Bookmarked: Carnivals and Links - June 26
Festival of Frugality #131
This week I participated in the Festival of Frugality #131 - Summer Savings Edition hosted by the Broke Grad Student. Included was my post on Why i Hate Open-Loop Gift Cards. There were some great entries, so check out the rest of the festival when you get a chance.
Woops - Festival of Frugality #126
I also somehow forgot to mention that in May, I was pleased to be included in the Festival of Frugality - #126, The If i Had A Car Edition kindly hosted by The Financial Blogger. Included in the Festival was my recent post on The Microsoft Office Burden. My apologies for forgetting the mention until now.
Links
Outside of the great entries in the Festival of Frugality, here are some of the posts that have caught my eye in the last week or so:
- Trent over at The Simple Dollar posted on Ten Tips to Maximize the Value of a Doctor’s Visit. I was actually thinking about this subject the other day — doctors visits are difficult enough once; you might as well get as most out of a visit as you can.
- Frugal Dad has a great post on Cherry-Picking Coupons to Maximize Savings. For some reason it had never occurred to me to turn to eBay for grocery coupons. Thanks to this post, I just won a whole bunch of coupons for Tropicana Orange Juice.
- Five Cent Nickel posted on The Hidden Costs of Renting a Car. It really is amazing how quickly the costs add up, which is why I usually opt to try public transportation whenever possible when traveling. Sometimes that just not possible, but FCN’s post provides helpful knowledge to be armed with.
Bookmarked: Carnivals and Links - May 18
It has been an incredibly busy few days, with quite a bit of traveling, but I have been able to keep up somewhat with other personal finance blogs and carnivals. From the last week:
Carnivals
This week I participated in the Festival of Frugality #125 - Save Some Money If You Are Rich Edition hosted by Mike over at Quest For Four Pillars. Included was my post on The Outrageous Cost of Movie Tickets.
Links
From the #125 Festival of Frugality, I particularly enjoyed:
- Over at Money Smart Life, an excellent post on Money Tips for New College Graduates - Spending, Saving, & Budgeting Advice. Those first few months are crucial — the financial choices you make (or don’t make) can have a significant impact on your financial security down the line. Get started on the right foot!
- Over at Five Cent Nickel, Nickel tells us about Saving Money with CFLs, which can both save money and save energy. I’ve been using CFLs for a while, and I’ve been quite happy. Pretty much a win-win situation.
- At brip blap, Steve takes a closer look at whether American kids are stupid about personal finance -I’ll be honest, I have always registered the news headlines regarding these surveys of high school students, but had never bothered to actually look a the questions carefully. Definitely an interesting read.
Bookmarked: Carnivals, Links, and More - May 07
It has been a very busy week for me, but I did find time to participate in my first two carnivals ever, as well as continue to enjoy reading other blogger’s posts and contributions.
Carnival of Personal Finance
Kimberly Palmer over at US News & World Report’s Alpha Consumer blog hosted the 151st Carnival of Personal Finance this Monday, and I was lucky enough to have my post “Keeping Track of Rebates and Promotions (Remember the Milk)” included in the list. Thanks to Kimberly for hosting this week!
Festival of Frugality
Dawn over at Frugal for Life hosted the 124th Festival of Frugality (”The Name Edition”), and I was honored to have one of my posts included — “Avoiding Airline Fees“. Again, thanks to Dawn for taking the time to host the festival this week!
What I Have Been Reading
I have been considering doing a mini-road trip at some point this summer, and with talk of “How Gas Prices Will Ruin Your Summer” (ABC News), the issue of gas prices has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Naturally, this subject has been getting quite a bit of discussion lately, and I found two blog posts in particular interesting: Ron over at The Wisdom Journal’s entry on “10 Simple Behavioral Changes That Save Gas” and DR over at The Dough Roller’s entry on “25 Ways to Save Money on Gas“. Both posts offer some very useful tips that I plan to keep in mind.
On the subject of protecting yourself when making large purchases, Money Blue Book has a useful post on how to “Get A Free Extended Warranty By Purchasing with a Credit Card” — extended warranty protection is something that I always knew some credit cards had, but had never really bothered to investigate. Turns out that among my cards, the Citi mtvU card has the Visa extended warranty protection, which means that I can continue to use the card for the effective 5% back at Amazon and receive extended warranty protection.
Of course, even with extended warranty protection, sometimes you just want to get rid of the thing, which is why I enjoyed learning more about what happens when Buying and Returning Heavy, Expensive Products on Amazon over at Clever Dude. His experience makes me more comfortable purchasing large items online at Amazon.
Bookmarked: What I’ve Found Interesting - April 24
Here are some of the blog posts I have starred in Google Reader in the last week:
- Get Rich Slowly describes “How to Stop Junk Mail in Its Tracks.” A lot of the steps listed have effectively helped me. Unfortunately, I have not yet found an easy way to take care of the worst offender in my mailbox: charities. No joking - during the last year I have received dozens and dozens of those sheets of personalized labels. I now use a template email to send to each charity I receive a solicitation from, and slowly it has gotten better, but there must be a better way…
- Living the Cheap Life asks “Is it worth it to buy an Entertainment book?.” I have to agree with Mike’s conclusion — the Entertainment book is often a good deal if purchased at a steep enough discount. For me, the movie theater discounts and the 5% American Airlines coupon pay for the book.
- Hustler $$$ Blog tells us how to get a “Free DVD Rental every Monday” using the RedBox DVD Kiosk service. I’ve used them before and it was quite a good deal — unfortunately there isn’t one convenient to me, so I’m sticking with Netflix for now. (If you do use RedBox, be sure to check out their credit card skimmer security alert).
- The Digerati Life has a recent article “Coupon Tips and Tricks That Can Cut Your Grocery Bill By 80%” that has a ridiculously long twenty-five coupon tips to lower your grocery bill. Definitely very interesting reading.
- Finally, No Credit Needed presents how “The $100-A-Day-Rule Prevents Impulse Buying.” It is a simple, but very clever, way to try to fight impulse buying and force careful consideration before purchasing.