Round-ups

Well…yes, I am. Gotta check off a passel of student exercises and get back to work on the OB-gyn book. Oh, well. By way of procrastination, let’s go a-lollygagging in the meadows of Blogland.

OMG! Have you seen what Tom Drake at Canadian Finance Blog is up to? He’s built an entire series around his jaundiced view of some very suspect insurance products. His most recent target: Identity Theft Insurance.  Mwa ha hah! This is great stuff. Don’t miss any of the entries in this excellent set of posts.

At BrokeProfessionals.com, 101 Centavos sweetly describes an awesome anniversary evening and makes a good case for the occasional splurge.

Frugal Scholar ruminates on product lifecycles, the state of frugality, and the art of using things up.

Bargain Babe wonders how much gasoline has to cost before you start to change your driving habits.

Here’s a useful post from Evan at My Journey to Millions: What to bring to your accountant. This year I tried to simplify and clarify the pile of paper that needed to be forked over. The less time your tax pro has to spend plowing through your paper or electronic debris, the less the job will cost you!

Money Crush experiences that sinking feeling after having lost track of the days…including the day the mortgage bill got automatically paid. Yipes!

Mrs. Accountability is a past master of food caching. Take a look at the incredible produce she scored: 60 pounds of it! And check out her strategies for preserving and storing it.

At The Digerati Life, SVB contemplates what life would be like in a tiny house. This post is replete with photos, highly entertaining. LOL! Have you noticed that these micro-castles amount to the ultimate escape fantasy for frugalists? The things are fascinating. Check out the stories from her readers in the comments section.

At Ultimate Money Blog, Mrs. Money suggests a passel of ways to use up eggs. This is always a mystification for me: I don’t eat eggs (they make me sick unless mixed with other foods) but occasionally need one or two to make biscuits and the like. Since an unadulterated egg makes the dog throw up, too, this leaves me with anywhere from five to eleven eggs to get rid of…they usually end up going in the trash, weeks and weeks later.

Nicole and Maggie at Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured describe in detail what goes on during those wonderful three-month “vacations” people think university and K-12 faculty get to enjoy. Heeeee! You, too, can become a teacher and learn to work for free.

Uh oh…looks like the handyman is just pulling up to the house. Gotta go!

This weekend another wet storm is drifting in from California. We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow, though it looks suspiciously like we could see that today. And once again the hysterical talking heads on the Play-Nooz tell us to expect cold…ohhhhh! even SNOW IN PHOENIX! Eek.

{gronk} I suppose this means I’ll have to haul all the potted plants back inside the house. Again. Speaking of things meteorological, you see last night’s Need to Know on PBS? Check it out. And do you realize the ideologues in the Montana legislature have proposed, with straight faces, to repeal science? No joke: read it and weep. LOL! Who would’ve thunk a legislator could be even dumber than the specimens in Arizona?

Sorta like repealing the Ten Commandments because we don’t agree with them. I love it! If this kind of stupidity weren’t merrily leading to the destruction of our republic, it would be hilarious!

Oh well. At least I won’t be here to see much of it. You young pups and your children will be the ones at the barricades. While we’re breaking out the fiddles, though, let’s see what’s going on in the blogosphere.

Ran across a new-to-me site called 101 Centavos, whose proprietor has a nice narrative voice and a propensity for posting entertaining copy. This piece on the joys of buying new furniture struck a nerve with his readers, eliciting a ton of commentary.

Speaking of your kids, Money Beagle came up with three good ways to save on disposable diapers. Another new dad, Evan at My Journey to Millions, contemplates the hidden and not-so-hidden costs of homeownership.

Meanwhile, Revanche, having agonized at A Gai Shan Life about whether, when, and how to move the aged parents in with herself and PiC, posts a moving story about her mother and her mother’s influence on her.

At A Digerati Life, SVB kindly offers an array of ideas for box lunches that don’t involve sandwiches. Much appreciated…I’ve never been fond of sandwiches. These sound great.

Did you know Google offers a service that lets you make and receive phone calls for free? Yes, even over a phone, not a computer. Bargain Babe explains how.

Money Crush asks what is the strangest thing you’ve ever done for money. Heh heh…reminds me of some of SDXB’s antics.

The recession ain’t over yet at the Accountability household. Mrs. Accountability reflects on the present spate of hard times at Out of Debt Again.

At the Ultimate Money Blog, Mrs. Money finds she and Mr. Money have different philosophies when it comes to stocking in food. She calculates ways to build a grocery budget that will work for them both.

Donna Freedman has another one of her amazing giveaways at Surviving and Thriving. Hurry to sign up: deadline is Monday!

Meanwhile, Donna’s daughter Abby, over at I Pick Up Pennies, has been wrestling with the many headaches occasioned by the insurance company’s totalling their car after an encounter with one of Arizona’s famed homicidal drivers.

At Bargaineering, Jim wonders what readers think about retailers’ asking customers to divulge their zip codes.

March Madness continues at Free Money Finance. About this time is when things heat up. Be sure to go over there and vote for your favorites.

At Get Rich Slowly, guest blogger Gary Arndt has a very interesting post on maximizing the value of your cost-of-living dollar by moving overseas. This is a strategy I’ve considered more than once, and as costs here start to rise with little or no hope of fixed-income sources increasing, it begins to look more appealing.

Over Forty and Loving It reflects on the overmedicating of Americans, to which one can only say amen, sister!

At Brip Blap, Steve reflects on what, for lack of a better word, might best be called blogger’s block. Is there one among us who does not know whereof he speaks?

Speaking of blogger’s block, Steve’s piece reminds me that it’s 9:30, I’ve been sitting here since 6:00 a.m., I’m hungry, and the sun is finally coming out. Bye, all!

Before moving on to my favorite bloggers, let’s go to Love Drop and check out what they’re up to this month: trying to raise 13 grand to buy a service dog to help a family with not one but two autistic children. This is big, folks:

What else is going on out there?

At My Journey to Millions, Evan discovered that parenthood saves money in unexpected ways. Some of the saved cash is going to buy life insurance on the new kid; before your murmur “bad karma,” take a look at his reasoning.

Meanwhile, Revanche is still dealing with the opposite problem: parents who are growing more dependent in old age.

At the Ultimate Money Blog, Mrs. Money offers several home remedies for dandruff. Before you reach for the Selsun Blue with all its strange ingredients, try one of these first.

Donna Freedman emits an elaborate rant at Surviving and Thriving, spinning off the latest news-bleat, “frugal fatigue.” This appears to be what the herd journalists regard as the logical outcome of the late, great “new frugality” spawned as the recession-that-is-not-a-depression bore down upon us. LOL! One reason I canceled the local paper was exactly this kind of predictability.

At the Digerati Life, SVB suggests several fall-back resources for 99ers—people who run out of unemployment insurance—plus some steps you can take in advance to mitigate the effects of potential joblessness.

At Brip-Blap, Steve comes up with a nice contrarian take on net worth. Suspicions confirmed!

Mrs. Accountability is getting worried about the looming increases in prices across the board. With gasoline at $3.15 a gallon and rising, you can be sure everything that has to be trucked in or needs energy for production will also go up. For sure, it’s time to start stocking up—next week when the new budget cycle starts again, it’s off to Sprouts, Target, and Costco to replenish the food and cleaning goods hoard.

Frugal Scholar reports an ethical dilemma posed by a conversation overheard in a thrift shop. It’s an interesting post with a number of interesting implications.

Money Crush has a good post on finding part-time home-based work, in which she suggests a number of issues to consider when thinking about this as a possibility.

At Bargaineering, Marquit reports that the government is about to inflict…uhm, offer debit cards for tax refunds. I can hardly wait.

Go to Bargain Babe today to nail the amazing list of discounts, goodies, and leads to sales she just put online. It’s one treasure trove after another at that site!

Isn’t it interesting, the number of widowed and divorced women who choose to stay single? One recent study showed that among Europeans, a man lives longer if he’s married and a women lives longer if she’s single. Whatever the reasons, a lot of women seem to intuit this and, about midway through life, begin to prefer a state of onliness. There’s something to be said for solitude.

Over at Surviving and Thriving, Donna Freedman holds forth eloquently on the pleasures and challenges of aloneness, spinning off a post from a site called The Quest for $85,000. If you haven’t run across the Quest blogger yet, you should definitely pay a visit—though it’s yet another of those sites where the person documents a struggle to get out of debt, there’s some very engaging writing here.

In a similar vein, NicoleandMaggie generated a lot of commentary with a lively post suggesting some people are not cut out to be stay-at-home parents.

On other fronts, take a look at the pretty bowls Bargain Babe scored at Anthropologie for dollar-store prices! She shares her secrets for how to snare amazing deals from that glitzy store.

Money Crush has a thoughtful post on pursuing what you love for a living.

Mrs. Accountability asks readers to weigh in on the benefits of cash-back vs. buying things with rewards points.

After a decluttering frenzy, Mrs. Money pauses to consider seven so-called “superfoods” you can afford—and they’re all delicious (ohhh, welllll…maybe with the exception of broccoli, the only subject George Bush and I ever agreed upon).

Over Forty and Loving It emits a cri de coeur over the Republicans’ determination to do us all out of any  kind of sane healthcare system.

At My Journey to Millions, Evan describes his accounting scheme to describe his progress on net worth without having to reveal information he prefers to keep private, and then emits his own cri de coeur about people who bellyache about money while they diddle away enough to beggar King Midas.

At Brip-Blap, Steve considers ways to handle fear, and in doing so describes an amazing and hair-raising situation he had to cope with while living overseas.

Five-Cent Nickel and his readers share their worries about keeping sensitive data secure.

OMG! Did you know you can now buy divorce insurance? Jim at Bargaineering asks for readers’ take on this product…when you look at the terms he describes, it looks like yet another scam. The most coverage you can buy is 25 grand. My husband spent that much per year during the time he was paying me alimony. The insurance is pricey and it doesn’t cover enough to matter.

Welp, speaking of aloneness, there’s nobody here but me to fix breakfast and feed the dog, so I’d better get up and start moving. Have a great weekend!

Jack the Handyman, literally a Jack of All Trades, came over yesterday to lighten my bank account considerably. Lordy! Three hundred and fifty dollah to repair a foundation crack aggravated by some previous owner’s half-baked DIY patch job and ingress by water, to sand and paint an exterior door that Satan had bought with a white primer and never actually painted, and to climb up on the roof and repaint three sun-blasted gables, along the way prizing out some badly applied filler that was shot and replacing it with a new, longer-lasting product. Though I’m low on cash at this time of month, I didn’t feel too bad about his fee: he worked from around 10:00 a.m. until after dark, mostly doing hard physical work that takes some skill and know-how.

The damage on the west side of the house was a little alarming, and kind of odd given that the yard there is so xeric almost  no water is applied to the cacti and there. We figure either rainwater is backing up against the foundation or someone in the past had a garden that they watered copiously. Since the pitch is away from the house and too little rain falls to eat into the concrete, it’s probably the result of someone’s ill-advised flower garden. At any rate, it looks like he did a decent job of repairing it, this time with concrete patching compound, not stucco.

Southwesterners love stucco.

I loved a number of posts around the web this week. Check out some of these:

• At Canadian Finance Blog, you’ll find a hefty dose of common sense about the commonly accepted buy and hold strategy.

• Speaking of common sense, here’s another shot of it at Sustainable Life.

• At I Pick Up Pennies, Abby reflects on the aftermath of her brush with Guillaine-Barré syndrome, and her mom, writer Donna Freedman, also recalls that horrifyingly difficult time.

• Mrs. Accountability has a nice post on ways to use up veggies, my fave being (yes!!) stir-fry. In a similar vein, over at The Digerati Life, SVB reflects on the long-term economy of sticking to healthy foods.

• At the Ultimate Money Blog, Mrs. Money considers whether she can (or should) quit her job.

• Money Crush warns of the expenses that can accrue after you move into a new home, unless you keep a strong grip on things.

• Bargain Babe is running a video series on one of my favorite topics, drugstore beauty products.

• Hot diggety! Frugal Scholar has a recipe for Texas Caviar, a truly delectable treat.

• At A Gai Shan Life, Revanche is discussing her wedding plans with the family, and wonders if it’s OK to be married in a “borrowed” wedding dress—actually an offering from a friend.

• Evan, proprietor of My Journey to Millions, contributes a good post on reviewing your will to Bargaineering.

• Budgeting in the Fun Stuff got into Free Money Finance’s March Madness contest—FaM entered too late to make the cut (gotta stay alert to this thing next year!). So go on over to FMF and vote for BiFS!

• And if this round-up had an editor’s choice, it would definitely be Steve’s outstanding post at Brip-Blap, “Why We Need Immigrants.”

Well, let’s start the week with a look around to see what’s going on.

• Biggest news in the PF blogosphere is J. Money got canned! He’s not crying, though. He had himself prepared and even is set up so he can regard it not as a disaster but as an opportunity. Go for it, J.!

• At The Digerati Life, Silicon Valley Blogger offers five ways to beat holiday stress. All the fake (and expensive) “cheer” really can be depressing. These are smart ways to help stay on an even keel.

• Mrs. Accountability tells an amazing story about a family who fostered her for a while when she was young—and the effect their financial habits had on her thinking.

• Over at the Ultimate Money Blog, Mrs. Money faces a family crisis and considers what money is really worth.

• At Money Crush, Jackie describes a cool blogospheric giving campaign that netted a nice chunk of dough for charity.

• Bargain Babe provides a lead to Swagbucks and a handy link to sign up. Swagbucks is a rewards site that pays you in virtual currency just for searching the Web. LOL! If I’d signed up for this a few years ago, by now I’d be a virtual zillionaire!

• At 23toLife.com, Lesley tells an amazing story that rings a bell loudly in my ear. She managed to cull her home library from 1,200 dustcatchers to just 33 books! Wow…I’ve never counted my books—too scary—but of late have been thinking it’s past time to get rid of all five ceiling-to-floor shelving units filled with tomes I no longer use, thanks to the Internet. The wallsful of books could be replaced with a Kindle. Maybe.

• Eemusings has a very interesting and thoughtful post on a similar topic at Musings of an Abstract Aucklander, also spinning off the issue of paring down the book collection: finding a balance between hoarding and minimalism. A nice read at an elegant and well written site.

• At Ginger Won’t Snap, Ginger Corsair describes a bizarre incident that happened when she and her roommate rented a room through Airbnb.com. This is an interesting new-to-me site—check out Ginger’s extremely cool “About” page.

• Check  out this easy and tasty lemon cake Revanche came up with at Gai Shan Life, from which follows a reflection on her relocation.

• At Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Crystal elicited a slew of comments with a rumination over how much she loves her husband and her life with him and what would ensue if anything happened to him.

• Frugal Scholar has a nice post on the art of making do. We know she’s an artist at finding miraculous things at the thrift store. Here she marvels at the American obsession for the perfect object.

• I love Donna Freedman’s graceful idea for “stealth giving.” We should all make a pact to do this all year round in 2011.

• Now that he’s a dad, Evan at My Journey to Millions is doing his own en famille giving with a 529 plan, saving toward the kid’s future college expenses. He describes 529 plans and how to set one up for your kids.

• At Simply Forties, Mary demonstrates a really neat way to wrap gifts inexpensively. Almost makes me feel sorry I have plenty of Christmas wrap left over from last year!

• And at I Pick Up Pennies, Abigail has about had it with the Christmas marketing frenzy, especially the “sales” that come with catches and deceptive practices. Maybe, as some of her readers suggest, it’s time to opt out of the gigantic Xmas Potlatch.

Want to tell your money story? Got a money question? J.D. Roth is looking for readers to contribute to Get Rich Slowly’s “Reader Stories” and “Ask the Readers” departments. He’s also soliciting guest posts. Check out the details here.

Free Money Finance is seeking submissions for this year’s March Madness. Last year FaM won a few dollars for the All Saint’s choir. His announcement went up on the 14th—hope it’s not too late to submit something for this year’s contest. Got any nominations?