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My life has changed since I got married because I’ve gotten much busier! With me starting to prepare for the CFA, my work and also the blog, things are just going crazy around here. This weekend, I even had friends come over and will have a house warming party today!!

I really wish everyone a happy Sunday and chat with you more later! Check out the links as always since these are good ones

• The Digerati Life discusses about how money challenges prevent us from building the life that we love.  Remember that it shouldn’t  always be about the money!
• My Two Dollars has an article about what we should do before we go on vacation!  I have to remember this article before I go on my honeymoon!
• Mayank Rocks gives us a glimpse about the poverty situation in India. Being from HK, I’ve got to say that us North Americans really don’t know how lucky we are with such a good social and economic system over here!!!
• The Penny Mine tells us why we should add to our retirement contribution! Honestly, we need to contribute as much as possible and ask questions later! Do it now!!
• TheLocoMono has found a way to save $13,602.81 through his shaving! Did he always overpaid before or did he really find a good way to save? Check out the article!
• Litedeals has a good deal on an AMD CPU.  I’m often amazed about how fast the prices of these CPUs drop in the market place.  It just goes to show that being patient with technology purchase will save us so much money!

Carnivals:

• Carnival of Personal Finance

Families are great. They are the first ones to come help, and the last ones to leave us when we are in trouble. When we were young, we lived with our families, and we start our very own later on in our lives.

Families however, make money matters even more complicated. Let’s face it, money is important to us, and anything important can potentially create conflicts. Most people enjoy a very good relationship with their families because there is no money conflicts; for others, money (or the lack of) can become a sticky subject.

Most people believe that the lack of money creates conflicts, but having money is just as troublesome. When parents have money, sometimes their children will try to fight for the inheritance, directly or indirectly. This is one of those unfortunate events that we all dislike when we hear it, but we see people do this time and time again. Another example is when our family members are in trouble and we become the “defacto” go to person for free loans.

So, if having money and not having money both creates conflicts, what should we do?

Here’s what I suggest. Although we cannot eliminate conflicts completely, we can drastically reduce the possible fiction points by being able to sustain our own finances. If we cannot stop everyone else from asking us for money, at least we can stop asking others for it. This also means taking the appropriate risks with our finances, and doing our homework so we are prepared for the consequences.

For business owners, this means they expand at a controllable level. For the rest of us, this means that we be responsible and create an emergency fund. Not gambling excessively or buy a house that we never really could avoid (something far too many did the last few years) also comes to mind.

If we don’t need financial help from our family members, I bet our family life will improve too! Money matters, but family matters a great deal too. So create a happy financial situation, and relieve the potential stress it will have on our families relationships!