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.

• Carnival evolution: Broadcasting to Nichecasting Some of the first blog carnivals had a broad subject matter.  Since "carnival real estate" was wide open, general-interest carnivals could stake their claim without displacing anyone.  When one looks at the money and finance carnivals at BlogCarnival.com there are a couple of screenfuls of money and finance carnivals.  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......
• Powerful backlink tool, or spammer in a box? One of the sidebar ads within BlogCarnival.com showed a blog carnival submission tool called Xingla Pro 3. Honestly, I thought submitting articles to different blog carnivals was pretty easy, but this tool appears to make it ridiculously easy.  Maybe almost too easy. I asked a question of a guy who......
• Easy themes your blog carnival Adding a theme to your carnival doesn't have to be difficult.  It can be as easy as looking around you and searching Wikipedia. Interspersing a few interesting facts about a timely topic, regardless of whether that topic is closely tied to the particular blog carnival, dresses it up substantially.  It's......

• Five Ways Fantasy Baseball is Like Personal Finance I had my draft for my fantasy baseball league I'm in earlier this week. I've been in the league with these particular guys now for over five years. It's not a money league but we're real competitive nonetheless. I gotta say I'm real excited! Not only is real baseball starting......
• 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......
• 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......
• The Personal Finance Hour, Episode 29: The Christmas Show Ho ho ho. Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat. On today’s episode of The Personal Finance Hour, I’ll join Jim from Bargaineering to discuss the highs and lows of the holiday season. What are your favorite Christmas traditions? To whom do you give gifts? How do......