Here are a few posts I enjoyed this week.

• Another post on managing time more wisely, I enjoyed reading Kristia’s rendition Are You Wasting Time and Preventing Yourself From Your Million Dollar Dream? at Family Balance Sheet.  One thing in particular that she mentioned from the article she’d read was how wealthy women used a grocery delivery service before they made their millions. We live in an area too rural for home delivery of anything, but sometimes I think it would be a nice idea to look into. Especially if it was only $10!
• Invest It Wisely posts a warning to other bloggers about a new type of scam directed to bloggers in The “Guest Post” : A Deceptive Advertising Trick.
• Another warning, this time from Len Penzo with Priceline Users Be Careful: Name the Wrong Price and You May Go To Jail apparently he bid too low and they locked him out for 24 hours. I’ve never used one of these places, but I know a bit more about them now!
• OUCH, OUCH, OUCH.  I would have been freaked out to find my car missing like that!  Click over and read When Being Cheap Upfront Costs Big Bucks in the End at Frugal Confessions.
• Joe Plemon answers a few questions with his recent post Social Security Strategies for Married Couples at Personal Finance by the Book. I’ve known a few elderly couples that were “living in sin” so that their Social Security wasn’t affected, but I thought only one person would be eligible.  Joe cleared that up – the second person would get 50% of what they were eligible to draw.
• Car Negotiation Coach gives some pointers on buying a new car in What’s a Good Price and Why Should You Keep It a Secret?

Yours Truly,

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds June 4, 2010
2. Friday Finds June 11, 2010
3. Friday Finds June 18th, 2010

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• My Financial Objectives talks about Bringing Your Efficiency Home. Definitely a topic to which I can relate, and one thing that stood out for me is the need to “relax” upon arriving home. I also read that MFO had a fairly long commute in April (40 minutes to and 60 minutes home) and if you are a regular reader of mine you know my commute is long as well (60 minutes there, 75 minutes+ home).  I have wondered why do I need to relax upon arriving home?  I’ve been sitting for over an hour.  MFO is a young man in his twenties and he feels the need to relax after his hour long commute home… could it be the stress of driving?  Anyway, back to the original link I highlighted, one of the things I am working on each weekend is to become more efficient at home. I’ve started by keeping track of what exactly I am spending my time on, and I hope to streamline some things and hopefully eliminate others.
• Wealth Artisan writes Fun Shouldn’t Cost a Fortune and lists off several ways to have fun that doesn’t cost anything once you invest in the items.  When I was growing up, we played a lot of board games, checkers and the like as we didn’t have television for many years. We also played outside a lot, and we didn’t have a swimming pool but we had a cement driveway and a water hose that we had a ton of fun with!
• Flexo over at Consumerism Commentary lists the states which participate in Sales Tax Day.  Arizona does not participate and I don’t believe it ever has.
• Wealth Informatics says It’s Christmas time! and urges people to start getting ready for the holiday season. This is a great idea because December will be here before we know it! Some really great ideas and spending categories you should think about setting up for December.
• Peak Personal Finance shares a few ways of how to Automate Your Banking. I actually use all three of the options explored in this post.
• Kevin at Financially Poor asks Do You Count Your Chickens? and shares a couple of examples of why it’s a bad idea to count your chicks before they hatch!  We actually have first hand knowledge of what that little saying really means.
• Mrs. Money at Ultimate Money Blog hosted the Carnival of Money Stories and added another entry to her series Why It’s Frugal to Live In… this one she highlights the state of Colorado.
• Abigail from I Pick Up Pennies tells us about two potentially deadly cases of customer service gone wrong in Deadly Customer Service.
• Jackie from Money Crush asks Are We Wired to Keep Up With the Joneses? and shares an example of how that can actually come in handy.
• Funny About Money shares Death by 1000 tiny annoyances, listing nearly 1000 tiny annoyances that recently had her fuming.

Thanks for stopping by, it is a hot sunny day here in Arizona and I’m going to see if I can get something else done besides reading blogs.

Have a lovely day!

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds June 4, 2010
2. Friday Finds June 11, 2010
3. Friday Finds June 25th, 2010

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• Jacq – Single Mom Rich Mom shares Catfight of the Personal Finance Blogger Chicks between her and Barbara Friedman Personal Finance. The ladies are trying to see who can spend the least amount of money in June. UPDATE: I have just been notified that two more lady bloggers have entered the competition: Christine of Money Funk and Laura of Move to Portugal. We’ll be watching to see who wins the challenge!
• Enemy of Debt talks about treating your life like a budget.  I’ve been trying to become more aware of what I spend my time on and could have written this post. Enemy of Debt has another blog called Enemy of Fat and he’s steadily making progess in losing weight.
• Money Crush shares the steps she took in How to Make an iPhone App When You Don’t Know How to Program.  Very cool and congratulations on your successful invention!
• One Money Design discusses some options if you can’t pay your income taxes on time. I don’t need this currently, but I might next year!
• Joe Taxpayer reviews the book Predictably Irrational and offers some examples from his own life.
• Consumer Boomer shares 20 ways to save money on your summer vacation.  My favorite is the staycation!
• Speaking of ways to save money, Jeff at Deliver Away Debt compiled a post with links to all the Yakezie Challenge members, in The Mega Money Tip List 600 Money Saving Tips.  I am honored that he thought my Homemade Peppermint Candy Ice Cream was cool and included it! It is less expensive than store bought and you can make it year round instead of waiting for the holidays!
• Mrs. Money over at the Ultimate Money Blog gives us a List of Compostables in What Can You Compost?

Yours Truly,

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds June 4, 2010
2. Friday Finds June 18th, 2010
3. Friday Finds June 25th, 2010

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First, some link love to the bloggers who included Out of Debt Again recently:

• On May 24th, my post Finally—Our 2008 Tax Refund Arrived was included in the Carnival of Money Stories #55 hosted at Funny About Money.
• On May 24th, my post Discover Card Debt Reduction Progress was included at the Carnival of Debt Reduction.
• On May 25th, Funny About Money included me in a post where she discussed whether gender affects blogging in A Personal Finance Blogger’s Glass Ceiling?
• On May 25th, my post I Joined a Food Coop and I’m Glad I Did was included at the Festival of Frugality #231 – Lessons About Money Edition.
• On May 26th, my post Spring Garden 2010 was included at A Gardening Carnival.

And now to my weekly roundup:

• Fiscal Fizzle had a new baby in January, got promoted at his job and feels he’s let his health slip a bit, so he’s Going on a Blog Sabbatical and promises to post on August 11th with an update.  Have a great summer and enjoy that precious baby, Wojo!
• While this isn’t a recent entry to the blog named Wealth Pilgrim, it was my favorite read during my visit there: Who is Neal Frankel : My Story – From Financial Fear to Financial Recovery. This post also caught my eye since Mr. Accountability is self-employed: How Self-Employed Can Easily Qualify for Mortgages.
• Jeff at Deliver Away Debt took Dave Ramsey serious when he said, “Get a second job selling pizza”.  This week he shares a great post entitled How To Make a Second Job Work.
• Lakita over at Personal Finance Journey asks the question: Bringing Snacks Into a Movie Theatre – Frugal or Unethical?
• Credit Card Chaser wants to know if we think Dave Ramsey’s debt negotiation advice is in line with Biblical teaching in: Dave Ramsey on Debt Renegotiation and Debt Settlement, Wrong Again?
• Red at Girl with the Red Balloon considers using a pre-paid phone instead of her cell phone in Life Without a Cell Phone Plan.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! It is getting quite warm in Arizona, the heat is upon us!

Yours Truly,

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds June 11, 2010
2. Friday Finds June 18th, 2010
3. Friday Finds June 25th, 2010

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• Beating Broke gives us an update: My Wife Quit Her Job : One Year Later. Sounds like she made a good decision to quit her job and start her own business!
• Financial Samurai tells us there are some jobs he would do gladly without pay in: The List of Jobs I’d Do for Free Baby!
• Rainy Day Saver drives an extra 10 miles to save 15 minutes and ends up spending less money in: Saving Money on my Commute. I choose to get to work by 6am because it only takes me an hour; otherwise it takes me 90 minutes due to sitting in traffic. I’m not sure how to figure the savings since I’m sitting in traffic but I’m sure it costs something for a vehicle to idle for half an hour.
• My Money Minute asks Would You Pay for Your Grocery Bags? Interestingly, in Arizona some stores give you a nickel credit if you bring in your own grocery bags, but I don’t think any have ever charged for bags.
• Roger at the Financial Amateur admits he needs to get better at time management and shares some techniques of Time Management Basics in If Time Is Money, How Can We Manage Both?
• Darwin’s Finance explores the pros and cons of putting in a swimming pool in Is Putting in a Swimming Pool Worth It? Sometimes I wish we had a swimming pool but most likely the novelty would wear off. If we ever did, I would want to use salt instead of chlorine to keep the water clear.

Yours Truly,

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds
2. Friday Finds
3. Friday Finds June 18th, 2010

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I wanted to share some great articles I read this past week:

• I totally forgot to mention that my blog post We Bought AJ His First Car was included at the 51st Carnival of Money Stories on April 26th by Andrew over at Earn Give Save. Thank you Andrew for the great job hosting the carnival!
• Be sure to read this week’s Carnival of Money Stories #52, hosted at the Carnival of Money Stories’ home blog. This week’s host unfortunately is missing in action, so the carnival didn’t travel this week but stayed home.  If you have a money story or experience to share, please hop on over and find out how to submit!
• Personal Finance Ninja shares some information about business cycles in How to Invest in the Economy: The Best Investments for Each Business Cycle.
• Jacob from Early Extreme Retirement had a great guest post this week by Jackie from Money Crush: Saying “No” to a New Car and also shares his PF background in The Roots of My Personal Finance Beliefs.
• Greg over at Eliminate the Muda tells a tale of two families with air conditioners on the fritz in Knowledge = Money in the Bank.
• Hmmm… Ending the Rat Race is Away Working on a Project.  If you check out his front page today, it looks like he’s been abducted by aliens.   As I wandered through his site I found this nugget: The Importance of Travel Insurance.
• Young and Thrifty presents a series called the Financial Cleanse which starts here with Write Down What You Spend Your Money On.
• The Frugal Zeitgeist shares another use for leftover yarn with Condom Soccer Balls, Not Just for Hard Times. Did I really just type that title?  Seriously though I think you’ll enjoy the ingenuity of the short video. FZ also shares some frugal ideas for Mother’s Day with Haven’t Bought a Mother’s Day Gift Yet? Don’t Get One!
• Girl with the Red Balloon is getting married!!  I am so far behind on catching on my reader! The last I knew she was going to get married at the courthouse, but now I find that her wedding is this weekend! Congratulations, Red!
• Mrs. Money is having a hard time decided whether to stay full time for the money in a very stressful position working with some rather childish coworkers, or take a pay cut and go to part time in today’s blog post Putting Money First. She and Mr. Money have only mortgage debt and they can easily manage the pay cut. I say go for it!

And that wraps up my weekly roundup. Thanks for stopping by!

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds
2. Friday Finds June 4, 2010
3. Friday Finds June 18th, 2010

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Just wanted to share some of the good stuff I found in the PF blog world this week:

• Single Guy Money just went through a nightmare with some telemarketers and came up with an interesting way to resolve the problem in Telemarketer Revenge.
• 20s money has a little article on recurring revenue in: The Holy Grail of Online Income: Recurring Revenue. I also think it is very cool that 20s money gives us a peek into the amount of online income being generated. I’m always curious about this, and track my own income privately, so it was neat to check out someone else’s progress. Thanks for sharing, 20s money!
• Ninja over at Punch Debt in the Face is going through pre-marital counseling with Girl Ninja and he shares one of their homework assignments: What are your financial commandments?  Great  responses from the young couple.
• Redeeming Riches shares some Tips on Credit Card Balance Transfers.
• Cool to Be Frugal asked a question that was really difficult for me to answer: Do Your Friends Share Your Financial Values?   What would your response be?
• Money Beagle shared how it feels after making some big payments to debt in: The Downside to Paying Down Debt.
• I Pick Up Pennies‘ mother Donna Freedman made her debut in the blogging world. Congratulations, Donna!
• And Abigail wrote a very informative great post on how her disability may be affected by her new employment in The Bureaucracy of Disabled Employment.

Enjoy your weekend!

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds April 23rd
2. Friday Finds on Saturday April 17th
3. Friday Finds: May 7

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In the meantime, here is my weekly roundup of interesting posts I’ve read in the last week:

• Mrs. Money has finally come to peace with how she’s going to go on from here having lost a friendship and fifteen-hundred dollars in Making Up $1500.
• Frugality Doesn’t Mean You Have to Deprive Yourself by Free From Broke. This is a great post which makes me realize when I was younger, I was doing the rice cakes and water diet of frugality.  When you’re living below the poverty level you really don’t have much choice in the matter. Now I am able to be more sensible in my frugality, and I shouldn’t feel guilty over buying something now and again.
• Interview with Jeff Kosola over at Clarifinancial. Jeff delivers pizzas on the weekends to pay down his debt.  I always enjoy reading about bloggers and some of the ways they are getting out of debt.
• Austin over at Foreigner’s Finance hosted the Carnival of Money Stories earlier this month including some beautiful pictures of the flowering sakura tree. Austin lives in Japan and teaches English. This week he shared with us How to Improve Your Credit While Living Abroad.
• I haven’t been camping in over twenty years… Money Funk shares the basic items you need for camping in Earth Day:  Camping is Fun. I also need to really work on the first of 8 Simple Steps of Having an Organized Life, go on over and read the one I need to work on most, “Sort Out the Clutter”.
• Engineer Your Finances, a mere baby to the blogging world, posted his Three Month Performance Review recently. Great job!
• CJ Bowker shares his bad customer service experience with Karen at Verizon.  There is no excuse for a salesperson to act like that.

Yours Truly,

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds on Saturday April 17th
2. Friday Finds – April 30
3. Friday Finds June 4, 2010

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Anyway, I thought I’d put together a Friday Finds today since things have settled down a little bit. Just a wee bit, but enough to squeeze in reading a few other blogs!

• I was wondering How to Make A Deposit at an Online Checking Account, namely my ING Direct sub-accounts for which I’ve designated my online income, and PT Money answers the question for me, as well as for several other online banks.
• The Monevator tells us how to Earn More Money by Tackling Your Mental Beliefs.  I know for myself personally, mental beliefs have long been a hindrance to my making more money. It took me a very long time to get over feeling guilty because of the wage I’m currently earning, and I’m making less than $40K a year!
• Life Insurance’s Recent Overhaul by Evolution of Wealth has prompted me to take a look at my current life insurance policy. I pay under $20 a month for… if I remember correctly, about $100,000 in coverage.  I should look to see if that’s the best rate I can get, or maybe I can get more coverage for the same amount.  Apparently rates have changed but the life insurance companies aren’t going to divulge this information to us unless we ask them about it.
• Bytta shares Day 28: The Most Anxious Time I Had in a Restaurant, a story about her first day using the cash system. I’d be a little anxious, too with the prices at that restaurant!
• As a blogger correspondent for the Childhood Hunger Ends Here campaign Kelly at The Centsible Life was invited to Los Angeles for an event where she got to visit the set of Desperate Housewives and also met David Arquette.  Sounds like she had a lot of fun!
• Mrs. Money at Ultimate Money Blog has inspired me to try a green smoothie with her post How to Make a Green Smoothie. I have heard lots of good things about green smoothies, but just haven’t ever taken the time to figure out exactly how to make one. I will try one of these soon with my Magic Bullet!
• Not Made of Money tells us about The Downside to Store Credit Cards. I have signed up for a few stores, but usually only if it is a store I rarely shop. I haven’t in the last year, because I’ve wanted my credit score to rise without being dinged by credit checks.
• Narrow Bridge Adventures shares Four Reasons to Shred Those Credit Card Convenience Checks.  I am glad that I have a shredder now, because I do just that!

How was your week? Did you finish your taxes, or did you end up filing an extension?

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds April 23rd
2. Friday Finds – April 30
3. Friday Finds: May 7

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Here are some great links I found around the blogosphere:

• Elle from Couple Money is giving away a Netbook at her blog and she also had a guest post on Problogger – Tips for Doing the 31 Days to a Better Blog Challenge – go Elle!  Awesome!  The winner will be direct messaged via Twitter (which should come to your email address as well) so be sure to follow her on Twitter.
• Little House in the Valley explains that there is another way to do subtraction, other than the method I was taught, which is called Borrow and Regroup method in Borrow and Pay Back Method. She wonders if this had something to do with the typical American thought to borrow, borrow, borrow. Very interesting!
• Daniel over at Sweating the Big Stuff shares what he believes to be The 5 Worst Ways to Save Money. I personally find going out and doing things to be very tiring, so I can’t say that I agree with number one on his list. Although I think many people will disagree with me on that!  But I don’t spend my time watching television either, I don’t find it relaxing.
• Ryan from Planting Dollars writes about the Fear of Success: Fighting the Anti-Success Leprechaun. This post title really jumped out at me since I see a lot of myself in there. Great post!
• Well Heeled Blog tells us about shopping for a mattress with her friend in Shopping for Mattresses: How Much Would You Spend and asked if we could ever spend $2000 on a mattress.  I can’t imagine ever spending $2000 on a mattress.  I bought my queen size bed from Goodwill for $12, and I’d probably make my own mattress before spending $2000 on one.
• Journey to Millions ponders on how he thinks a million dollars is still a heck of a lot of money in Comparatively Speaking A Million Dollars is Still a Lot of Freaking Money. I agree!  I am sure I could live off a million dollars for the rest of my life.  Even with inflation!
• Mrs. Money wonders if her readers prefer to shop locally or online in How Do You Shop – Locally or Online? I tend to do a lot of my shopping online, although I am totally with Mrs. Money in supporting small businesses. It’s just that I’m in a rural area and the nearest grocery store is 15 miles away, and there aren’t many other stores than those grocery stores.

How did you week go?

Related posts:

1. Friday Finds – April 30
2. Friday Finds: May 7
3. Friday Finds June 25th, 2010

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