It is common in Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Latin America for Corona to be served with a slice of lime in the neck. The reason for the lime is that hop compounds degrade when they come into contact with light. This reaction results in lightstruck beer that is particularly common in clear bottles, such as Corona’s, that do not easily reflect light. This causes beer to smell ’skunky,’ and the lime is used to mask this aroma.

Editor’s Picks

The lime was originally to plug the neck of the bottle up to keep flies and other insects out of the beer.

Here are my picks for the best articles submitted to this carnival.

• Ashley presents Why Wait? posted at Wide Open Wallet and gives out some great advice on why it makes sense to hold off on that big purchase. More people should practice this kind of common sense.
• Jeremy presents When green banking is less than good posted at Taking Charge. Sometimes opting out of paper bills does more harm than good.
• Michael Geoffrey presents How Procrastination Costs You Money posted at Debt Smackdown. I’m reminded of this everytime I book last minute airfare. Ugh.
• Helen Anderson presents 8 Tips for Saving Money and Your Life posted at Bankaholic. There’s some great advice here that actually helps improve your lifespan.

Budgeting and Saving Methods

The lime was used to clean the top of the bottle to ensure it was sanitary before drinkers would put their lips to the glass. The acidity of the lime juice was believed to kill anything that could be harmful to tourists. Over time tourists began to push the lime into the bottle, which brings us to today’s common occurrence of adding lime to Corona.

• Crystal Nichols presents Free Stuff: Free Gift Cards! posted at Living the Frugal Life.
• MyMaria presents Budget Wedding Gifts posted at Frugal Homesteading Blog.
• Silicon Valley Blogger presents How Much House Can You Afford? 10 Steps To Determine Your Home Buying Budget posted at The Digerati Life.
• J. Savings presents Save $10 bucks and wash that sexy car of yours. posted at Budgets are Sexy.
• Brice Hogan presents How to Radically Save Money posted at Financialzip.com.

Money Management

The lime was also used to clean the neck of the bottle from the rusty remains of the bottle cap. In the early days the bottle caps were made very simply and often left rust stains on the bottle neck, leading to a rather bad taste.

• Penelope Pince presents Monopoly Game Expansion #2: Personal Checking Account posted at Our Fourpence Worth.
• Bill D presents 13 Lucky Tips to Save on Life Insurance posted at The Wealth Hunter.
• MBB presents College Students Apply For Student Credit Cards posted at Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog.
• Passive Family Income presents Creating positive cash flow using Prosper. | Passive Family Income posted at Passive Family Income.
• retirehappy presents Tax Underpayment Penalty on Roth IRA Conversions posted at My Retirement Blog.
• jim presents HSBC Direct Review posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Debt Repayment

Corona beer is available in a variety of bottled presentations, ranging from the 250-ml ampolleta (labeled Coronita and just referred as the cuartito) up to the 940-ml Corona Familiar (known as the caguama or ballena). A draught version also exists, as does canned Corona in some markets. While “Corona Light” also exists, it does not sell much outside Mexico’s larger metropolitan areas.

• Master Your Card presents 8 Tips: Handling Credit Card Debt During a Divorce posted at Master Your Card.
• Heather Johnson presents Clearing Out Cancelled Credit Cards posted at SayEducate.
• Will presents Find A Legitimate Credit Repair Company posted at Your Finish Rich Plan.
• Mark Runta presents Seeking Therapy for Debt Management posted at investing lessons.

Current Events

In Australia, either a slice of lemon or a slice of lime is used, and, depending on what the bar has, patrons are often given a choice of either lemon or lime with lemon being more popular in most bars. In Korea, slices of lemon are widely used in place of lime slices because limes are not widely available and are quite expensive in East Asia.

• Jeffrey Kramer presents The Airline Industry (Part 1) posted at Economic Outlook.
• David B. Bohl presents Subprime Lifestyles posted at Slow Down Fast Today!.

Other

• Sally Thompson presents 10 Forex Trading Myths That Just Won’t Die posted at Currency Trading.net.
• KCLau presents Personal Asset Inventory Template posted at KCLau’s Money Tips.
• Lane Wright presents Three Forex Trading Strategies posted at Awesome Forex Alerts.
• Livingalmostlarge presents Medical Costs in Retirement? posted at LivingAlmostLarge.
• TooSmart presents Payroll Advance: Hitting Rock Bottom. posted at Too Smart to Live Like This.

Feeling a little tipsy? I know I am! Next week’s Finance Fiesta is hosted by Rocket Finance, and you can submit your articles using this form.

It’s been a short while since I last wrote you an open letter. Forgive me for being such a terrible pen pal, I’ve been away for the past few weeks and haven’t had a chance to write. But man, things sure have been going haywire, haven’t they? Oil topped $140 a barrel, and I keep hearing news reports about food prices going through the roof. So what’s the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to do?

OK, I know you’re under a lot of pressure from your Wall Street buddies to keep the federal funds rate at 2%. Of course, I know what peer pressure is all about. When I was in high school, my best friend convinced me it was a great idea to jump out of a moving car. Sure, it sounded like a great idea at the time, but it turns out that jumping out of a moving car breaks bones. So, what else did I learn besides a creative way to break an arm?

Ben, I learned that sometimes your friends don’t have everyone else’s goals in mind when they’re looking for some fun. While jumping out of a car was great entertainment for everyone else, in hindsight it really sucked. How is this like having to decide which way to direct our country’s economic future?

I’m trying to tell you that I’ve learned from my mistakes. Have I bothered jumping out of a car since that drunken Saturday night nine years ago? No. Should you continue your reckless rate cuts when all economic indicators show that they’ve done no good? Ben, I’d like to think you’re smart enough to piece that one together yourself.

Raise the federal funds rate, Ben. Sure, it’ll send the stock market into a crash, and it might be the final push to send this economy into a full blown recession, but the market needs to take it’s medicine. The dollar is barely worth the paper it’s printed on, inflation is skyrocketing, and oil is through the roof. I’m sure you know that continuing to cut the rate will only make things worse. Holding the federal funds rate will only prolong the inevitable. If you raise the rate, you can nip this recession in the bud and get it over with quick.

Think of it as ripping off a band-aid. Sure, it hurts, and yes, nobody likes to look at a fresh wound, but sometimes you do what’s necessary.

Yesterday marked an end of an era, the death of the SUV. Now that major car builders are scaling back their SUV production and ramping up sedans and compacts, what happens to existing SUV owners and their vehicle’s value? Is this all just a knee jerk reaction?

Existing SUV owners
Owners of SUVs across the country are finding that they’re having an increasingly more difficult time trying to see their vehicles. As gas prices keep rising, demand for gas guzzlers is quickly diminishing. As a result, SUV owners are finding they can’t sell for what their vehicles are supposedly worth. Services such as Kelly Blue Book are reporting that an SUV should be worth a certain value, yet sellers are finding they can’t command those prices on the open market. SUVs are selling for a fraction of what their typical value should be.

Owners that are still paying off their SUVs may very well be upside down on their loans (where they owe more than the vehicle is worth). As a result, when it comes time to sell, these owners either have to roll the difference what they owe on their old SUV into the loan of their new car, or their forced to keep driving the inefficient truck while gas prices keep soaring higher.

Bargain hunters
On the other hand, rising gas prices are creating a unique buyer’s market for people that are in the market for a used SUV. You could literally pick up a lightly used SUV for pennies on the dollar these days from distressed sellers and dealers. If the price of gas doesn’t phase you, and you need the utility of an SUV, then there are some serious bargains to be had out there.

Knee-jerk reaction?
But is this all a knee-jerk reaction? As I blogged earlier, an increase in the price of gas from $3.00 to $4.00 hardly makes much of a difference in a monthly budget. For the most part, unless you’re budget was strained to the point that you were literally living paycheck to paycheck, the extra dollar a gallon is more of a psychological strain than a financial one.

And so, whether it was really the SUV’s time or not, it has finally passed away. Rest in peace, old friend. May you once again find 90 cent a gallon gas in the afterlife.

My wife and I are currently in a two bedroom apartment, and we don’t have much expenses in terms of upkeep for our home. While bulk stores are great, we only buy 12 gallon drums of laundry detergent and pallets of toilet paper every other month instead of every month. Sure, the prices are fantastic, considering you’re buying a month or two worth of supplies at once, but we have to take the storage space into account. When you’re in a two bedroom apartment, you don’t have much room for keeping unused toilet paper lying around.

Of course, our situation isn’t one of a normal family. If we had a four bedroom house stocked with pets and children, I could easily see ourselves shopping regularly at a bulk store like Costco or Sam’s Club. These stores have fantastic deals on meat and produce. And the pet food in large quantities really helps when you have a bunch of hungry kids, or dogs, to feed.

While these stores have great prices, they lack in selection. So, you’re basically limited to three brands of toilet paper as opposed to the ten brands you might find at your chain grocery store. This may not be a big deal for most people, but brand selection can be a deal breaker for some families.

And Costco has an executive membership plan where, for $100.00 a year, you get 2% back for your purchases, with a cap at $500.00. So, if you spend at least $5,000.00 a year at Costco, you’ll get your membership dues back. That’s only two 60″ TVs.

Basically, what it comes down to is your own personal living situation. Large families can easily take advantage of the deals offered at Sam’s Club or Costco. But for single people or couples with smaller living spaces, it may not make a financial sense. But for me, it’s a no-brainer. It may not make financial sense for us to pay our yearly dues, but when I see those rows of TVs and beer cases stacked as far as the eye can see, I know it’s totally worth it.

Normally, I don’t pay attention to the junk being sold in the halls of my local mall. But these teeth whitening kiosks aren’t just a poor way to spend your money, they’re dangerous.
I don’t normally have a problem with cheap alternatives to expensive services, but here you have people at a mall, who are earning slightly more than minimum wage, who are shining a laser into your mouth. They didn’t go to dental school, and they have a bare minimum in training. And yet, people are trusting their health to these workers because of the convenience of having dental work done in the mall.

ABC recently ran a story on this, and found that people where actually suffering from burned lips and gums from these mall teeth whitening locations. At the mall, you can expect to spend about $150 for a session to have your teeth whitened, while you will spend over $200 at a dentist’s office. I understand that people are trying to save money on these procedures, but impulsive dental work to the cheapest bidder will not always end well.

The same thing goes for Lasik. Sure, the procedure seems to get cheaper and cheaper every year, but you need to ask yourself: Is the savings worth risking your health? Just because one location is offering a procedure for hundreds of dollars less than another does not mean that the quality will be the same. Shopping around for the best rate means that you could be risking the quality of your work done.

When it comes to your health, it usually doesn’t pay to be frugal. Especially when it comes to cosmetic procedures, such as teeth whitening and Lasik. Pay top dollar, make sure the person that is performing the procedure is properly trained and licensed, and verify their references.

When it comes to your health, it pays to spend more.

In the meantime, I participated in the Carnival of Personal Finance, which featured my article Are credit cards the next financial crisis?. I’ve been meaning to participate in more blog carnivals lately, I’ll have to start applying for more of them.

Here are some great articles I came across during the week that should keep you occupied this weekend:

• When the collectors come calling
  Sadly, we know all too much about this after our saga with a debt collector. (@ Master Your Card)
• Think balancing the federal budget is hard?
  I know for a fact that I would make for a terrible president, and this article only helps confirm it. (@ No Debt Plan)
• What to do with $5000?
  This blogger found a surplus five grand in her budget. Since she’s having such a tough time figuring out what to do with it, I suggest she donates it to my house fund! (@ Saving Savvy)
• Amazon Kindle: To buy or not?
  Amazon came out with a new portable ebook reader. But is it worth the coin? (@ Lazy Man and Money)

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Why am I so down on the penny? Inflation is killing our shiny, copper friend. In case you haven’t noticed lately, gas, food, and commodity prices are shooting through the roof. It’s gotten so bad, that the government is seriously considering replacing what little copper is left in our penny with steel, like during World War II. The difference is, during World War II, the government was conserving copper for the war effort.

Today, the penny has become so worthless, that the value of the copper used to make the penny is worth more than the penny itself. That’s right, if you could somehow separate the copper from one of the pennies in your change jar, you’d find yourself with a small piece of copper worth more than a cent.

Of course, this begs the question, why do we even keep a penny around? It certainly isn’t its value. With inflation roaring, you would need a roll of pennies to even consider buying something, and that would hardly even buy you a pack of gum. So if it isn’t the value of the penny that keeps it around, it must be the convenience of having a coin that’s worth 1/100 of a dollar. After all, how else would Walmart end all their prices at $.88?

Last month, when I was in Amsterdam, I was surprised to learn that Holland doesn’t use a Euro cent. The smallest denomination they use for a coin is the five Euro cent coin. They round all transactions up or down to the nearest five cents, and they get by just fine.

The only reason I can think that we keep the penny around is nostalgia. It’s been around for as long as anyone can remember. But, way back in the 19th century, the U.S. had half pennies. Over time, those half pennies slowly became worthless due to inflation and they were phased out. At this point, we might want to consider phasing out the penny as well.

After all, I might not pick up a penny from a sidewalk, but I’ll take the time to pick up a nickel.

What struck me is that Michel Fournier sold all his worldly belongings and spent nearly $20 million dollars to finance his dream. This got me thinking. One man is willing to sell everything he owns and spend millions of dollars to pursue his lifelong dream. How much would you spend to pursue yours?

Of course, your dream doesn’t have to be as exotic or expensive as a skydive from the Earth’s outer atmosphere. For most people, myself included, what we want to accomplish with our lives can be a lot cheaper. I had to stop and think about what my dream is, and how much it would cost. Turns out, I’m a pretty simple person. My wife and I were married last August, and at this point we’re saving like crazy for a 20% down payment on a home. Sure, it’s not a crazy skydiving trip, but it’s a start.

Basically, what it comes down to is trying to figure out your lifelong goals, and striving for a way to fulfill them. And so, with a goal in mind, you save little by little, day by day. Some people want a house, other people want to travel around the world, others want to freefall one and half times the distance of a marathon. To each their own.

You know, after writing all this down, I’ve lost interest in buying a house. Now I just need to explain to my wife that I’m going to be signing up for skydiving lessons.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just how cheap is it?
Is $3 a month cheap enough for you? And this isn’t the no frills, basic package that is barely usable. For $3 a month, you get unlimited long distance calls within the U.S. and Canada, caller ID. voicemail, and probably a bunch of other features I can’t list off the top of my head. Calls to Europe are as cheap as 3 cents a minute, and more importantly, I can call my sister in Uganda for about 12 cents a minute. Compared to calling cards that were charging me upwards of 50 cents a minute for calls to Africa, I’m saving a ton of money.

It gets better
If you buy a dedicated Skype phone, like this model I bought on Amazon, you get a phone that looks and acts just like a regular landline you can buy from your telco company. The model phone I bought, the Linksys CIT400, even has an option to tie into an existing landline. Although I don’t see the point to that feature. As soon as you discover how cheap, and easy-to-use the Skype service really is, you’ll likely be canceling your regular phone service.

Since most long distance services from local phone companies cost at least $30 a month, having an option that works just as well for 1/10 of the cost is a refreshing site to see. So honey, look out. I might just run off with my new mistress, Skype.