Festival of Frugality for 3-13-07

This weeks Festival of Frugality is held over at the home of the Festival itself, and hosted by Jim, the founder of the Festival!

There are 18 posts subdivided into 5 categories. I thought that this week I would give you the categories and then give you the post under each that caught my eye the most along with a commentary.

1) Department of I Don’t Buy It. “Eating Greens Will Save You Green“. OK, this topic only had one post, but it does bring up a very valid and important point. Being healthy saves you money and enables you to live longer (which means you’ll need MORE money in the long run for retirement). I know that there are a lot of folks in this country who don’t each much in the way of veggies, preferring the standard “meat and potatoes” fare that we think of when we think of American food. Yankee Bill was among those when I married him (through no fault of my wonderful MIL-She tried, really). Luckily I was able to introduce the habit of eating vegetables while he was still in that “wildly in love and willing to do anything for me” phase, and it has stuck. After all, he has to live at least an extra 10 years now that he’s married to me

2) Coupons & Freebies. The Free Geek has a list of 95 different ways to get various things for free. You’ve got to love an article that starts out with “Whoever it was that said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” didn’t know about the Internet.” I’m especially interested in #68-#75 since I really need to make changes in my blog template (yes, I know a lot of those are for WordPress, but I could change with enough incentive), and 81-84 have possibilities, but I need to think about the ethical considerations (although technically, since you all are reading me, I am a member of the media and therefore a journalist).

3) House & Home. How to Get the Best Deal on Appliances has a pretty easy to follow comprehensive list of steps to follow when appliance shopping. A few ideas that weren’t mentioned (and that I haven’t actually tried myself)were to try buying from either a scratch and dent place, buying a floor model, buying a “refurbished” appliance, buying from a Habitat for Humanity “REstore”, or buying from a rental place (not on a rental plan, but buying a used rental).

4) Save on Spending. Overcoming Emotional Spending is a very interesting article. It is more about looking at the reasons that we spend money rather than a simple “how to”. I always find the psychology behind behaviors very fascinating (blame it on my major in college!) and spending is one of those things that is effected by many things other than your actual need of an item.

5) Miscellaneous. Ah, women and their hair-a mystery for the ages. I couldn’t resist reading “10 hair care product myths“. One thing I semi disagree with is “Your hair can’t tell how much your shampoo costs — expensive hair care products are no more effective than inexpensive ones“. I think this is semi true. There are some inexpensive products that do not work well. When I had long hair I found that the cheap V05 conditioner worked fine, but the Suave (which cost the same) was awful. So some cheap brands are less effective, but some are just as good. You just have to use some trial and error-and don’t stock up on that super cheap deal unless you’ve tried the brand before and know you like it!

As always, I encourage you to head on over and check out all of the entries!