It’s almost the end of another month, which means that next week I will have a goal update post coming your way – just a heads up, I’m pretty sure that my performance this month is not as stellar as last month 
As it is the end of November, this is your last day to contact me regarding the e-book opportunity. So if you haven’t done contacted me yet or if you are sitting on the fence, please let me know ASAP. I’m still waiting on 1 more blogger to join with us – it could be you…
My wife had her baby shower last weekend and boy did we collect a lot of stuff.
Check out our pool table –
Work is starting to get a little hectic with only a couple of weeks left before I go on leave. I’m finding that my time is being eaten up with so much mundane crap that I never seem to get to focus on the important stuff.
Blog Spam
Does anyone have any good tips on stopping comment spam? I am getting an inordinate amount of comments with links to squidoo that are obviously spammy. I’m also getting about 5 requests a day from people wanting me to promote a range of different products. Does anyone else get these emails? I honestly don’t know how many are spam and how many are real? At this stage I haven’t responded to any, mainly because I don’t want to advertise anything on my blog that I don’t know anything about, I guess it’s an part an ethics thing and part that I don’t want to lend my name to a shoddy product.
My Posts
I had 3 posts this week (excluding this one). If you haven’t read them yet I can honestly say that I feel you are missing out 
Welcome to the Pool Room
Time for the pool room!
In case you don’t know what the pool room is, I explain it in this post.
1st Place goes to Sicorra at Tacking our Debt with this post about Evaluating your life as it stands today. I really liked this post and it was a clear standout for this week. Sicorra runs through a list of questions that will help you evaluate your own life – it’s well worth the read.
2nd Place this week goes to Joe at The Free Financial Advisor with his post titled Can’t Save? Write It Out, Bitches!. I really enjoyed how Joe goes about working out where people can save money. He provides a great example of how people can easily save money just by visualizing their finances and taking an objective look at things.
3rd Place goes to Catherine at Plunged in Debt with her post titled The Last Bobby Pin Effect. Catherine compares how she keeps losing bobby pins to how you should be keeping track of every dollar you spend no matter how small an amount it is.
Congratulations to this weeks winners – I hope everyone enjoys the posts mentioned above as much as I did.
For next week – If you think you have a top post and you want to make sure I see it, be sure to leave a comment somewhere on my blog and include the link in the Comment Luv section. I make sure I check every blog owners page if they have left a comment on my blog, so that’s a sure fire way to ensure I see your blog post.
I have a free weekend this week so there should be a good amount of cricket watching going on Have a great weekend everyone!
Thanks so much Glen!…It looks like your wife did pretty well at her shower! How soon till baby?…As for spam, are you on WP and is your Askimet activated? I get probably 25+ spam comments/day but very few miss the Askimet filter.
Catherine recently posted..Weekly Reads 30.11.12
We did great! I had no idea our friends and relatives were going to be so charitable.
Askimet hey? I’ll look into it – thanks!
You can install akismet it is a plugin that will block most spam. I get those emails too, I ignore them as well. You’ll get more with time unfortunately. Have a good weekend!
Pauline recently posted..Friday recap, a panoramic view and a blogging tip
Thanks Pauline – you too!
Askimet is a good plugin. I use Simple Trackback Validation, it’s another plugin on WP. I had been getting a crapload of spam and now maybe 1 every week or two comes through. I get the emails as well, like Pauline I just ignore them. I do have to laugh at the ones though that say they’re a firm who helps people create content for their site and want me to hire them.
John S @ Frugal Rules recently posted..Frugal Friday: Posts That Ruled This Week, It’s December Already Edition!
I’ll take a look at the Trackback Validation thanks John
I use Akismet and it throws everything into the Spam folder. Every once in a while a real comment goes in, so I do check it every day before I delete them. I don’t get squidoo, but lista de emails is my biggest commenter! That’s cool on your baby shower. It’s nice to have a stockpile of diapers before you start, althought it’s never enough.
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted..The Sandman, Hypnosis, and The Village People
I think he is supposed to go through at least 7-10 a day. So we probably have enough to last for the first week…
We also use Akismet. If I remember correctly, we installed it as part of the Jetpack plugin rather than on its own. Have a great weekend!
Greg@ClubThrifty recently posted..Tips for Job Seekers – The “What Not to do” Edition
Looks like everyone uses Askimet. It must be good!
Thanks Greg, have a good weekend mate
Thanks so much for the 1st place award my friend! It means a lot to me
It looks like your house is quite prepared for a new baby. You did well.
In regards to spam, just a suggestion, but I would take your email address off of your contact page and add a standard contact form. You will still get the odd message, but it makes it a bit more difficult for bots to send you messages.
Tackling Our Debt recently posted..Now Why The Hell Are They Blinking?
No problems Sicorra, I really enjoyed your post.
Do you know of any good contact forms available on WP?
Contact form 7 is what I use. It’s pretty simple to configure.
Good luck with the baby. It’ll be quite a lifestyle change.
Justin@TheFrugalPath recently posted..Friday’s Fork in the Path: My Second Month Recap
It turns out that I have a built in contact form with my theme – Who knew!
Thanks for your help.
Sounds like you and the Mrs. are prepared for the arrival wee one! Time is getting close so now. January, was it?
I use Akismet, which captures the bulk of spammy comments. I still laugh when I think about how thrilled I was to receive my first comments on my blog, after weeks of crickets. But of course they ALL turned out to be spam! /:
Jennifer Lynn @ Broke-Ass Mommy recently posted..It’s the Weekend, You Say? Weekly Round-Up Time Then!
I remember those days of no one visiting my blog. I’m so glad I continued with it, there are so many nice people out there to share your experiences with.
OMG this is why I should not type with a toddler bouncing on my lap. Forgive that horrendous english above!
That first paragraph should read: Sounds like you and the Mrs. are prepared for the arrival of wee one! Time is getting so close now. January, was it?
LOL!
Jennifer Lynn @ Broke-Ass Mommy recently posted..It’s the Weekend, You Say? Weekly Round-Up Time Then!
lol, I hate it when I leave a dodgy bit of spelling in the comments for everyone to see. The other day I left a comment on DC’s blog about my boos (supposed to be boss).
In answer to your question – 9th of January is the expected arrival date, but most bets are that he will arrive early.
Dude! Thanks for the award. I’d like to thank all the little people who made this poss–wait, is that the music already? But I haven’t finished my acceptance speech!–
I get a fair amount of spam, but don’t get the product pitches. I get TONS of guest posting asks (I’m gonna say about three a day is my definition of “tons.”). I hired my sister to send them all my price sheet. Several of the ones I used to ignore have turned into good business for us (surprisingly).
LOL! You make me laugh Joe. You and Jenna have some of the best writing styles in the PF community.
I’m liking the idea of sending them a price sheet, how much do you charge?
I get occasional promotional emails too. It’s fun to read them once in a while to see how desperate they sound. Some are so terrible, but I take time to reply to them in an “appropriate” manner
Veronica @ Pelican on Money recently posted..Stress Can’t Stop LinkLuv
You are a better person than I am! Thanks for including my link this week on your blog
Agree with others – Akismet is a great plugin to help spammy comments. I would try and make sure you remove any reference to your real email address from your site and replace it with Glen (at) example.com – A lot of spammers use bots/scripts to crawl websites for addresses. It won’t stop them all though!
Savvy Scot recently posted..Safe in the Cloud
I think I have removed all traces of my email address. So hopefully that will cut down on all the crap I get sent.