Blunt Money’s take on the Carnival of Personal Finance this week featured a crossword puzzle with words that related to the posts in the carnival.  Very inventive!

With a carnival as popular as the Carnival of Personal Finance it helps to have an extra something to get readers involved in reading the post.  Looking at a list of several dozen or even a hundred posts is overwhelming.  What the crossword accomplished is that it got readers looking at each category in turn.  Looking at a category with maybe ten posts is a whole lot more manageable.  I would imagine that individual articles got more eyeball time than they otherwise might have.

I’m sure there are other ways to structure a carnival so that each category gets a little more “love” from readers.  Your participants will thank you.

• How effective is this carnival for anyone? I was catching up with the blogs in my reader and ran across this Carnival of Future Millionaires in my reader.  It was posted this week, and honestly I had forgotten that I had.  (I did not receive an e-mail from the host asking me to link back to the......
• Do due diligence with hosts Getting hosts for your carnival can be tough.  It takes organization to keep things moving, and sometimes the hosting schedule gets tight.It's tempting to jump at the first person who offers.  That's fine but be sure to do some due diligence.Meaning check out their blog.  Is it a place that......
• Dealing with spammy submissions As a blog carnival gets more popular, the number of submissions goes up, and the traffic the carnival gets goes up as well.  This is good.  Unfortunately, this popularity also attracts posts that are of marginal quality or are highly commercial.  Or, people will submit several posts to a single......
• How tightly does one need to control a carnival? As blog carnivals get big and well-established, the traffic gets pretty substantial.  This attracts more posts, both good and bad.  The good posts, because it's a good, long-standing carnival that bloggers want to submit to.  The bad posts, because it's an easy, high-traffic link for not that much work.Initially, when......

• Money Magazine Doesn’t Understand Banking Money Magazine is not the worst personal finance magazine (that goes to Kiplinger’s) but it’s not the best.  Even if it were, all personal finance magazines tend to be 90% crap. Case in point, Money recently published an article called “5 reasons banks don't get it.”  I read the headline......
• Organize Your Personal Finances in No Time by Debbie Stanley If nothing else, the state of the economy has shown that millions of people don’t have a good grasp of how to manage their personal finances. There are hundreds of books written every year on the subject and yet, this concept still seems to elude many. Some books are either......
• Canival of Personal Finance #141 The Carnival of Personal Finance #141 was hosted over at Broke Grad Student. This week's theme is The College Years.My article Seven Credit Card Tips from ING was included.I remember my college years. If I paid some more attention with a little more focus I wouldn't be in college now......
• Review: The Teen's Guide to Personal Finance: Basic concepts in personal finance that every teen should know. Time is a resource that many teenagers don't realize is their greatest resource for finacial independence. "The Teen's Guide to Personal Finance" is a tome that will provide teenagers with important financial lessons, in a manner which will pull their interest and convey itself effectively in its intended task. The......