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Posted
May 08 2008, 04:40 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Pinyo's wife thinks he's cheap. In his mind, he's frugal. Who's right? He scored a 20 on the cheap vs. frugal test he devised and posted at Moolanomy. That score indicates that he's neither, but that he "appears to be reasonable" with his spending. Take the test. It's fun. For example, here's Question No. 6. You have some old clothes. Do you ...? - What are you talking about? I don't have old clothes.
- I donate them when they get a little older.
- I turn them into rags.
- I am still wearing them.
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Posted
Apr 22 2008, 03:18 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
An article at MSN Money about things you should buy only when they're new prompted Mrs. Nespy at Mrs. Nespy's World to come up with her own top 10 list. Among her items: child car seats, helmets, mattresses, children's shoes, makeup, hot tubs and many car parts. She also offers an action plan if you really can't afford to buy these things new.
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Posted
Apr 16 2008, 02:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
It goes without saying that you shouldn't chew gum, drop bad-word bombs or wear your gym clothes when you're at a job interview. Or does it? Based on the experience of "Gibble" and that of his readers, job candidates sometimes violate these basic rules and a bunch of others. As a guide for job applicants, Gibble offers "10 things not to do during an interview" at Gather Little by Little. Gibble, who interviews a lot of candidates in his job as an IT manager, said those 10 violations "pretty much make me cut the interview short and walk out."
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Posted
Apr 10 2008, 10:51 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Want to aggravate your significant other with your frugal ways? "Hide your spouse's car around the block, and tell him or her you sold it to avoid high gas prices. Present them with a bicycle," blogger "RC" says. Lots has been written about how to get along with a spouse who spends more than you do. RC at Think Your Way to Wealth takes the opposite approach with his David Letterman-style top 10 tips. In the process, RC skewers the sacred cows of frugal-living bloggers. You know how personal-finance bloggers are always writing about preparing huge amounts of food on the weekend to serve later in the week or freeze. RC's version is: "Serve the same meal every day for dinner until your spouse complains. Serve something different the next day, then go back to the same meal you were serving every day."
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Posted
Apr 02 2008, 09:04 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
I have a new theory about retail. Auto races have pace cars that determine how fast the drivers can go. Shopping centers hire pace walkers -- folks who shuffle along four or five abreast at maddeningly slow rates of speed.
I'm not talking about people who walk malls for exercise, but rather the ones who saunter through retail meccas with their friends, talking about Facebook and how cute Emma's new shoes are and whether they should split a cinnamon roll.
Whenever you try to pass these groups, you're thwarted by cell phone kiosks or by crowds surging from the other direction. It's all part of an insidious plan: The slower you walk, the more likely you are to look into shop windows and think, "A pink spaniel with white spots? I should get one of those."
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Posted
Mar 29 2008, 03:34 PM
by
Karen Datko
"FMF" at Free Money Finance worked one summer years ago as a management intern at Kmart, so he has an insider's perspective on the chain's decline. In his new series of store reviews, he gives his former employer an "F." When he worked there, "Kmart was the king of mass merchants, but my particular store was panicked because a new competitor was headed into their region, some company by the name of Wal-Mart," he says. "... they were bracing for an invasion that they expected to be about as terrible as the Huns coming to ransack their city." The ransacking apparently has taken its toll. By the way, FMF gave Wal-Mart a "B+" rating.
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Posted
Mar 24 2008, 09:33 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Tired of putting quarters into the dryer? Save two bits and do your bit for the environment by getting a drying rack.
According to a group called Project Laundry List, electric dryers amount for 5% to 10% of residential electricity usage in the United States. Racks are the green/frugal solution for apartment dwellers who don't have access to outdoor drying.
They're also useful to homeowners in places where housing covenants ban clotheslines. Apparently the sight of damp clothing flapping in the breeze brings down property values. A Boston Globe article quoted Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the Community Associations Institute: "If you imagine driving into a community where the yards have clothes hanging all over the place, I think the aesthetics, the curb appeal, and probably the home values would be affected by that."
I wonder if he means all clothes, or just boxers and briefs?
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Posted
Mar 03 2008, 12:29 PM
by
Karen Datko
Pregnant ladies, don't rush out and buy a bunch of new stuff for the bundle of joy. "They don't need expensive little outfits -- babies can't read the tag to know whether the outfit came from Gymboree or whether it was purchased at babyGap," writes Tiffany at Nature Moms Blog. Hand-me-down clothes and other baby items are easier on the budget and the environment, she says. Other ways to save money: Clip coupons and look for coupon codes in new-mother magazine classifieds and at Web sites, make your own cloth diapers, and ***-feed your newborn. If you can't, choose glass or nontoxic plastic bottles.
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Posted
Feb 29 2008, 09:17 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
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.
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Posted
Feb 25 2008, 07:23 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Count on Lynnae at Being Frugal to assemble a comprehensive list of money-saving tips for the home and garden. Her "75 frugal hacks for your home" includes lots of great information on home maintenance and improvement, including a number we hadn't heard before and definitely need to incorporate into our routine. "The cost of living is going up, and oftentimes salaries aren't going up to meet those costs," she writes. "In response to the money crunch, ordinary people like you and me need to cut costs to make ends meet." Dirty miniblinds? Put an old sock on your hand, dampen it with rubbing alcohol and then run your hand along the blinds. Lime deposits clogging up the showerhead? Tie a plastic bag filled with vinegar around it for an hour "and you should be good to go," Lynnae says.
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