First, 21 Jump Street has best new bromance written all over it:

Photo: Columbia Pictures

Second, if ever there was a superstitious person, it is me. I have lucky numbers, times of day, jeans, socks, parking spots (the one at the north corner of the block), ad nauseum. With 3 being my luckiest, favorite-est number, I knew this edition of the Financial Simplicity Carnival was going to be a good one. I had to pick the best 20 posts from the submissions and got to pick a few posts that were submitted to the earlier carnivals. So let’s get started!

Editor’s Pick: It was close, but Dr. Dean made so many great connections in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Ten Personal Finance Lessons! posted at The Millionaire Nurse Blog. Let’s not forget that this movie has one of the most horrendous rape scenes in the history of filmmaking and kept me from sleeping well for a week, but the lessons to be learned are wise nonetheless.

Making Money

What did you think of the Homeless Hotspots at SXSW? There are certainly greater implications in creating this trend, as Nick presents Homeless Hotspots: Too far? posted at Step Away from the Mall.

Savvy Scot presents 4 Things They Didn’t Tell You About Life posted at Savvy Scot. Absolutely loved this post. If we all keep the Scot’s #1 point in mind, we’ll be much happier for it.

The personal finance blogosphere is blowing up! Besides the American and Canadian PF conferences, Karen Bryan lets us know about the Write on Finance Blog Up Leeds which is taking place in Leeds (that’s in England) in late September. It sounds like a spot of fun (British reference!) and with tickets being just 20 quid (more British references!!) for personal bloggers, I think every self-respecting UK personal finance blogger/writer ought to go. And yes, this section does sound better if read with a British accent. Right then.

Research actually shows that customers who had a problem which was solved, are generally more loyal than just a regular customer. Karl presents Complaining – the art of getting what you want posted at CultOfMoney. Great advice and a good reminder that acting righteous and too huffy/puffy is no way to get what you want.

Madison presents 6 Free eFile Tax Return Options posted at My Dollar Plan.

Spending and Budgeting

Dave Hilton wrote the very touching and heartbreaking Frequent Family Financial Frustrations at Debt Black Hole. It’s so difficult to change our own bad habits let alone anyone else’s, and Dave is dealing with the reality of this with his father. Read his story and give him your most encouraging and wise advice.

Jim gave us solid advice on How to Get a Great Credit Score posted at Bargaineering.

Conventional wisdom says that to be something you must have something but we see people with money who are not happy and people with jobs that are unsatisfied. So how does “having and being” connect? John Chappelear presents Having vs. Being posted at Innovative Solutions For Positive Change.

Glen Craig presents New Technology Makes Shopping With Your Credit Card Easier posted at Free From Broke , which is one of my favorite blogs ever.

Teacher Man presents Happiness = Having Kids or Not Having Kids? posted at My University Money. Great read worth further contemplation on the kids/no kids debate.

And Teacher Man was at it again with another great post What Do Teachers Know About Financial Literacy? posted at Youngandthrifty. If most teachers don’t take the time to learn about personal finance, what message can they communicate to students when they teach personal finance? I really enjoyed his insider’s insight in this article.

FMF presents Spend like you want to grow rich posted at Free Money Finance, an excerpt from Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School. I want to read the whole book.

Investing

Want specifics on index funds? Then check out Srinath’s Best index funds posted at The University of Money.

Boomer presents The Best Time To Start Saving Is Now posted at Boomer & Echo.

Steve presents Investing In Your Health posted at The Loonie Bin. He’s worried writing about being healthy will send him to the darkest caves of the PF world, so let him know you agree that being healthy is absolutely part of a rich life by visiting this post.

I really enjoyed SB’s post Gold Vs. Silver, What is the Better Investment? at One Cent at a Time. Here’s the thing, diversifying in terms of silver or gold coins can be a great new asset in your portfolio and this post can give you insights on whether silver or gold may be your better fit and just how you can invest besides holding on to the actual metals.

Dividend Growth Investor has 17 Cheap Dividend Aristocrats on Sale posted at Dividend Growth Investor. They’re just ideas and you’ll need to research each company, but why not consider certain dividend stocks that could meet the standards for creating an impressive additional income?

Debt Reduction

Jefferson presents One at a Time, Zen Master posted at See Debt Run. Trying to do everything at once because you’re so excited to be on this great self-improvement path and EVERYTHING is going to be awesome always? Whew, calm down and read this post first.

Lastly, I wrote about 9 Ways I Could Have Avoided Debt. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?

It was fun hosting my first carnival! I wanted to include ALL of you, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be included in the next edition. You should submit weekly at the Financial Simplicity Carnival.