Filed under: Debt, Extracurriculars, Saving

In an entertaining column in the New York Times, M.P. Dunleavy describes her family’s effort to “go medieval” on that last few thousand dollars worth of credit card debt accumulated prior to their marriage.

To help eliminate the last bit and break free from debt hell, the couple has temporarily suspended retirement savings. Was this a good decision? She’s not really sure. The credit card debt only has an interest rate of 6% and given the tax deduction that comes from funding a traditional IRA, there’s an argument to be made that she should have continued her retirement saving, even at the expense of paying off debt.

But that’s all beside the point, according to Dunleavy: “There are a dozen ways to crunch the numbers, but the ultimate gain wasn’t financial, it was peace of mind.”

There’s a good message here for financial decisions: ultimately, it’s about improving your quality of life, and nothing is more important than peace of mind. If a financial move will make you feel secure and comfortable, it might be a good one: in spite of what any on the internet calculator states.

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, News, Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Retaggr takes the concept of paper business cards and transforms them into Harry Potter like interactive cards. Beyond the benefits of not killing trees to leave your contact information, an interactive card is sooo multi dimensional. With your Retaggr card you can:

• Show your current Twitter messages
• Link to your blogs, web profiles such as Facebook
• Display your on the internet activity on other sites like FriendFeed, Flickr, etc.
• Add any web widget
• Grant others to get in touch with you via Skype, MSN, Gtalk, etc.

Whereas paper cards are static, your profile card instantly updates as you update information on your various social networks. Also, when you leave comments on other Retaggr enabled sites, your profile card is left there too. If someone mentions you in a post, they can link to you so your card automagically appears.

A profile card provides more context to what you’re about and what you’re up to. And that’s the other edge of the sword. (Cue scary music). How much information do you want people to have at their fingertips anyway?

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