Here is a list of some of the best personal finance articles from my favorite personal finance websites. To kick start your week, spend some time digging through the Millionaire Money Habits archives and the links below to improve your financial literacy and increase your net worth.

Spotlight: Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity tells us to Act Your Age (Financially), and explains that when we spend we should remember where we are in our “path” before we shell out more than we can handle.

Investing and Retirement Planning:

• Save and Invest Enough For Your Retirement: Are You On Track? at The Digerati Life
• IRA Recharacterization: What, Why, How and When? at My Dollar Plan
• A Reader Question Regarding Self Employment Retirement Plans at Chance Favors

Credit and Debt:

• 11 Signs Your Mate Has Credit Problems at Gather Little by Little
• at Credit Withdrawal
• Personal Finance 101: Comparing Debts and Developing a Debt Repayment Plan at The Simple Dollar

Spending and Saving:

• The Cost Of Instant Gratification at Moolanomy
• 15 Ways to Save Money On Your Cell Phone Bill at Cash Money Life
• Your Emergency Fund Is So Big… at Prime Time Money
• Earning More Doesn’t Help If You Don’t Spend Less at Paid Twice

Your Life:

• Make More Money This Year Instead at My Two Dollars
• 31 Causes of Failure #5: Lack of Self-Discipline at brip blap
• Seven Traits of Successful People at Get Rich Slowly
• How to Be an Expert (and Find One if You’re Not) at Lifehack.org

Money Carnivals:

• Carnival of Personal Finance
• Money Hacks Carnival
• Carnival of Everything Finance
• Personal Finance Money Tips
• Carnival of Financial Goals
• Carnival of Money, Growth and Happiness

Millionaire Money Habit: To build wealth, you need to perpetually improve your financial literacy. Digest as much information as possible and stick to a plan that works for you. In addition to the articles above, pick up one the recommended books found at the footer of this website, and be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed or by email to be notified of new articles.

Thank you to those you participated in the Biggest Money Mistake Contest. Just because the contest is over, don’t let that stop you from sharing your story with us.

Congratulations to Ana at DebtFREE-Revolution for driving the most traffic to this contest, and a special thank you to the runner-ups, Moolanomy and Paid Twice.

The winning entry goes to Paula, who left us with some advice on how to avoid being taken for a ride. Paula is still recovering from this tragic experience, and could use suggestions or resources anyone can offer to help get out of this mess.

Our biggest money mistake happened over ten years ago, and we are still paying for it.

We were newly married and had just moved to Colorado after being Texans for all our growing up years. We received a letter in the mail asking us to come out and get free money to spend at a casino. My husband and I are not big gamblers, but we sometimes like to go and spend $20 each, keeping all our earnings, and usually break even. We would also get an elaborate dinner just for going. We thought why not.

We went, and it was requiring us to look at land to get the stuff. No problem, right? WRONG. They used words like “mining claim” and “soon to be ski resort” and got us hooked. We thought we were doing well by talking them down a few thousand off their asking price.

We paid full price out of our savings account – $12,000. After three years (when they said to keep a hold of the land for profit and that ski resort was coming), we tried to sell the land. No realtor would even help us out because they knew it would be a waste of time. One realtor even asked if this was part of a family plot. I asked why, and she said all the land in that area was bought by people with the same or similar last names.

It is nearly 10 years later, and we are still having to pay taxes on land that cannot be developed (we knew nothing about land or terms, and turns out that a street cannot even be made to the plot of land we have – something about public access). So not only have we lost $12,000 from our savings account, but we have lost $1000 on taxes, and who knows how much longer we will have to pay on land we cannot get rid of. The company closed shortly after selling all the plots. And the people who sold us the land, no longer have their realtor’s license.

Lessons learned:
*Don’t EVER respond to ANYTHING you get in the mail. It is a rip-off! Even if they offer you free stuff STAY AWAY!
*Don’t EVER make a BIG purchase without sleeping on it. We now always pray and wait until the next day, even if it means missing out on a sale. If they really want to sell it, they will sell it to us the next day (or two) at the same sale price. If not, we take our money to someone who will.
*Don’t EVER buy land without a) a realtor or b)full knowledge of EVERY TERM in the contract you are signing.
*Keep your feet firmly planted and don’t get taken away with the THOUGHT of making money. We were assured that a ski-resort was going in near where we bought out plot. They fabricated it and the newspaper clippings.
*Don’t EVER buy ANYTHING from a company unless you know all you can about them. This was a fly by night company that came in, set up, ripped-off a lot of people, then closed up shop and moved on.

If anyone knows how to help us out of this, feel free to contact me via my blog. Thanks. And prayerfully, you will learn from my story and not make the same mistake.

Millionaire Money Habit: While it is unfortunate that we have to experience some financial blunders now and again. While the lessons learned may be costly, the experiences make us better managers of our money. -RT
photo by meyshanworld

It’s the first of April and if you haven’t filed your taxes yet this year, here is a quick checklist to make sure you’re not making some of these common errors. One small mistake on your tax file can end up costing you money. Either you could get fined for the error, or you can end up not getting the maximum tax return you deserve.

Why pay Uncle Sam any more money than you have to? Use Turbo Tax’s free filing program, which guarantees the maximum tax return and protects you from an audit.

Mistake #1 – Miscalculating

Those who still do their taxes the old school way run the risk of making an error somewhere on their tax forms. Whether it is entering the wrong number or doing the math incorrectly, improper calculations are the most common tax return error. It’s easy to do with so many tax forms and the requisite transferring of numbers from one document to another.

Not only could this cause you to overpay on your taxes, but it could result in additional fees and payments. Turbo Tax eliminates the need to do your own math, as the program has a built in calculator and can pull all of your numbers from last year’s tax return and your financial accounts. They also guarantee your tax return will be correct (assuming of course the information you enter is correct), or they will pay all fees, charges and interest you may occur from an inaccurate tax return.

Mistake #2 – Filing Late

We might get an extra day this year to file taxes due to Leap Year, but chances are you have a tax return waiting for you, you just need to ask for what’s yours by filing. According to the IRS, the average tax return is $2,287. Why let Uncle Sam keep your money? The longer you put off your returns, the longer it takes for you to get your money back, and the longer you have to wait to put your money to work for you.

And if you end up not filing on time, you face even more costs in late-filing penalty and interest fees on any taxes that you owe.

Mistake #3 – Inaccurate Chartable Contributions

If you gave a donation last year, you can deduct the value of that charitable contribution from your taxable income. Remember to include all donations when filing your taxes: cars, cash, clothes, and so on. But make sure you have a receipt to backup your claim. Be sure you are accurately reporting the value of your donation or you could be raising red flags for an audit.

TurboTax has a program that will automatically calculate the value of these items for you by comparing the average sale price on eBay.

Mistake #3 – Not Reporting All Income Sources

Did you earn income in ways other than a paycheck from your employer last year? If you did and it wasn’t paid to you in cash, the IRS knows about it. Remember to include any additional unearned income you may have received when filing your taxes to avoid being audited and having to pay unnecessary fees.

Mistake #5 – Forgetting to Sign Your Tax File

If you forget to sign and date your tax form before sending it to the IRS, it will not be processed. By filing with Turbo Tax, you avoid this mistake all together since a handwritten signature is not required, and there are several checks to make sure the total package is complete before they send your tax file off to the IRS.

Millionaire Money Habit: Improperly filing your taxes can trigger an audit and reduce your tax return. Get them done sooner rather than later so you can get your tax return and put it to work for you, but don’t be sloppy. File your taxes online to avoid these costly mistakes.