I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘carnivals’ Category

So what’s a blog carnival, and why should anyone care? One of the very first ways I found other bloggers who were working their way of of debt like me was through the Carnival of Debt Reduction. A carnival is simply a collection of recent, user submitted posts, on a particular topic. The links are collected together and presented by the host blog, which in most cases, changes every week. The topic can be very broad, like the Carnival of Personal Finance or the Festival of Frugality, or it can be very narrow, like the Carnival of Snowflaking that I recently founded. Whatever the topic, there is most likely a carnival out there with your interest in mind.

With that being said, I submitted posts to 5 different carnivals and a festival (like a carnival, just a more alliterative name!) that went live this week. In no particular order, here are links to each, my post from them, and another post that caught my eye in each:

The Carnival of Personal Finance was at Alpha Consumer and included my post about how stores will help you spend your economic stimulus check. T minus 1 day until I spend mine on a new furnace… If you haven’t gotten your check yet, make sure to avoid this stimulus rebate scam that MoneyCrashers alerts us to. And the hitman scam as well - yikes!

The Carnival of Debt Reduction was hosted by Rocket Finance who included my latest lament on Why Debt Stinks. No worries, I have even more to come. Besides accepting his invitation to include him in my blogroll, I was drawn to Picture of Wealth’s creating a financial plan, not a budget. I really think budgets and spending plans are two sides of the same coin, but more on that later. Thoughts still need to percolate. A Budget is a Spending Plan with a Bad Rap…. hmmm.

The Carnival of Money Stories is at Free From Broke and includes my entry about healthcare sometimes feeling like throwing money down a drain. And as I ponder my colonoscopy in June, I hope that it continues to feel like I am throwing money down a drain. Earlier I wrote about needing to use my economic stimulus check, and I am not the only one. Pinyo at Moolanomy is also glad his check is coming early.

The Festival of Frugality is at Frugal for Life and included my analysis of the new furnace and how I am becoming frugal instead of cheap. The cheap thing to do would have been to stick a new board in this furnace. My frugal choice will pay off for years to come. And I just couldn’t help it, I had to read Budgets Are Sexy’s post on how Starbucks just got sexier. Apparently you can get free stuff with a Starbucks card. I love and hate Starbucks.

The Carnival of Money Hacks is at Save and Conquer and included my post about how I cut some of my wedding costs. if only I’d cut more of them… but anyway. The very first entry from Oh My Aching Debts caught my eye with 8 ways to save money on a limited budget. I too am fond of #8, although I adore to count, I keep things separate and don’t count money for debt as money I have available unless there is an emergency.

And finally the Carnival of Financial Goals is at DebtFREE Revolution and instead of doing editor’s picks, Ana is inviting the readers to vote for their Reader’s Picks. So if you are inclined, feel free to vote for my entry, Shifting Priorities from Debt Reduction to Savings. I haven’t decided where my vote goes yet, but a contender is The Importance of Savings Goals at This Wasn’t in the Plan. I get too scattered to focus on specific savings goals, but I am doing okay at budgeting for them - so far. I cannot wait until I get rid of the debt and can think about something else concretely…

That’s a wrap for this week! Thanks to all the hosts for putting together the carnivals and festival!

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Our yardsale yesterday turned out okay. Our neighborhood has two designated dates each year where the whole neighborhood holds their yardsales, and the housing association does all the advertising etc for it. All I had to do was open my garage and put out my stuff (although I did make a few signs for the event). It was a rainy weekend so not a great one to have a yardsale, but for minimal effort we did manage to sell some baby clothes and a few other assorted items, and came out with $44.10. Oh, and I am supposed to mention that my spouse sold $1.50 worth of computer junk he has been faithfully saving from yardsale to yardsale. This is supposed to make his not getting rid of it worth it. We have another yardsale in August, and he promises he will get rid of it after that (and I also will purge all the stuff we don’t sell then too).

So $44.10 to restart the student loan payoff fund, now that we’ve emptied it to buy a new furnace. Hurrah!

This link love is short and sweet, just where to find the carnivals I was in this week, because I’ve got more link love coming soon in the form of April wrapups. So why don’t you visit a carnival or four and see what else was going on around the financial blogosphere this week? Thanks to all the hosts that included me in their carnivals:

• The Carnival of Personal Finance was at Lazy Man and Money
• The Carnival of Debt Reduction was at Broke Grad Student
• The Festival of Frugality was at Sound Money Matters
• The Carnival of Money Hacks was at Money Hacks

Have a great Sunday morning!

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There were a lot of great carnivals (and festivals!) that I had articles in this week. I was fortunate enough to score two editor’s picks which brings the year total to 21. Almost halfway to my goal of 50 in 52 weeks! And this week also marked the start of the Carnival of Snowflakes! I love snowflakes. I hosted the first edition on Snowflake Revolution, and no, I was not an editor’s pick because, well, I was the editor. It is very exciting though - and if you love snowflakes, think about submitting to next week’s edition!

On to the carnivals! The Carnival of Personal Finance was at The Happy Rock and I was selected as an editor’s pick for The Psychology of the $1000 Emergency Fund. Thanks Frank! Being in my current frame of mind, I was drawn to this post:

• Sick of Being Poor: Thank Goodness For My Emergency Fund. I also had bad things happen to my car that necessitated my using the emergency fund - when a truck hit it in a parking lot while it was parked. Thankfully I got my deductible back, but I had to pay up front.

The Carnival of Money Hacks was at Quest For Four Pillars and I also scored an editor’s pick there for What Should You Do With Your Economic Stimulus Check? Thanks Mike! When I wrote that, I was paying down debt. Now, it seems I will be buying a new furnace. I think the world is thumbing their nose at me. Economy stimulation, here I come! Never decide what to do with money you don’t quite have yet! The furnace people come Monday to give me some quotes. Fun. Hey, a furnace post!

• Save and Conquer: Turn Off Your Furnace’s Pilot Light. Maybe I will do this with the next furnace? Hmm. I’ll have to look into it.

The Carnival of Debt Reduction is at No Debt Plan, and my article about All Funds Being Emergency Funds (timely, now that I look back at it) made the cut. I love the title of that blog - I have a No Debt Plan too, life just keeps getting in the way. Someday! But read this:

• Mom Advice: Debt Free Party. I want one too! Oh… fun. Someday.

The Festival of Frugality was at On Financial Success and included my entry about buying in bulk strategically. I wish all my impulse buys were good for me…

• Indebted 2 You: Housing Woes Force An Impulse Buy. The house isn’t the impulse buy here.

And the Carnival of Money Stories was at Can I Get Rich On A Salary and included my entry about Financial Health Being About More Than Numbers. This story made me chuckle:

• Be This Way: Am I Getting Smaller or is the Furniture Getting Bigger?

That’s it for this week! Thanks again to all the hard working hosts!!

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This week, I started a Carnival of Snowflakes.  The first edition will go live at Snowflake Revolution on Thursday, and is designed to highlight great snowflaking-related articles from the past few weeks.  Submissions must be directly related to and mention the snowflaking concept, but are certainly not limited to debt reduction in the least.   I’m looking forward to a fun carnival on Thursday!

In my “other” life, offline, I am a taekwondo instructor, and this week, that part of my life somewhat took over.  My head instructor hosted a tournament here yesterday and I have spent the majority of the past few days completely immersed in helping with that.  Besides being part of the host schools, I also am on the tournament staff for our region, so I had many hats to wear this past week.  So I really didn’t get a chance to read much of my feed reader at all and have a lot of great blog posts to catch up on this week!  I did want to mention a few articles that caught my eye this morning while I was starting to catch up:

• Plonkee Money:  Supercharging the Debt Snowball.  Plonkee explains how moving money can make the smallest balance also the highest interest.  I did a bit of this when I moved my credit card debt to a 0% interest card, but nowhere near the amount explained here.
• Mrs Micah:  How Micah Sent Me Roses In Italy For $30.  Awww.  New love is cute. 
• Single Guy Money:  Setting Up A Special Savings Account.  SGM is saving up in a special account for a few purchases - he’s using ING like my spouse does for his Playstation account.

Have a great Sunday and if you are having nice weather, take advantage of it!

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This week I entered 5 carnivals (well, one was a festival) and was happy to be included in all of them. I even was an editor’s pick in two of them, which brings my total for this year to 19. Hurrah! Let’s get to the roundups!

The Carnival of Personal Finance was at Gather Little by Little and was a tour of his home state, North Carolina. My post Sometimes it Is the Amount of Money You Make was included as an editor’s pick. Thanks Gibble! A post that immediately caught my eye were:

• Tales From The Road Less Traveled: Emotional Spending. For me it is always harder to resist emotional spending when it involves my kids.

The Carnival of Debt Reduction was at Credit Addict and my assertion that I’ll Do What I Want With My Economic Stimulus Check was also selected as an editor’s pick. Thanks Nickel! A post I might have a lot of fun with was:

• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity: Write Goals on Credit Cards. I don’t use my credit card but maybe if I wrote “Eradicate Debt” on the front of my debit card it would help me out when I want a Sonic limeade.

The Carnival of Money Stories was at The Baglady and included my submission about How I Started Snowflaking. I saw too much of myself in this story:

• Free Money Finance: Do You Buy Things And Never Use Them? I hate when I find things I bought and never actually used. Use your stuff or get rid of it!

The Festival of Frugality was at Rather Be Shopping and included my explanation of Why A Tailor is Frugal. Seeing the title, I had to read this:

• Destroy Debt: How to NOT Live on a Budget. Gives hacks and ways to budget without calling it budgeting.

And last but not least The Carnival of Money Hackers was at Be Thrifty Like Us and included my post about my wallpaper removal nightmare. Hey, I wonder if I won that drill? This title made me giggle:

• Finance Gets Personal: Oh Hail No! Do I Have The Right Insurance Deductible? I too have a $250 deductible for now. I know I “should” have a $1000 one and save $750 more for “just in case” but until the debt is diminished, that money is too precarious. I was happy it was only $250 when that stupid moving truck hit my parked car. I did get it back but I had to wait 3 months.

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