Carnivals & Festivals

At Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, Ginger has posted the 173rd edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. She has kindly included one of Funny’s chapters on the job saga, among many possibly more distinguished entries. For example, Silicon Valley Blogger, proprietor of The Digerati Life, offers some wise advice on how to cope with the current market unrest. Over at Living Almost Large, a lively tho’ mostly one-sided conversation is going on about some people’s kids who walk away from mortgages they actually can afford. If you’re feeling a little nervous, you can bring on an attack of hyperventilation by perusing Terence Gillespie’s piece, at YourOptimal.com, titled “Your Optimal Bailout Plan.”On the other hand, if you intend to stay the course, My Dollar Plan has a very interesting piece on strategies you probably haven’t used in your 401(k). Need a break from hyperventilating? Try a little Canadian humor with Big Cajun Man’s Stupidest Bill Ever.

The 146th Festival of Frugality is up at Dollar Frugal, who provides an entertaining Ben Franklin theme. Funny’s story of the pursuit of the new barbecue shows up here, along with a very nice compliment. 🙂 Lots of good stuff in this festival. Free Money Finance reminds us to ask for discounts–and don’t be shy about it. At Saving to Invest, Andy has an interesting tip about a tax-free money market fund. Think Your Way to Wealth sorts all those gas-saving tips we’ve heard into fact vs. fiction. And Cheap Healthy Good reports on the new country of origin labeling that we soon will see in the grocery store.

Living Almost Large hosts the 79th Carnival of Money Stories with a fun (and funny!) cartoon theme. The “beat the stress” chapter of Funny’s layoff saga appears in this carnival. And oboy! Here’s another update in the Blueprint for Financial Prosperity story of Jim’s garden project! Since I just filled up the backyard flowerbed and a gigantic pot with vegetable seeds in preparation for coming unemployment, this tale has taken on special significance. SVB posts a thoughtful rumination on bailout pro’s and cons that has spawned a long series of interesting reader responses. And at Simply Forties, Mary tells the story of a very fine money day.

The Make It from Scratch Carnivalappeared at Make It from Scratch. Funny’s discovery that you can clean your kitchen cabinetry with baby oil was among the many entries. Check out Almost Frugal’s incredible endive-gorgonzola soup, which she reports is offered in France as a recipe for small children. I actually looked for gorgonzola when I was at Costco yesterday (they often have a very nice version, but not at the ghetto store near my house, alas)…next time I find it, yum! More my speed in the upcoming days of unemployment is Cheap Healthy Good’s low-down curried root soup, which sounds like delicious comfort food and may be affordable on the dole. At Little House in the Suburbs, the Tomato Lady explains how to make home-made whole wheat pita bread, mighty tasty-looking. At Stop the Ride, Stephanie shows how to help the kids make personalized drinking glasses—lots easier than kid-painted ceramics, and just as fun.

Mama Bear hosts the Make It from Scratch Carnival at I’ve Got a Little Space to Fill, where Funny’s squib on substituting laundry detergent for dish detergent appears. On two of my favorite subjects, make-it-yourself dog food and bizarre chemicals in processed food, Condo Blues tells how to make apple & banana doggie treats…and in passing reveals that some baby foods contain corn syrup (!). Speaking of treats, The Sojourner posts some to-die-for photos and a link to a recipe for chocolate-peanut butter ice cream, with some added blandishments of her own. Check out the amazing idea for green tomato pie at The Homestead Blogger, and All Rileyed Up’s easy frozen banana treats. Money Blue Book explains an elaborate system for extracting free products from drugstores, using coupons and rebates.

Value for Your Life hosts the 145th Festival of Frugality; Funny’s squib on the least important bill appears here. Master Your Card tells an astonishing story about life in his apartment complex—good grief! Paid Twice gets an interesting conversation going with a post on school fund-raising tactics. Speaking of school, even though Broke Grad Student has graduated, he’s still blogging; check out ten ways college students can score free food. Our Four Pence Worth has a nice rumination on doing with air-conditioning, leading one to reflect that many a generation before ours survived just fine without chilling down a box to live in during the summer.

Aryn hosts a vast Carnival of Personal Finance at Sound Money Matters this week, where Funny’s dialogue with the investment adviser appears. She offers an appealing autumn theme.

Most inspiring, Madison at My Dollar Plan describes how she escaped the workforce at the ripe old age of 29…hint: if you’re 16, it’s not too soon to get started. At Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, Jim reports next year’s projected tax brackets, along with a few other interesting details. And at Gather Little by Little, GLBL explains how to sell a used car. This is quite an eclectic carnival—you need to visit it and check out the whole show.

The 144th Festival of Frugality appears at My Two Dollars, who has kindly included Funny’s squib on no-purchase days. This carnival, too, is truly huge and full of interesting and useful posts. My attention was grabbed by Cheap Healthy Good’s disquisition on Angus beef, since my long-dead Daddy, an escaped cowboy who used to aver that the best thing about being from Texas was being as far from Texas as you can get, deeply believed that black Angus cows produced better beef than any other bovine. Not that he liked cows, mind you, except to eat them. Speaking of food, Jim at Bargaineering is rightfully pleased with the produce from his deck & container garden…and yes, there is a difference between real and grocery-store tomatoes. Sound Money Matters titles a very nice rumination “How to Invite Windfalls into Your Life“—tho’ to my mind it’s more like creating opportunities and making the most of them. At Car-buying Tips to Save You Money, there’s an interesting article on used car pricing; it’s not the only piece on buying used cars to hit this festival—go to the site to find more.

Moolanomy has posted the thirty-first Money Hacks Carnival, which includes Funny’s realization that there’s no need to pour money on the entire yard if you only use two or three parts of it as outdoor living areas. Lots of good money how-to’s here, such as Steward’s post at My Family’s Money on making your child a millionaire (literally or figuratively, depends on you). And hey, big spender—if you can’t figure out how to spend your money, Money Blue Book will explain how to get rid of it with an American Express Black Centurion card. Budgets Are Sexy urges readers to keep receipts at least three months—preferably a year—and describes the lazy man’s way to do so. And so it goes.

Photo by Ms. Tea
http://flickr.com/photos/59089068@N00/1218519

BankerGirl does an awesome job of hosting the169th Carnival of Personal Financeamid a frenetic schedule that includes planning a wedding, a big workplace project, and teaching. She kindly included Funny’s rumination on the real cost of an intellectual worker’s overhead. Among the amazing editor’s picks, check out what Bob is up to at ChristianPF: the guy isconverting his car to run on water. On a subject near and dear to my heart, over at Moolanomy Pinyo considers the benefits ofcollecting one’s Social Securityat the earliest possible moment. Harvesting Dollars wondersif you’ll really spend less in retirementthan you do while you’re working (IMHO: if you’re already frugal and you don’t have to buy special clothes for work or eat out for lunch, probably not). Quest for Four Pillars adds to the retirement discussion withan interesting rumination on the 4 percent rule; here, too, readers add some useful insights. If you like your cookies frosted, check out My Dollar Plan’s discovery that the $7,500 first-time-buyer’s tax credit is sadly misnamed. And speaking of financing real estate, My Two Dollars wonders how to go aboutgetting a mortgage when the largest part of your income is from freelancing; though I thought it was impossible, several of his readers offer solutions. Well, speaking of retirement dreams and mortgage schemes, it’s time for me to get up and go to work: don’t miss this carnival, ’cause it’s full of outstanding posts.
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Frugal Babe hosts this week’s Festival of Frugality, where Funny’s squib on Ikea appears. My attention was instantly caught by Jacob’s post at Early Retirement Extreme about saving big bucks by moving into an RV; just last night while walking the dog I passed by the RV that usually appears in front of one of the neighbor’s homes this time of year and thought…that could be the answer…. Speaking of mobility, you have to see the amazing Thriftymobile at Miss Thrifty. The Happy Rock has decided to buy real food instead of processed & prepared gunk at the grocery store…oops, sorry. We shouldn’t call it “gunk,” it being against the law to slander foodstuffs these days. Hank at MiB has come up with an interesting hack involving Costco’s cash cards.
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At Funny’s sister blog, The Copyeditor’s Desk, the 76th Carnival of Money Stories has gone live. My favorite posts there were FMF’s story about his kids’ views on paying taxes and Jim’s interesting remarks on Roth conversions and Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Since I wrote this carnival, I’d like to point out that several people who submitted posts to the Money Stories carnival also submitted the same posts to the Festival of Frugality. One managed to be included in both round-ups.

The rules to most carnivals specifically state that entries should be original and submitted to only one carnival. I can see why you would hedge your bets with the Carnival of Money Stories: so many people submit posts that aren’t really stories that a relatively small percentage of submissions are accepted. It really isn’t difficult to tell the difference between a narrated story and a list of tips, though. Why not simply submit the “5 Ways to Save” posts to a carnival that’s looking for them and leave it at that? If you think you have an actual story, send it to the Money Stories Carnival first; then if it doesn’t fly there, next week send it to the FoF or the CoPF.