Festival of Frugality #128: No Debt Plan Edition

Welcome to the Festival of Frugality. This is the 128th Edition of this esteemed institution, and I hope you enjoy the No Debt Plan take on things. Not to be outdone by Funny About Money’s 127th Edition of the Festival, I’ve introduced my very own Editor’s Pick graphic: This dollar sign will be placed next to my editor’s picks for this round of the carnival.

About No Debt Plan

This blog is written to help you get and stay out of debt. Plain and simple. I’ve got a plan to help you through it. Learn more about me or read some more popular articles.

This Festival was a lot of work. I was up until 11pm last night putting it together, and up early this morning adding the finishing touches.

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Now, let’s get to the Festival of Frugality!

General

These articles didn’t seem to fit into any of the other categories, so I bunched them all together.

• Value for Your Life presents 55 Ways To Save Pennies.
• Budgets are Sexy presents 10 Reasons to be “cool” and make your own cards saying, “I explore 10 good reasons to make your own cards, rather than give your money to Hallmark ;)”
• Bean-Sprouts presents Zilok Launches in the UK. She mentions, “Zilok is like Ebay but for borrowing. You can hire tools and other things from local people, and you can recoup the cost of buying your own tools by hiring them out to others.”
• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity presents Do-It-Yourself Identity Theft Protection.
• The Red Stapler Chronicles (great blog title) presents Preparing for a Disaster.
• Funny About Money presents What’s a Thing Worth?
• Free Money Finance presents Why Shopping Around for Car Insurance is a Good Idea (It Can Save You a Ton of Money).
• The Digerati Life presents 8 Simple Ways to Save Yourself a Thousand Bucks.
• fivecentnickle presents Options for Cutting Our Long Distance Phone Expenses.
• The Happy Rock presents Cheaper Than Cheap Tip Of The Week #6 : Wash And Reuse Plastic Baggies.
• The Dough Roller presents 10 Fun and Frugal Father’s Day Gifts.
• Think Your Way to Wealth presents How Asking a Very Simple Question Can Save You Money.

Food

With the cost of food sky rocketing, anything you can do to save a dollar here or there is crucial.

• To Be Debt Free presents First Frugal Grocery Shopping Trip.
• Monroe on a budget presents I made strawberry jam today.
• Sounds Money Matters presents Stretch One Meal into Two with Leftover Recipes.
• MomAdvice presents Adventures in Breadmaking: Artisan Bread in 5.
• David Makes Cents presents Bring Your Lunch to Work Day.

Healthcare

Healthcare is expected to continue to rise indefinitely in America. Hip hip, hooray. These two tips should help you fight those increasing costs.

• FIRE Finance presents Generic Drugs are Cheaper – A Complete Guide.
• BeSafe Insure presents Using a Health Savings Account to Pay for Alternative Medicine.

Family and kids

It’s hard enough for a married couple to keep the budget balanced. Throw kids into the mix and it gets especially hard. These two tips give you some free activities to do with the kids — entertaining and keeping costs down? Sounds like a winner to me.

• The Q Family Adventure presents 13 Fun (Free) Things to Do This Summer.
• raising4boys presents Free Summer Movies for Kids – 2008 Edition.

Shopping

Making your dollar stretch further with every purchase is key.

• Just Shoot Me Now presents Great Deals Lose Value When they Sit. And Sit. And Sit.
• Stop the Ride! presents Patio Furniture Touch Up, saying, “Don’t buy new. Spruce up what you have!”
• Tip Diva presents Top Ten Tips – Saving Money On Clothes, saying, “With the economy in tough times, more people are watching their spending. Clothing is a necessary purchase, so here are some easy ways to save”
• Money Blue Book presents Find Great Bargains With eBay Auction Typos and Spelling Mistakes.
• A Dollar a Day presents Can you spend irresponsibly if you’re rich?.
• The Personal Financier presents The Personal Financier: Psychology tricks and increased spending – The Case of Expensive Wines, saying, “Our psychology is terribly easy to trick. We’re actually pretty good at it ourselves.”
• On Simplicity presents Why We Don’t Buy: Use the Science of Shopping to Your Advantage.

Lifestyle

Sometimes the frugal lifestyle is not the easiest to live. Comments from friends, family, and co-workers can bring you down. And it isn’t just an easy thing to do either.

• Mighty Bargain Hunter presents Do you notice frugality?
• Sensible Self-Improvement presents Freeganism – Living the Freegan Lifestyle.
• Slow Down Fast Today! presents How To Become Wealthy by Living Within Your Means, saying, “It might surprise you, but not all rich people live like those you see on MTV’s Cribs.”
• My Dollar Plan presents Frugal Tips I Can’t (or Won’t) Do, saying, “Sometimes you have to say no to every frugal tip in the book!”
• Living the Cheap Life presents What it means to be “cheap”.
• Frugal Mania presents Why am I frugal?
• My Small Cents presents The Simple Pleasures In Life.

Cars / Commuting / Telecommuting

The price of oil has topped $135. Will it ever go down? If hurricane’s hit refineries in the Gulf this fall, will gas go to $6 per gallon? Money saved by not driving can make a huge impact on your budget.

• Frugal Fu presents Doing it Half-way: Altering My Commute.
• Uncommon Cents presents The 5% Plan: My Baseline Gasoline Use.
• Money Smart Life presents Save Money on Gas By Learning How to Ride the Bus.

Couponing

I’m beginning to learn that cutting coupons is a great way to save a great deal of money. It isn’t the “sexiest” thing to do, but an hour or two well spent can pay off for the whole month.

• Cheap Healthy Good presents Eating Healthy While Clipping Coupons: The Dos and Don’ts.
• Tales from the Road Less Traveled presents Coupons – Making them work for you.

Travel

If you’ve got the money set aside for the trip, will gas prices make it unaffordable? Use these tips to keep your traveling as frugal as possible.

• Living Almost Large presents Frugal Tips for Travelling | LivingAlmostLarge.
• Save and Conquer presents Air Travel, saying, “Even with rising fuel costs, unless you can spend time taking in the sights, it seems that travel by air is still the way to go if you are traveling more than 400 miles.”
• Our Fourpence Worth presents Frugal Travel Begins Before the Trip: Vacation Preparation Checklist saying, “The only way to travel frugally is to travel prepared. This includes making sure all is well taken care of at home as well as planning for common travel mishaps. This post contains a checklist of suggestions for preparing for a smooth vacation.”

Investing and Budgeting

Paying high fees can be disastrous to your portfolio. Don’t pay high fees and invest in index funds and you should turn out alright. I also don’t necessarily agree with Saving Advice’s anti-budget stance, but it is a well written article.

• Best No Load Funds presents Vanguard Index Mutual Funds Versus Vanguard Managed Funds.
• Saving Advice presents Why You Don’t Want A Budget, saying, “Conventional wisdom says that you should have a budget to get the most out of your money. While I believe a budget is a good thing to have when money is tight and you are first learning how to take reign of your personal finances, the ultimate goal should be not to have a budget at all.”
• MyRetirementBlog presents How To Analyze 401(k) Fund Offerings.

Housing

Owning a home is great. We bought our first home last fall. But it can also be expensive. As my Dad says, “It’s always something.” If it isn’t the water heater going out, it’s the bug infestation in your lawn. These tips help you keep your housing costs down.

• Money & Fitness presents Being Efficient and Frugal in your Bedroom.
• Prime Time Money presents How to Reduce Your Property Taxes.
• paidtwice presents Frugal Tip: Put Lights on Timers.
• MoneyNing presents We Need to Conserve as Much Energy as Possible.
• Greener Pastures: Personal Finance presents Frugal Ways to Protect You, Your Yard, and Your Trash, From Summer Pests.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Festival of Frugality using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. Thanks for stopping by — and please do come back!

Tagged as: Festival of Frugality