Best of Million Dollar Journey: March 2008

Time again for the Million Dollar Journey monthly summary – The March 2008 Edition.

Before we start, we are currently giving away 5 copies of the book Every Family's Business.  If you haven't entered already (open to everyone), you can find the rules and enter here.

On another note, there has been sporadic down time with MDJ lately.  Apparently, our shared hosting plan isn't up to stuff, so I'm in looking into changing servers in the coming weeks.  Hopefully the new host will be more reliable (and faster).  Thanks for your patience and support. 

Top 5 MDJ Articles for March

1.  Avoid Upgrading Your Housing. This article gathered more attention that I expected.  It's really hard to tell which articles will become popular as I almost never published that one.  The basic premise behind the article is that upgrading your housing situation or lifestyle can be much more expensive than you think.  I'm learning that the hard way.
2. The Smith Manoeuvre Money Flow.  This article provides a clear diagram of how money flows between accounts when using the Smith Manoeuvre wealth strategy.  Note that I'm using a slight variation of the "Smith Manoeuvre" as I invest in dividend paying stocks to reduce my mortgage owing.  Along with that, I'm using the Rempel Maximum formula where the principle pay down services the investment loan instead of funding the investment account itself.  Perhaps I should put a new name on the strategy?  How does Frugal's Maximum Manoeuvre sound?
3. 30 Personal Finance Rules of Thumb. This was a great guest post by regular reader, fellow engineer, and commenter, Nobleea.  Here he discusses some of the common "rules of thumb" that have been thrown around the personal finance world.  Some are realistic, others are controversial.  Check out the comments.
   
4. TFSA vs. RRSP. Another guest post, this time by regular guest writer and CFP Ed Rempel.  Mr. Rempel gets into the (soon to be classic) battle between the new TFSA and RRSP.  In this analysis, the TFSA wins for seniors due to clawback concerns for seniors with high RRSP balances.
5. Cooking a Whole Chicken.  This was the first recipe post on MDJ and it drew a bit of attention!  One of the favorites as it is easy and cheap..  cooking a chicken that is.

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