Welcoming The Frugal Toad to our blogroll, linking great stuff, adding a Facebook page, an eBook from MD at Studenomics and so much more!

Thomas Jefferson once said, "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." Wise words from a man who died with the equivalent of $1,000,000 in today's dollars worth of debt - but his words still ring true today. I wrote this article on a whim when I tried to find data on the amount of hours worked per week broken down by individual income. Let me save you some time; that data is nowhere to be found. I can tell you this... the average American private sector worker works 34.3 hours in an week. I can also tell you that the average American worker making an income from $100,000 to $149,999 puts in 45.09 hours in a usual week, 34.3% more than the average worker making between $10,000 and $19,999. So I ask you, dear reader, how many hours a week do you work?

Carnivals submitted to, featured links, guest posts, oh my. Updates for the week of 10/31/2011.

We here at DQYDJ are constantly scouring the internet for gems which will help you with the financial aspect of your life. This post is no different and we even extend the courtesy to your family as well...

A very interesting study out of Texas Tech University asks the question: How is Financial Literacy Affected By Age? The results are very interesting. Even though the paper reports that households with ages over 60 years possess more than half of the wealth in the United States, a decidedly younger crowd, the 45-49 year olds, possess the most financial knowledge. The implications: while we know that there is a decline in physical and cognitive capabilities which comes with aging, we should also note that with those cognitive changes may come curious financial decisions as well.

“Good morning class. Today we’ll discuss some things that anyone who has passed 6th grade already knows (sorry for those of you that didn’t). Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest (ironically laughing to myself now at those who didn’t). This concept is believed to be what drove life from tiny micro-organisms which emerged spontaneously eons ago to the amazing diversity of life that Earth possesses today. This process appears to be what designed us, what makes us humans the cream that rose to the top. The ironic twist that we run into after the millions of years that it took for us to evolve is the concept of ‘Morality’.”

Sorry to pick on the Art Majors, but all of this discussion about President Obama's Executive Order on student loans has pointed the country down an interesting path. Perform this thought experiment with me... The vast majority of student loans in the United States are federally backed. There are also $1,000,000,000,000 in student loans outstanding. This means that, in the event student loans aren't paid, the debt will be borne by the general fund of the United States (read: taxpayers paying private and public colleges). Should taxpayers demand lower paying majors pay higher student loan rates?

Interesting posts, updates, and carnivals and featured links for the week!

I recently came across Jodi Beggs's awesome (and tongue in cheek, and that's a compliment from a site called DQYDJ!) economics site, "Economists Do It With Models". Perusing her recent history, I came across an article entitled "Adventures in Fact-Checking, GOP Debate Edition" where Jodi fact checked some statements made by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich and found them, on the surface, to be false. Fair enough - the candidates both made statements to the effect that Ben Bernanke is the most inflationary Fed Chair ever. Playing fast and loose with the facts is wrong, but I don't entirely like how Ms. Beggs ranked the Chairmen - by annualized inflation during their term. To explain why I'll turn to an unlikely (yet, strangely appropriate) place- baseball.

Tying to an article earlier that my colleague PKamp3 wrote, personal finance seems to have taken a dive in popularity in more recent years. As a writer for a confessedly self-aware personal finance crowd, this assertion may seem irrelevant, surprising, or, at worst, alarming. As a young college graduate, many of my fellow coworkers (as well as I) have student loans as one of their more significant financial obligations on top of car loans and (soon) mortgages. Some plan on paying down their student loans as fast as possible to deleverage themselves and then start saving for a home. I am of a different and not necessarily correct opinion: to hold onto the student loans for as long as possible due to their incredibly low interest rate and tax-deductibility for incomes up to $60,000 (partial deductions up to $75,000).

In a recent article here at DQYDJ I posted a chart which graphed worldwide interest in 'Frugality' and 'Personal Finance' based upon the amount of interest registered by Google. There's actually another interesting takeaway from that picture - interest in the term 'Personal Finance' is losing steam in the United States. Interest understandably grew during the recession, and it spikes in the beginning of every year, but interest is definitely trending downward. It opens up an important discussion: Are Americans losing interest in personal finance?