Festival of Frugality #129 - Try a Little Harder This Week Edition

I’m honored to host this week’s festival of frugality! As someone who reads frugality posts, I trust that you are already being frugal. However, I’d like to challenge you to try a little harder this week. Do one more frugal activity than you normally would, change another habit that’s costing you money, cut down your expenses further and make sure you are only buying groceries with coupons! If you can do this, you will be well on your way to save more money!

Enjoy this week’s festival as there are tons of great articles!

Editor’s Choice

• Frugal Babe presents Back In The Saddle. Can you feel her frugality just by reading?
• Paula Wethington presents Coupons are not just for junk food. Coupons are extremely great ways to save money. Whoever said coupons are only for junk food are fools!!!
• Andrew Heath presents The Unlikely Way to Save Money. Does this give you some motivation?

Realization and Sharing
To be truly frugal, we first have to realize that we are our worst enemy. For almost everything we do, there is almost always an alternative, cheaper way to do it. If we can convince ourselves to use the equivalent, we are well on our way to be truly frugal.

Realize that we can, and that we will.

• Shamelle presents Money And Processions: Breaking Free From The Materialism Trap, telling us that we really need to separate our needs and wants!
• praveen presents Renting vs. Owning in Retirement. Avoid the temptation of home ownership is just as good as saving that extra dollar!
• Bryce presents Things to Do in Our Lifetime. Concentrate on what he wants to do at the end of the posts. All will give great satisfaction but which ones really need money to accomplish?
• ames presents Being Frugal and Bargain Hunting.
• Shannon Christman presents Why You Should Focus on Spending Less Over Earning More.
• Faron Benoit presents Compulsive Spending is the Biggest Behavioral Block Against Fugal Living.
• GBlogger presents Keeping Up With The Joneses Redux °X Real or Imagined.
• Lise presents Four Strategies That Are Frugal Only If Your Time Is Worth Nothing.

Activities
For every activity that will cost you lots of money, there is another one that is free. Best of all, these free activities are usually just as fun to do!

• story presents 20 frugal or free summer fun activities. Have fun and save money, what a treat!
• Aryn presents Frugal Cultural Events! Worth checking out or a fun and frugal night out!
• AndyS presents Frugal ways to get and stay in shape. Healthy for our body and healthy for our wallets!
• Financial Goal presents Free Bus Rides on “Dump the Pump” Day. Taking public transportation is always recommended even if gas is $1 per gallon!

Habits
Our habits determine how frugal we can be. Whether it’s the places we shop at or the things we are used to do, simple changes can go a long way in helping us save money!

• Sean presents What Will You Do If Gas Prices Go… Down. Don’t re-learn bad habits!
• jamy presents The Yin and Yan of wealth equation. Want some examples of budgeting? Check this out!
• Joy Harrison presents Should I use a home equity loan to finance my new car. Even thinking about this is not being frugal! Stop stop stop!
• Mike Leonard presents Are your vices keeping you in debt. Small things add up!
• Livingalmostlarge presents Building a stockpile. We all know buying in bulk saves us money but how many of us really do it?
• Brice Hogan presents Why Budget? Here’s why!
• Kimberly presents Preparing For A Shopping Trip. One of the best ways to save time and money.
• Raymond presents I Purposely Drive In Heavy Rain To Get A Free Car Wash. I do too!
• SingleGuyMoney presents Teaching A Teen To Save Money. Train those habits early!
• The Happy Rock presents Save Time, Gas, and Money By Training Your Grocery Store. You thought you couldn’t train the your grocery store.
• Kevin presents May is Over, We Can Turn the Air Conditioner Back On! You should try this too!
• Madison presents New Grads: 29 Money-Smart Tips.
• Kelly from My Small Cents presents Emergency Food Funds
• Gretchen presents Where to Buy Cheap Spices!

Cutting Down
It’s usually not fun but it definitely works. Trim some here and there and you will find that you’ve just saved yourself lots of money!

• Frugal Dad presents Six Painless Steps to Reduce Monthly Expenses by $130. Thanks Frugal Dad for the tips!
• Nui Loa presents The 5 Most Important Rules of Personal Finance. Last but not least, the 5th rule is control your spending!
• Margaret presents Dealing with Higher Gas Prices.
• Balanced Life Center presents 43 Things To Do When You Stop Watching Television. No more excuses for not cutting your cable TV!
• Dan presents Six Inexpensive Birthday Party Ideas for Kids Parties. Got kids? This one’s for you.
• Crystal Nichols presents Save time and money at the grocery store. Something for all of us!
• FMF presents Nine Ways to Save on Gas This Summer. Some more ways to save on gas!
• Niharika presents 101 Ways to Use Less Gas. With gas so high and for sure going past $5 per gallon soon, here’s many interesting ways to use less gas!
• Pete presents Save money on your hospital bills just by asking urging us that sometimes all we need to do is ask.
• David presents 29 Free Or Low Cost Ways To Save Energy & Money. Are you doing all of these yet?
• Heather Johnson presents Guest Post: 15 Little Ways to Save Money Throughout the Week.
• Krista presents Cheap, Quick & Easy Dinners.
• angie hopkins presents Tightwad Gazette Principles Revisited: Part 1: Buying Stuff. Can you be frugal when buying stuff?
• NCN presents Getting Rid Of Unnecessary Monthly Expenses. Track your budgets first so you can do what NCN did!

Reuse and Extend
Extending the life of everything is a true art. It is not only good for our wallets but also great for the environment. If there is a way to reuse, then by all means!

• Our Red House presents Leftovers Night: Creative Uses for Leftovers. Interesting stuff!
• Hilary Green presents When Is a Used Car Right For Me. New cars are nice but used cars can save you tons of money!
• NtJS presents How To: Buy A Used Car: Episode 1.
• Adam Berry presents How to Extend The Life of Garden Tools. Unique and useful!
• vh presents Frugal Driving = Stress Relief. The more reason the better!
• Luke presents Being Efficient and Frugal in your Kitchen. My wife loves these posts about kitchens!
• glblguy presents Freecycle rediscovered. A network to help reuse and extend the life of everything!
• Andrea presents Reducing Pet Costs: End of Life Care.
• Brooke presents Transportation - Week 1. Some great ways to save money on gas for those long trips!
• Penny Nickel presents Money and Values: Carpooling: earth and wallet-friendlier, and look who’ll pay you to try it!
• Todd presents Save Money On A Computer. Buy Used!
• RC presents Is it Cool to be Frugal? 10 Frugal Practices You’ve Always Done That Are Now “In” Again!

Do It Yourself (DIY)
There was a time when everything needed to be done by ourselves. As technology and humans evolved, so did our inability to do it ourselves. Learn to do a few things, and you will find that everything can be done at a fraction of the cost!

• nickel presents How to Get Rid of Ants Safely and Without an Exterminator. Do it yourself!
• Ryan Suenaga presents Do It Yourself Drain Unclogging. Learn do DIY everything saves so much money!
• Helen Anderson presents 5 Ways to Start Your Business With No Money! at Personal Finance Blog, Budgeting, Debt @ Bankaholic.
• Lisa Spinelli presents Eating Healthy Without Being Wealthy- Avocados. Healthy and Wealthy gets our attention doesn’t it?
• Mrs. Accountability presents Make Your Own Magnetic Business Signs!
• Silicon Valley Blogger presents The Low-Maintenance Yard: Save Money With These 7 Ideas For Your Yard.
• HowToMe presents How to Make Custom Containers.
• Jacob presents Learning to cook saves at least $5000 a year. It might be more than that and it’s much healthier!
• Ted presents Cooking in College or starve!
• Amanda Milne presents Frugal Small Vegetable Garden.
• Frugal Pursuit presents Repurposing items for the garden.

Offers and Coupons
Whether you end up taking these offers or not, you have to love free stuff!

• Cash Money Life presents Blockbuster Total Access - Free 30 Day Trial. In order for this to be a frugal move, remember to cancel before the one month free trial is over!
• jim presents Best Gasoline Cashback Credit Cards!
• Christine Talley presents Free 411. Just remember that standard cell phone charges still apply.

Other Interesting Ones
Awesome posts that just don’t fit anywhere else!

• Kaye presents 10 Awesome Father’s Day Ideas - Part 1 of 5. Great ideas for father’s day for you to pick the frugal ones!
• Steve Faber presents - What is The Highest Gas Mileage Car? - The Top 10 Real Cars for $4.00 a Gallon Gas. Those that are gas conscious definitely should look into this.
• Penelope Pince presents Frugality to the Extreme: Would You Eat Out of the Dumpster? Hmm… No.
• Dereck presents Want to be rich? Then shut up and listen. I’m listing…
• Dorian Wales presents The Perfect Home is a Financial Nightmare - Don’t Get Caught Up In the Costly Race.
• Mike presents Calculating the real cost of driving.
• Amy presents Daily Accounting: Pre-teen Shoppers.
• BillyOceansEleven presents The ultimate frugality: dumpster diving!

See? Didn’t I say there are many great articles about frugality? Read them. Read them again if you have to but if you don’t follow the advices, you are failing yourself.

Tagged as: Frugality, Saving

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