note to let everyone know that I switched to a summary RSS feed last night. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, and hope that you’ll understand. I’ve made this move in order to protect my content from blatant ’scraping’ and republication. I’m not a big fan of summary feeds myself, so I’m still trying to figure out how best to implement this… I sometimes have a hard time figuring out if I really want to read an article if the summary isn’t long enough, and I hate clicking through only to find that I don’t really want to read it. Thus, I’m still experimenting and trying to determine the ideal length. If you have any thoughts, please feel free to post them. Thanks.

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It was just brought to my attention by Ryan over at My Cashflow Blog that this site was mentioned in a Reuters article about personal finance weblogs along with the likes of All Things Financial, PFBlog, Frugal for Life, Seeking Alpha, and Sound Money Tips. Their take on what I’ve put together so far?

“Short and sweet and focused on family finances. Newish, so there’s not too much there yet.”

I’m both pleased and surprised to get this sort of attention within just ten days after launching this site. Thanks to everyone who’s been reading, as well as those who have been willing to exchange links with me. Thanks also to JLP at All Things Financial for plugging my site the other day.

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Welcome to fivecentnickel.com, a new weblog about personal finance written from the perspective of a thirty-something family man. If you’re curious where the name comes from, it was taken from the following quote from the Depression-era journalist Franklin P. Adams:

“There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.”

Besides, have you ever tried find a concise, descriptive domain name that hasn’t already been snapped up? It’s pretty bleak if you’re determined to get one in the .com top-level domain.

See ya ’round!

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