Carnivals Carnivals Everywhere: My Open Wallet hosts Carnival of Personal Finance #113!
Monday is the big blog carnival day around these parts, for the three carnivals I generally submit posts to (Debt Reduction, Personal Finance, and Frugality) all put their carnivals up on Monday. Madame X at My Open Wallet is hosting Carnival of Personal Finance #113 this week, and my post A Personal Testament to Having an Emergency Fund was included!
One post that really jumped out at me this week was 2 Pennies Earned discussion on Why Dental Insurance is Often a Waste of Money. I agree. And it is why we didn’t sign up for dental insurance until the start of our current plan year (August 1st). For us, the addition of a third person needing dental care and soon a fourth (my daughter only *just* got her first two teeth so she won’t be going for a while, but my son just turned three and starting to visit the dentist this year), we calculated that the ~$700 we’ll pay in premiums will be offset by the $1000 the plan will pay out for us (in our case, a ~40% return lol). We’re relatively confident we’ll hit that maximum payout this year through 6 cleanings, 3 sets of x-rays, and anything my spouse and I might have to have done to our teeth (and probably exceed it). So for our current situation we feel dental insurance makes financial sense, but agree for many situations it does not.
Also appealing to my current mindset was Your First Million Dollars (I wish!) post on Save More by Tracking Down Your Spending. As readers of my blog know, this has held SO true for me. I found lots of money I never knew I regularly spent just by tracking spending and keeping to a budget.
There are lots and lots more informative posts, these are just a few I particularly liked or suited my current thought processes! Hop on over to the carnival and find something that speaks to you, and maybe leave a comment about why 
.
