Sometimes, excessive bargain hunting defeats the purpose of saving money. Sometimes, when shopping around to save a few dollars, you expend two important, valuable things: gas and time. MSN Money suggest shopping smart.

Consumer spending in August fell, as did incomes. Blame it on Katrina if you want.

More on hedge funds: They’re not all that wonderful. Once the hedge-fund world is demystified, we find that it’s not all that different from other parts of the investment-advisory world. In other words, it includes a few very smart people who possess genuine ability to beat the market over the long term—and many who do not.

The article from MarketWatch suggests building your own hedge fund, and proposes a hedged portfolio built out of advice from top newsletters has as good a chance of succeeding as an average hedge fund.

This is a tip I came across for web publishers who use Google Adsense. Adsense serves ads based on the content of the website in which they are included. If you’re finding that the ads served to your website are not relevant most of the time, you might want to incorporate these lines into your pages:

google_ad_section_start >

(Don’t copy and paste, I had to use special en-dash symbols rather than hyphens to get that to display correctly.)

Anything in between those two lines will be taken into consideration when Google attempts to determine which ads are best suited for the site. Also, you may restrict a certain section of text within the website from being considered. That is done by adding (weight=ignore) to the start tag:

This technique is called section targeting and Google has more information on the topic.

CNN is reporting that according to the American Bankers Association, delinquencies on credit cards (and other loans) have reached an all-time high. Taking a step back, it feels good to realize that I’m not included in these statistics. It has now been a while since I’ve been financially irresponsible. Sure, I make mistakes sometimes, such as timing a transfer poorly and being slapped with an overdraft charge. But it’s good to know I have my finances in control.

I should be thinking about taking it to the next step. I have an informal budget, but it’s more of the ex post facto sort. Also, I’ve never really set financial goals because I’ve been unsure of my capabilities. On the other hand, it’s time.

I’m setting a deadline of October 31. By Halloween, I’ll have some long term goals worked out and a specific budget designed to rein in some of my excess spending. Shorter term goals will show up during November and December while planning 2006.

CNN suggests the following checks to make sure you’re not too deep into carrying credit card balances:

• You can only afford to make minimum payments on your credit card;
• You’re always short of cash;
• You’re late on important payments, such as rent or the mortgage;
• You take longer and longer to pay off your balances;

• You borrow from one lender to pay another.

The table of savings and checking account interest rates has been updated to include some moves by Presidential, UFB Direct, and Virtual Bank.

As promised, here is the new design for the $10 bill, issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. There’s a good amount of information available on the new security features.

While I believe there’s no harm in having artistic (or at least colorful) money, not everyone agrees.

Last week people were sounding the warning alarm for $5 gas at the pump. I didn’t echo the thought here because at the time on the surface it seemed somewhat reactionary. But some people are still claiaming we could shortly reach that… maybe.

Compare these two CNN articles. First, Rita could equal $5 gas, written September 22. Opening sentences:

Remember when gas spiked to $3-plus a gallon after Hurricane Katrina? By this time next week, that could seem like the good old days. Weather and energy experts say that as bad as Hurricane Katrina hit the nation’s supply of gasoline, Hurricane Rita could be worse.

Now here is a more recent article (September 28, today), in which Gerri Willis offers 5 tips for saving gas. The first few sentences:

Remember when gas spiked to $3-plus a gallon after Hurricane Katrina? By this time next week, that could seem like the good old days. Weather and energy experts say that as bad as Hurricane Katrina hit the nation’s supply of gasoline, Hurricane Rita could be worse. Analysts are predicting Rita’s aftermath could catapult gas prices to $4, even $5 a gallon.

Perhaps energy experts will come out once a week, every week, to declare that by “this time next week” we’ll see $5 gas. At some point, they will be correct.

Predictions aside, Gerri’s article does offer five tips as promised:

• Save from the start. Buy smart. At the very least, know the how your new car is rated in terms of gas mileage.
• Be high maintenance. Clean out the trunk, check air pressure in the tires, and keep your air filters clean.
• Find a buddy. Carpooling is a great solution for those who can give up some flexibility.
• Compare prices from home. Shop around for the best (lowest priced) stations on your route.
• Show us the deduction. Don’t forget the reimbursement rate for September through December 2005 is now 48.5 cents per mile. When I volunteer over the weekends this fall, I’m only getting 30 cents per mile in excess of 200 miles per day—a minimum I rarely reach. I suppose that’s why they call it volunteering.

Brian Wilson, the genius musician behind The Beach Boys, is offering to personally call any individual who donates $100 or more to a certain foundation supporting Katrina relief efforts.

Here’s my challenge, for anyone who sends Jerry a donation of $100.00 or more, I will call you personally and answer a question that you may have, or just say hello or whatever. Also, my wife and I will match the donation. I know that this may not work for all of you, but anything that you can afford will help and I will match it.

Also, he has a new album coming out on October 18 consisting of holiday music. I’m not so much into the holiday music thing, but SMiLE is one of my all-time favorite rock and roll albums. It’s a shame it was never released in its original form and had to wait almost forty years to be finished without the original members of The Beach Boys.

While browsing the latest Carnival of the Capitalists, I found a great article on the topic of the blogosphere, very critical of the blog “networks” (Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker for example). The premise is that with any business idea with such a low barrier to entry will never be able to sustain profits (ie., from advertising revenue or “memberships”) over time.

The article compares the weblog network “bubble” with the gaming network situation a few years ago. Gaming websites received a lot of cash from venture capitalists and advertising very quickly, and there are signs that the crash experienced by those networks may hit bloggers if some lessons aren’t learned.

Take a look at the Implosion of the Blogosphere.