Round-up, and Carnival Headed This Way

Funny is celebrating the Fourth of July by hosting the Totally Money Carnival. Today among other things I’ll be spending some time viewing the posts that have already come in. Submissions are open until 6:00 p.m. Sunday, Central Daylight Time. So be sure to submit your best and totally money story through this handy form.

Urkl. The workload during the present “vacation” has been so outrageous I haven’t sent any of my own pieces to carnivals for several weeks. Nor, for that matter, have I written much that could reasonably be accused of falling into the “personal finance” category. 🙄

Worse, I haven’t had time to read many of my favorite blogs, or comment on them. Blogger’s new scheme to force readers to create their own Blogger site before they’ll let you comment has discouraged me from reading and commenting on blogs in general, mostly because many of my favorite sites are on Blogger. This started at Frugal Scholar, who’s adventuring in Nantes just now. Be sure to keep an eye on that site for updates.

At a Gai Shan Life, where Blogger also has decided to block comments from non-members, Revanche pauses in her wedding plans to reflect on the cost of adopting a dog—a cost she detailed a few days ago. LOL! Dogs do cost a ton of money. Sounds like Revanche and PiC’s new critter, though, is worth it.

Speaking of pets, Nicole & Maggie have a hilarious general theory of cat hair over at Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured.

Donna Freedman has posted a number of interesting pieces since last I visited my friends. Here it is, almost the Fourth of July, and she’s already thinking about Christmas giving. Possibly this is a way of deflecting thoughts about the death of a beloved aunt and that lifelong loneliness we suffer when we lose our  loved ones.

At the Digerati Life, SVB compares public school and private school costs. Public schools in California are getting expensive, what with taxpayer revolts and the general collapse of the body politick there.

Over at Money Beagle, Blogger is also demanding that you sign up for a Blogger account before you can comment. Alas and oh well. Money Beagle had an adventure with the family gas grill the other day. But the BIG adventure is the birth of their second baby. Congratulations, Beagles!

Hm. Speaking of home-schooling and other parental eccentricities, Five-Cent Nickel reports that the new credit-card law will make it difficult or impossible for a stay-at-home parent to get a credit card in her or his name. As some readers there comment, it also will put abused women at even more risk and make it harder for them to escape their abusers. Thank you very much, O infinitely wise leaders!

Free Money Finance contemplates the possibility of living the royal life on $900 a month. Would you be willing to do what it takes to make that possible?

And speaking of parenting, Evan recently celebrated his first Father’s Day. As a dad, that is.

Mrs. Accountability ponders the art and science of filling out business deposit slips, and along the way drops a couple of amazing factoids about the strange things people will do.

Brip-Blap remarks that he feels he’s about plateaued out with blogging about PF issues. Sustainable living is beginning to interest him more…check out the cool lawn chairs he rescued and fixed up.

Check out the amazingly ambitious Crystal’s new blog—as if Budgeting in the Fun Stuff and several other enterprises weren’t enough, she’s created a new site called (ta da!) How I Make Money Blogging. LOL! Maybe I should start one called “How I Make Money Editing.” 😀

At I Pick Up Pennies, Abigail and Tim are closing in on a smokin’ deal on a house. They’ve been house-hunting for a while in Phoenix’s surprisingly hot low-end market: speculators now believe prices have hit rock-bottom and now are bidding up prices in a new frenzy to get into the rental or fix-&-flip market. And here’s a new refinement of the “you can’t post here unless…” phenomenon: her host thinks I’m still logged in as my WordPress alternative to Blackboard, a site URL I do not care to publicize. Even though I’m actually logged off of WordPress.com, it insists that I have to sign up for something called “Intense Debate” to avoid posting under my course’s URL. Jeez!

Maybe I’m too cranky about this. But you know, it’s like being asked to carry around yet another “member” card to get a fair price on goods at grocery stores. My wallet is so stuffed with those things I break my fingernails on them trying to get out a credit card. I’ve stopped shopping in stores that demand that I fill out yet another form with personal information that’s none of their business. There’s a limit. And I’m at my limit for filling out forms for online sites, too. No more of that!

Welp, speaking of making money editing, now that I’ve finally shoveled the last big project off my desk, I’ve gotta spend half the day catching up with the bookkeeping and paying bills. So…it’s off to see the Wizard (the online QuickBooks wizard, that is).