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  • Note to daughter: The salesclerk is not your friend

    Posted Aug 29 2008, 01:10 PM by Karen Datko
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    Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

    Imagine this scenario: "The Frugal Duchess" (aka Sharon Harvey Rosenberg) and her 10-year-old daughter kill time before a movie in a clothing store that caters to tween girls. A cute young salesclerk loads the daughter up with cute merchandise.

    They leave without buying because the movie is about to start, but the daughter promises to return. She at least wants to say bye to her new friend. Hold on a minute, Sharon says. "She's not really your friend. ... Sure, she likes you. But she also likes your business."

    Now Sharon wonders if she said the right thing. "Should I have continued to let her believe that the cool clerk was a friend?" she asks.   Read More...

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  • Your past influences your spending

    Posted Feb 29 2008, 09:17 AM by Karen Datko
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    Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

    This guest post comes from Lynnae at Being Frugal.

    When I was a kid, my family didn't have a lot of money. In most areas, I never felt deprived. I have three younger brothers, so I was always busy playing outside with them. Or picking on them, but we won't talk about that.

    One thing I did notice was that, with four kids and not a lot of money, we didn't have a lot of clothes. My brothers and I each had three school outfits. We wore two of the outfits on Monday and Tuesday, the third on Wednesday, when my mom did the laundry, and the first two outfits on Thursday and Friday. Every week.

    I even remember my mom commenting that one of my friend's moms had mentioned that her child had enough clothes to last a week without doing laundry. My mom didn't know how they could afford it. 

    I remember being jealous.

    Now that I'm an adult, surprisingly, I'm not tempted to overbuy clothes for myself. I hate shopping for myself, and my relatively small wardrobe shows it. However, I do have a tendency to overbuy for the kids. I think that somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory, I'm afraid that they won’t have enough clothes.   Read More...

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  • 12 gifts under $10 I’d like to see under my tree

    Posted Dec 14 2007, 07:51 AM by Karen Datko
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    Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

    This post is from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

    When I started working on this article, I made a list of holiday gifts under $10 to give at family gift exchanges and as stocking stuffers. Then I realized that I actually would not like most of the stuff. If I wouldn't like these frugal gifts, why would I ever recommend them to you?

    I threw out the list and started over.

    This time, not only did the gift have to be under $10 to make the list, it had to be one I would like to receive. That being said, here are 12 great frugal gifts I'd love to see under my tree:   Read More...

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  • The friend who is always broke

    Posted Nov 12 2007, 05:54 AM by Karen Datko
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    Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
    We all know someone like "S," a friend of Vixen on a Budget . S waitresses and lives with her parents (her older brother and his fiance also live at home). Her only bills are car insurance and her cell phone. Yet she complains that she never has any money. To fill in the picture, we might add that S often is late for work, and calls in sick when she's not. She parties with friends three times a week and always has money for new clothes. Get the picture here? Does her behavior (and that of her parents) irritate you? What's the problem here? asks Vixen, who waitresses at the same restaurant, has her own place, a car payment and goes to school full time. "We are different people because of the way our parent's have raised us," Vixen writes, encouraging parents to teach their children the value of money. Vixen has tried to school her friend about ways to budget and save . It's not working so far. S showed up for work with a new purse and jacket she bought for $55, about half price, she gushed   Read More...
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