We spent almost all of the daylight hours Sunday outside with my son, running around, playing in the grass. Nothing more fun than that. Here’s some personal finance notes to kick off your work week.

How To Generate “Valid” Credit Card Numbers Not entirely useful (as you can’t just have a random useable credit card number appear), but very interesting if you’ve ever wondered what that long number actually means. (@ money, matter, and more musings)

When Renting Is Better Than Buying A Home Around here, renting is what you do until you can afford a down payment, but that’s not the truth in large cities. (@ queer cents)

The Best Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Scientific Lab Test vs Incandescent I usually like to link to other bloggers in these roundups, but this is a stellar article from Popular Mechanics that really does a good job of walking through the CFL myths.

The Simple Dollar Retro: If I Could Do It All Over Again: Advising Myself At Age Eighteen If I had the last ten years to do all over again, I’d easily have all the stuff I have now and a LOT more money in the bank. This is what I would do.