Welcome to the longest day of the year… OK so it was actually the 21st, but close enough… I hope are enjoying the sunshine in your neck of the woods. Our thoughts and prayers are with flood victims in the Midwest.

Here are some of our favorites posts from around the blogosphere…  I will be covering the usual suspects but also over the coming weeks try to introduce you to a few new blogs that are from a variety of various topics…  Hopefully you find this interesting and helpful…

Personal Finance

Lazy Man and Money asks Should You Have an Emergency Charity Fund? 

Rich Credit Debt Loan offers 3 Reasons Why Paying With Cash Hurts You in the Long Term

Blogging Away Debt does algebra in Double Payment + Cancelled Health Insurance + Missing Income = Thank Goodness for Emergency Fund

brip blap examines how America grew rich, fat and unhappy

Cash Money Life says Think Twice Before Canceling Credit Cards

Generantion X Finance has a cage match in ETFs vs. Mutual Funds: Which One is Right for You?

The Digerati Life asks rhetorically When Should You Buy Into The Stock Market? Like Yesterday.

Handy Man Fix Home Repair straddles the line between personal finance and DIY home repair in How to Make Old Appliances Look New

Health and Fitness

Weight Loss Journal explores how to Ramp Up Your Metabolism Naturally

Get Fit Slowly says It’s Hard To Be Healthy With Kids

Journal for Healthy Living has an Idea: Going Vegetarian For One Week

Lazy man and Health tries to Lose Weight with Sports

Fat Man Unleashed attempts to convince us that Golf Can Be A Dangerous Sport

While No Calories Needed is Combining Walking And Practicing Golf

Photo Credit: 1

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RateLadder is a Prosper lender and has been since July, 2006.  He has a passion for p2p lending.  He owns RateLadder — My Prosper.com Journey and other P2P Lending Adventures, P2P No Bank the P2P Blog Aggregate, and ProProsper — Professional Tools for Prosper Lenders featuring SQL access to Prosper data. 

Here’s hoping that you and yours had a great Father’s Day.  Mine was fantastic… My wife surprised me by flying my dad in for a visit from another part of the country and I enjoyed it very much… 

Around the Prosper, p2p lending, and personal finance blogosphere….

BankRate coveres Peer-to-peer online lending grows in tight economy

“Home equity used to be the cash management tool for the credit-worthy borrower, and that has really, really dried up,” says Chris Larsen, CEO at Prosper. “In many ways, Prosper’s three-year, $25,000 loan is a pretty good proxy for what people were using home equity for — improving their home, starting a sole proprietorship, college costs and certainly for replacing credit card debt.

“On the return side, people that are getting 3 percent if they’re lucky (can find) it’s pretty easy to get returns that might range from 5 percent to 11 percent (on Prosper).”

RateLadder gives 8 Listing Strategies to get Best Prosper Loan Rate, an update of the Vintage Curves, and hosted the 9th Edition of the Carnival of P2P Lending.  The Prosper Blog was represented by Doug Fuller and Debt Sale Update. Other Posts of Note:

• Why Borrowers With Bad Credit Pay A Higher Interest Rates
• P2P Lending Grows in Popularity as Banks Slow Lending (Are Individual Lenders Suckers or Savvy?)

Lazy Man says Dear iPhone: I Love You and Your New Great Price, but…

Blogging Away Debt tells how A Walmart Cashier Saved [her] From an Impulse Buy.

brip blap asks Does Innovation require desperation? 

Cash Money Life explains how to Freeze Your Air Conditioning Costs.

GenX Finance offers 5 Quick Homeowners Insurance Tips That Can Save You Money and Your Home.

Me vs Debt wonders about The Cost of Comfort.

The Digierati Life tells how to Increase the Value of Your Home With a Few Simple, Affordable Changes.

And finally… it is with sad hearts that we wish Mike @ ProsperousLand good luck with his new job and wish him a speedy recovery towards continuing p2p blogging… (read his exit post in I Surrender)

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RateLadder is a Prosper lender and has been since July, 2006.  He has a passion for p2p lending.  He owns RateLadder — My Prosper.com Journey and other P2P Lending Adventures, P2P No Bank the P2P Blog Aggregate, and ProProsper — Professional Tools for Prosper Lenders featuring SQL access to Prosper data. 

A sincere and respectful thank you to all the veterans past and present.  Your sacrifice for our freedom is greatly appreciated. 

Here are some of the best posts from around Blogosphere this week…

BloggingAwayDebt opens up her family dynamics with finances in What Role Does My Husband Have?

LazyMan has a 6 Word Memoir: Money — Freedom to do Almost Anything.

Cash Money Life has been changing jobs and offers some insight into The Exit Interview

The Digerati Life asks rhetorically Have No Estate Plan? Try This Guide to Wills & Trusts

Me vs Debt says No Spending + Money Making = Major Debt Reduction

GenXFinance offers 67 Year Old Advised by Accountant to Not Enroll in 401k - Should He Find a New Accountant?

brip blap announces the new Carnival of Careers.

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RateLadder is a Prosper lender and has been since July, 2006.  He has a passion for p2p lending.  He owns RateLadder — My Prosper.com Journey and other P2P Lending Adventures, P2P No Bank the P2P Blog Aggregate, and ProProsper — Professional Tools for Prosper Lenders featuring SQL access to Prosper data.

A few weeks ago Catherine Muriel, CMO at Prosper announced Prosper TV commercials (Prosper TV Spots) and a new slogan: Let’s bank on each other™.

NetBanker covered the story (Prosper Kicks Off Nationwide Lending with New Slogan and TV/Radio Advertising):

From a branding perspective, I think they are extremely effective, doing a good job communicating the benefits to both borrowers and lenders. And Prosper positions itself as a smart bank alternative without getting overly negative (eg. Lending Tree’s $100-million “When banks compete” campaign in the late 1990s) or going so over the top (think WaMu) [...]

One thing I’m sure of: Prosper did a great job showcasing the ads on their website, including the very Web 2.0 touch of posting “behind the scenes” videos of the TV commercials.

Here are the behind the scenes videos NetBanker is referring to: Behind the Scenes 1 and Behind the Scenes 2.

Other interesting Prosper and Personal Finance recent blog posts…

Loan Chimp liked the nationwide rates (WebBank partnership) so much that the Warm and Fuzzy Index reached it’s highest score ever. (See Loan Chimp in the High ROI Video from Prosper Days 2008.)

Lazy Many goes existential in The Power of The Dream.

brip blap offers 10 Career Quotes and somehow manages to work in Boba Fett and Han of Star Wars.

Cash Money Life said, “No, I Won’t Accept Your Counter Offer” when it was presented after he turned in his resignation due to a lack of career advancement paths in his current position.

GenXFinance offers  Ten Steps To Take When You Are In Financial Trouble.

The Digerati Life reveals How to Increase Your Salary Without Increasing Your Work

Blogging Away Debt is Finishing Up a Not-So-Fun Task - Creating a Will

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RateLadder is a Prosper lender and has been since July, 2006.  He has a passion for p2p lending.  He owns RateLadder — My Prosper.com Journey and other P2P Lending Adventures, P2P No Bank the P2P Blog Aggregate, and ProProsper — Professional Tools for Prosper Lenders featuring SQL access to Prosper data.

The weather is starting to turn… (At least in our neck of the woods.) Spring is nearly here…

Around the p2p lending and personal finance blogosphere…

Rocket Finance is hosting the 8th Carnival of P2P Lending

The Prosper Blog is happy to be included with our post from Doug Fuller (thank you RF): Collections Update #2

WealthBoy put together two open source great tools The WealthBoy Strict ROI for Prosper Lenders and Prosper Greasemonkey Script for Firefox.

If you haven’t been to Eric’s Credit Community lately you should revisit his site and check out the redesign.

Rate Ladder updated the vinatege curves.

Lazy Man explores the Costs of Boat Ownership.

Cash Money Life asks Taxes - Which is Better: Large Refund, or Owe the IRS?

The Digerati Life says Eliminate Credit Card Debt! 4 Methods I’ve Used To Reduce My Debt

brip blap ponders unscrambling the egg

Blogging Away Debt prognosticates What Does the Future Hold for Blogging Away Debt?

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RateLadder is a Prosper lender and has been since July, 2006.  He has a passion for p2p lending.  He owns RateLadder — My Prosper.com Journey and other P2P Lending Adventures, P2P No Bank the P2P Blog Aggregate, and ProProsper — Professional Tools for Prosper Lenders featuring SQL access to Prosper data.