This weeks Festival of Frugality is Hosted over at FIRE Finance. He (She? Sorry, not sure of the gender of the author) wrote a very clever story that wove all of this weeks 26 entries in. It is well worth a wander over an a full read.
Of course, for those of you who are short on time, here are my personal favorites:
Frugal Babe (A good blog that I’ve run into before and forgotten about-problem solved, I’ve added her to my blogroll) reminds us that it’s only a bargain if you need it. Although I beg to point out-if you are thrift shopping and looking for something specific, such as her quest for pans, the only way you will find it is if you continue to check back frequently.
My 2 Dollars has a list of really good, basic budgeting ideas. Yankee Bill and I have recently done some household budgeting tweaking, including him taking over the checkbook-a move which has me THRILLED (I actually HATED being in charge of the checkbook) so some of these organizational tips are very timely for us.
Although I am well beyond my college days myself, I like to think that my blog can have a little bit for everyone. Personal Finance for Students and Fresh Grads has a great list of ideas of how to save that is specific to folks in school. Just think how much farther along financially the folks who follow this advice will be. . . .
I’ve recently realized the joy of actually having a professional service print out my digital photos so that they can be scrapbooked or simply added to photo albums. Mr. Cheap stuff did a review of the top 5 services, their costs, and their coupon codes. I really need to do a major order and print out a bunch of my digital photos-almost everything I’ve taken of Buddy and Princess since they have been born is on digital, not emulsion photo. . . . I’ll add that onto my “to do someday list”. . . . .
Enjoy
Grampa Bones would like to remind you that one of the most inspiring rules of saving, or investing, is the rule of 72. This rule says that if you divide the interest rate (or percentage dividend)into 72, you will get the number of years it will take to double your money. This only really works for nontaxable (ie.,retirement) accounts. This means that $1000 @ 12% willdouble in 6 years (72 divided by 12 = 6.). If you project this out for several years, you will see that it soon becomes “Real Money”. This is the reason that you must try to buy a ROTH IRA each year if you can (ie., when you are earning less than $100,000 per year). This is great because you do not even pay taxes when you finally take the Roth money out at retirement. Atraditional IRA is also great, but you will start to pay tax on it when you draw it out at retirement.
Very good points!