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Posted
Dec 14 2007, 10:39 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
I'm superannuated enough to remember penny candy. Finding a cent was cause for celebration, because it would buy Squirrel Nut Zippers (the candy, not the band), Smarties, Pixy Stix or a host of other treats.
I still pick up pennies. Also nickels, dimes and any other American paper or specie I see on sidewalks, in parking lots or pooled in the rejected-change bin of those Coinstar change-counting machines.
All "found" money goes into a vase my daughter gave me when she was about 8 years old. (She got the vase from the "free" box at a yard sale. That's my girl!) Each December, I donate my finds. This year, $24.14 will go to PetSmart Charities.
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Posted
Jun 05 2008, 06:54 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Around here we think of every day as doughnut day, but those with more self-restraint know the real thing comes the first Friday in June – today, in fact.
The celebration was launched in 1938, in the depths of the Great Depression, as a Salvation Army fund-raiser honoring the volunteer “lassies” who served coffee and fresh doughnuts by the thousands to homesick soldiers in France during World War I
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Posted
Nov 26 2007, 09:37 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Yesterday I bought a pound of Starbucks coffee for just 99 cents. You, too, can get super-cheap brew, either for gift-giving or for your own frugal morning buzz. All you need is some empty inkjet print cartridges and proximity to a Staples or Office Max. Both businesses give $3 in store credit for each ink cartridge; certain brands are not accepted, so check each company's rules. The stores where I live let me use up to three credits, or $9 worth, per transaction. Both sell a number of holiday gift items: hoity-toity chocolates, fancy cookies, and specialty coffees, teas and flavored cocoas. Over the weekend I shopped for art supplies for a community gift program. At Staples, I noticed the coffee cost $9.99. I handed over three cartridges and a buck, and walked out with a penny in change and a pound of java. Had I been at Office Max, the brew would have been from another hometown brand, Seattle's Best Coffee . Jitter bells This is a frugalist's dream: nearly free gifts, or nearly free morning
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Posted
May 30 2008, 04:07 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Shannon Christman isn't poor, but she is frugal, and sometimes other people confuse the two. On occasion, salespeople have snubbed her -- and missed out on making a sale. Sometimes generous people offer help when it's not needed. Her thought-provoking post at Saving Advice should raise questions in any thinking person's mind about how quickly we make judgments about others. She also says, "The assumptions others make about my frugality -- usually that I have much less money than I actually do -- can be a benefit to me."
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Posted
Jul 16 2008, 09:31 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
As I walked home from doing errands on Monday, I saw an older man standing near the entrance to a shopping center parking lot. He looked wrinkled and weary and underfed, and he held a cardboard sign: "Homeless, anything will help." I put a dollar in his hand and said, "Take care of yourself. I wish it could be more." He replied, "God bless you."
Then a silver SUV roared up, sunroof open to let the summer rays strike the male pattern baldness within. The driver wore pale blue sunglasses so I couldn't see his eyes, but I could read the sneer on his face. "Sucker!" he yelled as he drove by.
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Posted
Sep 12 2008, 06:26 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Yep, you read that right. Luck. To me, luck occurs when a positive and fairly unexpected event happens in your life, whether it be financial or otherwise. Thus, improving your luck means increasing the chances of such positive events happening -- and also increasing the chances that you'll be able to take advantage of them. In other words, there's nothing supernatural about it. No hoping, no holding four-leaf clovers in your pocket, no rabbit's foot or lucky coin. No "think and it will happen" secret nonsense. Just preparation -- nothing more, nothing less. Here are 10 things you can do to make yourself lucky.
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Posted
Jun 17 2009, 08:53 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This devil's advocate post comes from Jim Wang at partner blog Bargaineering.
This devil's advocate post will cover something that's bound to elicit a lot of discussion: Here are four reasons why you shouldn't donate money to charity.
That's right. You read that correctly. I have four reasons why donating your hard-earned money to a charity is a bad idea, and chances are there is at least one reason here that you haven't even considered. If there was ever a devil's advocate post to end all devil's advocate posts (don't worry, it's not the last one), this would probably be it.
Americans are among the most charitable people in the world, donating $314 billion in 2007, according to the Philanthropy Journal. And despite a brutal economy, that dropped only 2% (or 5.7% after adjusting for inflation) to $307 billion in 2008.
In the face of that, I present to you four reasons why you shouldn't donate money to charity.
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Posted
Jul 25 2008, 09:10 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
The best thrift shops are as good as garage sales, offering a variety of offbeat items at low prices. Things like "Talk to the Hand: Getting Everything You Want With Ventriloquism," a how-to manual with a set of four finger puppets. Originally it cost $9.95; I paid 50 cents yesterday at Cloud 9 Consignment & Thrift. In all, I spent $9.97 for six items that will make good birthday or holiday gifts, two books for my church's library, and four tins that I'll fill with homemade cookies and give as Christmas presents.
But what made the trip memorable was discovering that Cloud 9, like some yard sales, has a free box. In it I found an olive green sweater that's from Bill Blass, if labels mean anything to you. I was more interested by its excellent condition and the fact that it is machine washable. And free.
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Posted
Oct 14 2008, 04:47 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
"Lazy Man" knows a grade-school kid named John who got a stuffed Garfield a couple years ago. Now John has 15 Garfield things in his bedroom. Lazy Man saw them and said, "I can't believe I didn't know you liked Garfield this much." John replied, "I don't." Someone saw that stuffed Garfield in John's room and assumed he loves all things Garfield, and it escalated from there. This little story at Lazy Man and Money explains how people accumulate huge collections of frog, owl or strawberry figurines, posters, pendants or whatever and they really don't want them. What's the worst gift you've been given? Lazy Man describes five categories of gifts he wishes he hadn't received. As Shadox said at Money and Such, "You know what? It is not only the thought that counts, people."
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 08:55 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
You never know how much stuff you have until you need to move it 1,500 miles. Just ask my daughter and son-in-law, who are heading to Phoenix, Arizona. Although they sold some items online, staged a yard sale, donated many other belongings to charity thrift shops and gave lots of things to friends, they still couldn't fit everything into a 6x7x8-foot moving cube.
I don't suppose anyone out there could use seven dozen plastic hangers and some ice cube trays?
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