Free Money Finance has started up a new blog carnival that turns its back on quantity.  The Best of Money Carnival, by definition, is limited to only ten posts each week.  FMF even throws in some perqs:  $1,000 donated to charity for the best post of the year and for the best host of the year, plus ten automatic entries into his wildly popular Personal Finance March Madness competition.

This is refreshing.  A lot of blog carnivals are becoming nothing more than link dumps.  Hosts have had it, and managers have had it.

Some of the advantages of a limited-post, quality-based carnival:

• Filtering. The host has filtered out the riff-raff and the mediocre.
• More traffic for those accepted. Being one of ten posts is better than being one of a hundred.
• Less wasted time. You may miss a few good posts that didn’t quite make the cut, but it’s unlikely that you’ll sit through any bad ones.
• Self-selecting.  After getting turned down a dozen times, spammers might turn to greener pastures.
• Construction of the carnival is easier and faster. Less typing.

If your niche is being overrun with link-dump carnivals, consider starting your own Best Of carnival!

• 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......
• Try scheduling hosts in advance This is a rule that I don't follow all the time, and it adds a lot of stress having to find a host from week to week. The Carnival of Personal Finance has come to ask for hosts quarterly. He asks for hosts about a month in advance, then decides......
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• Theme your carnival with unusual holidays Writer's block can come at the worst possible moment, like when it's your turn to host a carnival.  You really want to get away from the InstaCarnival deal and do something special, but what? Check out Holiday Insights.  They have a big list of unusual holidays.  I had no idea......

• First Personal Finance Blog Carnival Participation: Success! I have to say, it's great to be accepted by the personal finance blog community in such a short amount of time.  Yesterday, Stupid Cents was featured in the Money Hacks Carnival #51, hosted by Adam @ Your Money Relationship.  So go check out the other great articles and find......
• Weekend Reads and March Madness is Almost Here! Thanks to the feeling of Spring in the air combined with the time change, my day was really thrown off balance.  Just couldn't seem to get in the groove all day with wanting to be outside, and the excitement around the Duke vs UNC basketball game. UNC pulled out an almost certain win to become......
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• How To Make Sure You Get Free Money For Your Child's Education. Kiplingers, one of my favorite personal finance sites & magazine, has a great article up for parents with advice on making sure you can get the free money you might be entitled to for your child's education. From dealing with the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) application to......