Just a friendly reminder - that if you haven't already sent in your submissions for the Money Hacks Carnival #6 - going live this Wednesday on Bible Money Matters - get it in before midnight tomorrow or you'll be left out!

Also, for all you Money Hackers out there - we got notification today that the money hacks carnival will be the featured carnival on Tuesday, April 8th at Blog Carnivals. You'll see it splashed on their homepage all day! Congrats to one and all!

So stop procrastinating - send in your submission now!

God paid a great price for you. So don't become slaves of anyone else. 1 Corinthians 7:23

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. Ecclesiastes 5:10

Be generous, and someday you will be rewarded. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. Ecclesiastes 11:1

This past January I learned a costly lesson when it comes to insurance rates, and the dangers of not continually checking your rates to make sure you're getting the best possible deal.

I had been with the same insurance company for the past 10-15 years. It was my dad's insurance company and agent, and for the most part I had stuck with him because I figured that he was getting me a great deal. The insurance company was a special teacher's union insurance company for teachers and their families, and they were supposed to be getting "good deals" for the teachers in their ranks.

I got complacent, and just assumed I was getting good coverage and rates. I stuck with them through thick and thin, even while thinking to myself, "these rates seem pretty high for someone without any tickets or accidents..?"

This past January I was talking to my father about insurance and he mentioned that he had switched from this same agent that I had because his rates were way too high. Then he told me how much he had saved by switching - almost $600 a year! That was enough to get me moving on my own insurance search.

I began my search by going to the popular insurance quote services through Insweb.com, Progressive.com and various other provider's websites. After only a few minutes of searching I realized that switching insurance was going to save me a lot of money. A LOT.

After taking a personal finance day to do some reasearch, I ended up switching my auto insurance and in the process saved almost $1000 per year! I also switched my homeowner's insurance to a new company and saved $200 a year on that policy as well.

The moral of the story? If you're wondering about your rates and whether you should switch - do the research. The money that you save will make it more than worth it!

LINKS:
Insurance Matters: The cost of complacency
Insweb.com
Progressive.com

Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Psalm 112:5

You'll always sleep better at night knowing that you've dealt fairly and generously with others. Sometimes nothing is better than helping out a neighbor in need.

Every other week my wife and I attend a church small group with about 6-7 other young married couples. Every time we meet it is at a different couple's house, and that couple makes a meal for everyone.

Last week our friends Jason and Erin hosted the meal and made a delicious wild rice salad. They gave us the recipe, so I thought I would share it here as well.

Wild-Style Salad

For the Salad
1 cup wild rice, rinsed and soaked overnight in the refrigerator (or fast cook wild rice)
Coarse sea salt
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1/4 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions
1/2 cup cashews, toasted and chopped

Combine the wild rice with 3 cups of water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. (Or follow directions on package if fast cook wild rice is used.) Remove from the heat, transfer to a strainer or sieve, and rinse under cold water until the rice is completely cooled. In a large bowl, combine the cooked rice, bell pepper, carrots, celery, raisins, scallions and cashews.

For the Dressing
3 tbs. apple cider vinegar
1 tbs. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. pure maple syrup
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbs. chopped parsley
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground white pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

In a small mixing bowl, combine the vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, maple syrup, garlic, parsley, 1/2 teaspoon salt and white pepper to taste. Mix well. Slowly pour in the olive oil, whisking until emulsified.
Pour the dressing over the rice and toss well. Cover and refrigerate for one hour to allow flavors to combine. Remove the rice from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.

So there it is - I hope you enjoy this wild rice salad as much as we did! If you try out the recipe, please let us know what you thought!

I was over at MSN Money today reading some "money hacks", and I thought several of them were quite useful. I thought I'd share some of them here with you, and maybe even add a couple of my own.

So without further ado, here are some money hacks from MSN that you can make use of in your everyday life:

1. The four-penny hack. Want to reduce the number of pennies you lug around? Then always make sure to have four of them in your wallet. That way you'll always get silver coins back in change, rather than more pennies. Let's say your bill at the drive-through is $4.86. Hand the cashier a five-dollar bill and a penny, and you'll get a nickel and a dime in change. If your bill is $2.29, offer the fiver and four pennies; you'll get two bills and three quarters back
   
2. The credit card hack. If you pay your credit cards off in full every month (which you do, right?), you can give yourself an interest-free loan of a month or more on major purchases simply by charging big-ticket items right after your card's closing date. Let's say your statement typically closes around the 20th of the month. You charge your big-ticket item the day after, the 21st.
3. Prepay your big bills. This hack is an oldie but a goodie. Total up your big, non-monthly expenses for the year. Those can include holiday spending, birthday gifts, insurance premiums, vacations, property tax payments . . . anything that doesn't come in regular monthly chunks. Add in what you expect to spend on car and home repairs (inflate last year's bills by 10%). Now divide the total by the number of paychecks you receive each year, and have that amount transferred automatically to an account that pays a decent amount of interest (ING Direct and EmigrantDirect are two choices that have no minimums or account fees and that allow you to transfer money to and from your checking account). As the big bills pop up, you transfer money back into your checking account to pay them. No more sweating about paying for the holidays or that car repair bills -- it's already covered.
4. Program phone numbers into your cell phone. Program your credit card's hotline (in case of a stolen/lost card), your insurance carrier, and your emergency contacts (labeled ICE - Wife, ICE - Mom, etc)

Those are the hacks listed by MSN, here are a couple of my own:

1. Keep a receipt tally instead of the actual receipts. If you are like me and you carry around a wallet and only enter receipts/expenses every couple of weeks, it can be a bit painful carrying around a big stack of receipts in your back pocket. Once you've got 10-20 receipts in there the wallet starts getting pretty thick. It can be enough to throw your back out from sitting on it funny all day. Do like I do and just cut a thin strip of paper (about as wide as a dollar bill) and keep it in your wallet. When you get a free moment take it out and enter the day's receipts in your wallet onto that paper. Be sure to note the store, expense amount and which form of payment you used for later use. You can then toss any receipts that you don't need later on for warranties, etc.
2. Save your change. Just about every day I come home with a pocket full of change from the day. What to do with that money? Instead of keeping it with you and spending in the vending machine at work, save it all up in a change jar! You'd be surprised how quickly those quarters, nickels and dimes add up. After saving up our change for a few months we recently brought it to the bank and deposited almost $60 in change. That's a nice little sum you an add to your snowflaking out of debt program!

So do you have some useful money tricks that you'd like to share? Comment below and let us know what they are!

LINKS:
12 Cool Money Tricks - MSN Money

Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might... Ecclesiastes 9:10, NIV

This verse goes along with another saying that I know I've heard before, I think from my father: If you're going to do something, do it well. Give it your all! There are a multitude of verses in the bible talking about how we need to work hard, and be diligent. Not only does it provide a good example to others, it can't hurt your reputation. Would you rather be known as the hard worker, or the guy who just sits around and works hard at doing nothing?

The Money Hacks Carnival #5 is up! over at Antishay.com. It's a great roundup as always, and I spent way too much time this morning reading all the great articles.

My article, Do You Have A Tax Refund Waiting For You? was included in the mix this week.

Some of my other favorites include:

Free From Broke wrote about why getting a large tax refund is bad.
Dorian at The Personal Financier wrote How To Make Sure This Is Your Dream Home.
RC at Think Your Way to Wealth wrote about money mistakes he’s made that we should avoid.

Come back next week when I'm hosting the Money Hacker's Carnival!

LINKS:
Money Hacks Carnival #5

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Proverbs 6:6-8

This verse talks about the value of hard work, planning ahead and saving for when times get tough. Just as the ant in this verse, we need to be diligent and plan ahead for the future. We need to "gather little by little" as another verse in proverbs says.

Biblemoneymatters.com has been live on the web for just over 2 months now, and today I reached a goal I had set for the site when I launched it. Today we reached over 100 subscribers for the first time!

As of today we have:

101 RSS feed subscribers
8 email subscribers
tons of lurkers (subscribe now you lurkers!)

I want to thank everyone who has been frequenting the site over the past few weeks making it such a huge success. I will do my best to continue bringing you timely and well written articles.

With that said, here are some other folks I'd like to thank for all the traffic they've been brininging me the past few weeks. My top 10 referring websites include:

• frugalhacks.com
• gatherlittlebylittle.com
• wisebread.com
• pfblogs.org
• paidtwice.com
• beingfrugal.net
• mightybargainhunter.com
• baglady.dreamhosters.com
• mydollarplan.com
• debtfree-revolution.com

And here are a few of my most popular articles in case you missed them the first time around:

• The Bible and Tithing Series
• "Is it ok to invest in vice stocks?" Series
• Free Redbox Movie Rentals
• How to make a million dollars at any age
• Communication and talking with your spouse about money
• The Debt Snowflake: Pay off the smaller debts first

Thanks for checking in, and I hope to see you around! Don't forget to subscribe!

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. Misfortune pursues the sinner, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous. Proverbs 13:20-22

Lots of good stuff in today's verses. For example, those who seek the counsel of the wise, and make good friendships will grow wise as well, and benefit from those relationships. Hang out with the wrong crowd, or take advice from a fool, you'll pay for it. (Sounds like good advice in the realm of personal finance). Be ethical in your dealings with money, and 'prosperity is the reward of the righteous'.

Interest rates have been dropping lately thanks to moves by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, but what do the lower interest rates mean for you?

• Lower mortgage rates: At 5.67% in February (plus an average 0.4 percentage point), the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was near a four-year low.
• Credit card rates: Variable interest rate cards will show a drop in their rates, but it may take a few months to show up. Don't hesitate to call your card company and ask them to speed things up on the lower rate.
• Car loans: Some buyers with good credit will see some trickle down effects of lower rates.

To read more about the interest rate drops, click here.

LINKS:
Cash in on Lower Interest Rates

As we get further into 2008, and the financial woes from the credit crunch and the housing bust start to loom a bit bigger, most people are finally beginning to accept the fact that we are headed into a recession. The disagreement comes when you start talking about how long the recession is going to last.

My mother-in-law thinks things are going to hit rock bottom, and we're going to have the second coming of the great depression.

I disagree and believe that things will get better in relatively short order (6-8 months). Things are already starting to turn.

Kiplinger personal finance agrees with me for the most part:

We're forecasting a mild, short contraction ending well before the year is out. With housing and lending industries hurting, factory production and retail sales falling, employment shrinking and consumer incomes slowing, there's no question that a recession is under way. But relief is already in sight.

Still, some parts of the country will be hit a lot harder than others. In states that led the housing boom, including Florida, Nevada and Arizona, as well as Southern California, thousands of jobs in construction and real estate services are disappearing as home values fall. Frost Belt states are in pain, too, especially Michigan and Ohio because of troubles in the beleaguered auto manufacturing industry.

But look for a turnaround soon, with expansion returning in the second half of this year. The fiscal stimulus from Washington and the accumulated interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve plus other moves will translate into a 2.5% growth in the economy for the third quarter and a similar pace in the fourth quarter.

More interesting details about the recession and turnaround at the link below.

LINKS:
A Recession? You Bet -- but It'll Probably Be Short and Mild

The IRS estimates 1.3 million taxpayers who neglected to file a 2004 return are eligible for refunds, but that they had better act soon. The deadline for claiming a refund for that tax year is April 15 this year, and you must file a return to get a refund.

There is no penalty for filing a late return if you have a refund coming to you, the IRS said.

You'd think that taxpayers who face big tax bills are the ones who don't file returns, but that's not always the case. For instance, workers whose incomes fall below the filing threshold may decide to not file, said Michelle Lamishaw, an IRS spokeswoman.

"Maybe (the refund) didn't seem like a lot of money to them, or it seemed like too much bother to file, or they didn't have the right paperwork. Sometimes they may anticipate they wouldn't get a refund, so why bother, but sometimes they're wrong about that," Lamishaw said.

"There are a lot of reasons why people don't file, but it can add up to serious money for some people," she said.

The article goes on to note that it is especially important for people to file a return this year for 2007 taxes as they won't be eligible for the tax rebate stimulus package unless they do. So get crackin!


LINKS:
MSN Money: IRS has $1.2 billion in unclaimed tax refunds
IRS Has $1.2 Billion for People Who Have Not Filed a 2004 Tax Return

In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but trouble befalls the income of the wicked. Proverbs 15:6

When you get your income through illicit means, trouble often follows. Be righteous in all your dealings, and you won't have to worry about things coming back to bite you in the end.

For those of you who weren't able to make it to Kip's visitation and burial, here are a few photos from his burial at Fort Snelling National Cemetary.

Every Monday evening I attend a Bible Study Fellowship class at a church here in Eden Prairie, MN with several hundred other men. It's a very in-depth bible study that the leaders kid we should all be getting college credit for. Every week we have in-depth notes and bible study questions to complete which we then discuss in a small group setting. We also have a lecture on the same material. This year we have been reading and studying the book of Matthew and it has been a very exciting process, one that has really gotten me into God's word in a much deeper way. I would recommend BSF for anyone looking for a serious study of God's word.

This past week I attended a seminar before our regular class about sharing the gospel. The class was meant to be a primer on how to share our faith with others through everyday circumstances and daily conversation. It talked about how we as Christians have a duty to share our faith with others (the great commission), and how we aren't responsible for saving people, only for sharing our faith. God takes care of the "saving" part.

With that said they gave us a quick way to share our faith - 4 Big truths about the gospel of Christ that we can share with others so that they might be saved.

1. Truth about God: God created everything, he created us, and as a result we belong to him. He is all powerful and without sin - and he has given us a longing for him, an empty hole that can only be filled by him.
2. Truth about Sin: God loves us, and as a result he has given us free will. Because we have that free will we also have a tendency to sin, which separates us from God, who is a just and holy God, and requires justice and judgement. On our own, we have no way to satisfy God's judgement, and cannot be in his presence. Another way is needed.
3. Truth about Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ is God's son, and he came to earth as one of us to live a holy and perfect life. He would act as our eternal sacrifice to pay for our sins. He suffered and died on that cross so that we might spend an eternity with God. What we could not do on our own, he did for all.
4. Truth about Man's Response: It isn't enough that Jesus died for our sins, we have to believe in Jesus and ask him into our hearts. We have to respond to his invitation to eternal life in him, and forgiveness of sins. We must believe in the 4 truths mentioned above, and ask Jesus into our hearts. We must respond, and be born anew

These 4 truths are all that people are required to know and believe in order to be saved in Christ. If they believe these truths, accept Christ's salvation, ask him into their heart and repent of their sins, they will spend an eternity with him. That's pretty awesome!