<$Wednesday, January 30, 2008$>
Festively frugal
| The 110th Festival of Frugality went up yesterday at Mrs. Micah. There's plenty of good stuff in there. I especially appreciated Bean Sprout's alternatives to Freecycle. I've never actually used Freecycle, but I am subscribed to the local group. I had to opt out of having posts e-mailed to me because they were so frequent, and it seemed that half of them were the mods scolding and nitpicking the users. That really turned me off, and I haven't been back to check it since. Other articles I enjoyed include this post at Frugal Parents on reusing greeting cards to make bookmarks and gift tags. File this under "concepts so obvious I feel like a moron for never having thought of it." I hate to throw out greeting cards, but after a while they just become clutter. Now I've got some good idea for making them serve a purpose other than soothing my inner sentimental packrat. There are plenty of other great reads over there, so go check 'em out! Labels: carnivals |
<$Thursday, September 20, 2007$>
Carnivals and Coming Attractions
| This week has been a bit insane, work-wise, and it doesn't show any signs of letting up. But I want to pop in and give a quick carnival shout-out -- my "Cost of Fear" post was featured in two carnivals this week: the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted this week by Money, Matter and More Musings, and the Festival of Frugality, over at No Credit Needed. Thanks for all your work, guys. Next week, things will hopefully settle down enough for me to give a payday report, as well as an update on how we're doing with our food spending (the short version: better, but there's still room for improvement). And that's probably it from me for this week. Labels: carnivals |
<$Tuesday, September 4, 2007$>
Carni-fest!
| I made up for my dearth of carnival submissions the last few weeks by submitting to three carnivals for this week: When Just Enough Is Good Enough made it into both the Carnival of Personal Finance (hosted this week by Advanced Personal Finance) and the Carnival of Debt Reduction (over at Debt Free Revolution). And my Food Problem: Link Roundup post is listed in this week's Festival of Frugality, hosted this week at Bean Sprouts. I haven't had time to go through any of the lists and pick my own gems, but a skim through each of them looks promising. So head on over and check them out! Labels: carnivals |
<$Monday, August 27, 2007$>
Hey, kids! It's that time again!
| This week's Carnival of Personal Finance is hosted at Free Money Finance. Once again, I have nothing listed there, but a couple of articles caught my eye. I've Paid For This Twice Already continues his Budgeting for Dummies series that I linked last week, and it continues to speak to the dark reaches of my ADD-farked brain. Savings Explained offers an alternative perspective on the Emergency Fund, and it's one I find myself agreeing with. There needs to be room allowed to save for other things. Speaking of which, that article lead to another post at that same blog that pointed out that ING Direct offers the ability to create sub-accounts. I had no idea this feature existed, and I'm jazzed to know that it does. This is exactly the kind of virtual envelope method I've been looking for, and now I know how to set it up. Yay! Labels: carnivals, saving+investing |
<$Monday, August 20, 2007$>
Carnival Time Again
| We're still falling down in the food department. But we finally broke out one of the many Target gift cards we received for our wedding last year (which, I think we'd better hurry up and use these before they start losing value; we've been holding off on spending them until we moved to our new place, but seeing as how that doesn't appear to be happening any time soon...) and bought the indoor grill that Husband has been salivating over since we filled out our gift registry last summer. This increases our cooking abilities and options, which, hopefully, will translate to more cooking real food at home and less eating out. Hopefully. The 114th Carnival of Personal Finance is up at The Simple Dollar. I don't have anything listed this week, but I found a couple of articles there that are appropos to my getting my hinder back in gear in the budgeting and finance department: I've Paid For This Twice Already has started a new Budgeting for Dummies series. Part 1 examines the importance of lists, for which I can confidently vouch. I think my laziness when it comes to lists is partially responsible for my current financial stagnation. No Credit Needed has done a nice Envelope System Video Tutorial. I used a similar envelope system to save money for my wedding and honeymoon, and I still use envelopes to save for short-term goals. The rest of my money is in electronic form, and instead of envelopes I use Post-Its to allocate and track my funds. This worked pretty well for me until, as I mentioned above, I got lazy about writing stuff down. I'm considering going to an envelope system for our food budget. Maybe this would help cut down on our food spending, especially if I don't carry the cash with me and only take it out when there's a legitimate need. I can't be tempted to pick up burgers on the way home from work if I don't have any food money on me, and it would also force my husband to plan ahead and think about what he really needs instead of calling me at work and asking me to stop and grab fast food or groceries for him on the way home. Anyway, back to the carnival: The Digerati Life has a list of the Top 10 Wealth Building Ways of Ordinary People. I must admit, I find #9 an attractive option. It ties in well with my goal to launch a web design business within the next few years, and domains don't really cost that much. A hundred dollars could buy up a handful of domain names, and if just one of them is a jackpot domain (i.e. coveted by a wealthy entity who is willing to shell out big money for it), you could see big returns. Digerati also has a good article on What Low Income Earners Can Do to Get Off Minimum Wage. Thankfully, it's been over a decade since I've been forced to rely on a minimum wage job. It was my basic computer skills that got me out of that trap, and it's been my computer skills, even more than my college degree, that have pulled me up the corporate ladder. The article advises education as the best way to beat minimum wage, but I would emphasize a computer education. Even a single basic computer literacy course will provide someone with the skills they need to get an entry-level office job, often with companies that will pay for additional training and education. Other good links not included in this week's Carnival: We're In Debt asks, Can I Use My Emergency Fund for That? - the temptation to spend our savings on wants instead of needs is another issue Husband and I keep struggling with. Finally, The Budget Fashionista has a $10 Off Old Navy coupon to share. Now I'm off to track our food spending for the last several weeks so I can show Husband just how out-of-control we've gotten. Cheers! Labels: carnivals, finance+blogs, money management, spending |