The Roundup – Stone vs Brick Accents Edition

Stone vs Brick Everyone tells us that building a home is extremely frustrating. I’m starting to see what they were all talking about.

The builder just called to inform us that it is standard to get stone accents on the exterior instead of the brick we had chosen. That’s news to us because we were told we had to choose a brick for accents and stone was never even an option. After all, the exterior of the home is already that same stone. How is that an accent?

This is the third case where something was said to be “standard” that they are attempting to change after we signed the contract. Unfortunately, I hear this behavior is “standard” among builders. Sorry for the rant everyone, I just needed to vent.

Let’s move on to some great articles!

More Buffet Strategies: Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Pasta Bowl @ Punny Money - This is a really funny read about a man and his eternal struggle to eat-all-he-can-eat. It even includes pointers on how to maximize your pasta intake. Pasta and sauce is so cheap you could probably eat for days and still not come out ahead on that price.

Chop ‘Til You Drop @ Cheap Healthy Good – Learn to how to process all your fresh foods and save money. Buying pre-chopped veggies is a total rip off. This is a great guide and even includes instructions and videos on how to prep a huge list of foods. I bookmarked it.

How Long To Keep Financial Documents @ Rather Be Shopping - I need to go through all my paperwork and start throwing out old bills. I’ve always kept everything for way too long. Although keeping all my financial documents for 7 years paid off for me when I had to dispute an error on my credit report. I’m sure I still could have been able to prove my case without those 6 year old electric bills though I bet it would have taken longer.

Check out these fabulous carnivals:

Make it From Scratch #32 was hosted by Bridget at Miles To Go Before We Sleep. She did a great job hosting! My reducipe for Orange Rosemary Pork Chops was included.

Festival of Frugality #93 was hosted at Money and Values. The cake themed layout was very creative and yummy. I’m thrilled that my post on frugality becoming an excuse was chosen as a favorite!

The Roundup – Feed Malfunction Edition

Sometimes spell check isn’t enough… For all our readers out there, we apologize if you had some issues reading or subscribing to the RSS feed recently. Thanks to PaidTwice for letting us know about the problem! Turns out we had a unicode apostrophe that seemed to be causing problems (a result of pasting directly from MS Word). Things should be up and running again now.

We tried to think of a good way to tell everyone about the feed issue while still giving something of value. We decided on this round up, even though we just had one a few days ago. In any case, there were so many good articles this week that there’s plenty of room for two roundups!

Now, for some of my favorite articles of the week :

Over at The Digerati Life, Silicon Valley Blogger discusses the contentious topic of renting vs. buying. Now, I for one bought my first house because it was literally cheaper than renting (and I’ve gotten a fair bit of equity out of it too!) This isn’t the case in many parts of the United States, but here in Texas, if you’re willing to live outside the city center, you can usually find less expensive housing.

Glblguy makes a good point about patience. It really makes a world of difference when you take the time to think about things you are going to buy rather than buying them impulsively. I think it’s gonna be another year or two before I finally take the plunge on the Hi Def TV. I’ve been wanting one for years but it just doesn’t make sense for me right now.

PaidTwice feels the same way I do about ING Direct right now. I wish they would have at least informed us of the change rather than just abruptly changing things. I guess it doesn’t matter much in the end. I’m looking at other options, but haven’t decided if it’s worth it to switch yet. I like ING, and I know the other banks are likely to drop their returns as well, but this change has me thinking about finding a higher yield account.

Pinyo had the same problem I’ve had when it comes to rationalizing how much something costs in comparison to my hourly salary. I was worse than that sometimes. When I was a consultant, I would sometimes rationalize buying something based on how much I billed for. I think I actually only got about 10% of what my hourly billing rate was, but I used that hourly number frequently. Now I don’t even calculate that number.

Carnival Time!

Carnival of the Homeowner’s is up at Homeowner’s Insurance Lowdown and they included Melissa’s article on The Sub-Prime Scrutiny Spares No Score.

SustainaBee has the Small Actions to Save The World carnival up and Melissa’s article on Coupon Karma was included.

Image Source: rick

The Roundup – Road Warrior Edition

Sweet Ride! A friend of mine recently bought a huge RV and he brought the beast by to show it off. I had never been in one before and I was shocked at the level of amenties it has. I was very impressed – kind of like a nice studio apartment on wheels. This 35-foot behemoth even has its own garage with a lowering platform for bikes. All it’s lacking at this point is a hot tub and a Starbucks. And the hot tub ain’t gonna happen.

Getting to Now: How to Beat the Procrastination Habit @ Get Rich Slowly - I have a real problem with procrastination and multitasking. The lightbulb has been burned out in my laundry room for a week and I still haven’t replaced it. I used my lantern-style flashlight to do laundry today. How sad is that? I will go change it right now. Errr, after this post I mean. Great article!

Transfering Assets Upon Death Through a Will @ Generation X Finance - It seems people avoid thinking about a will until someone they know passes or they have kids. Wills are uncomfortable but important business and Jeremy does a good job discussing them this week.

To Tip Or Not To Tip @ Brip Blap - Tipping is a sensitive subject for some people. I usually tip 15-20% at restaurants, a few bucks to the pizza guy and valets, and a buck or two to the airport shuttle bus driver who is kind enough to help me with my bags. When it came to our wedding we paid a flat 20% to the waiters/bartenders and banished tip jars entirely. Making the no tipping rule clear helped make everyone more comfortable.

More carnivals to check out:
Carnival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance @ Money and Values
Carnival of Financial Planning @ The Skilled Investor

Image Source: EdTarwinski

The Roundup – Reorg Edition

I love casual Fridays… Even though it’s been a short week, it feels like it’s been a long week. My team is getting reorganized within the company at work and that has created a fair amount of stress, but overall I believe the change will be very positive. I know that it’s going to improve things for me, and for my work situation, but between getting a new boss and having issues with the upcoming house purchase, it made the week seem like it was a month long.

To help de-stress, here were some of my favorite posts of the week :

Over at Moolanomy, Pinyo points out some great ways to evaluate how much your house is worth. Not as much as I thought, according to the average of many of these sites.

Silicon Valley Blogger has me thinking about buying a statue of St. Joseph so that when I have to sell later this year, I can get even more profit out of the house. Lots of great advice in the article, and I’m going to be sure not to fall into any of those traps.

Five Cent Nickel wrote about refilling his travel-size toothpaste. Honestly, I am going to follow his lead. I hate having to buy those little bottles. Seems like such a waste….

Over at Consumerism Commentary, I read about becoming an Accidental Landlord. I actually read the same article at CNN that Sasha did. If the housing market is still way down when the new house is finished, I may decided that it makes more sense to hang onto to the current home rather than sell as I had initially planned. I hadn’t thought about all the potential additional costs of getting the rental house up to code however. Now I have to rethink things again.

At BripBlap, the Sunday poll was an interesting one : What do you do with regards to work when you get sick? I try to spare my co-workers by working at home for a few days, but when I get too sick to work, I do take a day of vacation to let my body recover. If I give myself that time, I can recover much more quickly.

I think I’ll follow the advice over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity and postpone my 0% purchase offers until after I get my new mortgage (at the best rate possible). We spent a good year following advice for raising our credit scores, and it worked wonders. We don’t want to mess with it now right before the home purchase. Right afterward however, we’ll see if we can find a 0% interest deal on some appliances….

The Roundup – A New Month, A New Budget Edition

Tomatoes - cheap and tasty! I decided to do a grocery stretch week last week with the goal of preparing meals using only what I already had at home. It allowed us to skip a grocery trip and stay on track despite having a few unexpected expenses that could have put us over budget in August.

We ate pretty well and used up a lot of leftover items from the previous shopping week (e.g. tortillas, onions, cheese, etc). It sure helps to keep a stocked pantry and freezer. Even though it is fun to see what we can make using leftovers and pantry staples it was nice to go to the store this morning and get more fresh food..

How to Drive a Great End-of-Summer New Car Deal @ Get Rich Slowly - If you are considering buying a new car, check out this post by J.D. This weekend might be the time.

Is an Entertainment Coupon Book Worth It @ The Simple Dollar - In my former non-frugal life I remember buying two of these books to help out a charity I work with only to let them sit in a drawer completely unused. 2 copies that we never even used. This year we decided, because we have made a commitment to being frugal, that it would be a good deal to get one of this year’s for half-price but they were already sold out by the time we called. Maybe next year we will finally be able to get one and make it worthwhile.

Marriage and Money: Allowances For Adults? @ My Money Blog - Eric and I have monthly “allowances”. We deposit $25 in our separate “Funny Money” high interest savings accounts. We have this, not so much because we disapprove of each other’s spending, but to encourage us to buy something purely indulgent every so often. Neither one of us wants to feel guilty by taking money from an already tight budget to buy something that only benefits one of us. Sometimes we end up sacrificing too much for the sake of the greater good and we don’t want to run into deprivation burn-out. Eric is currently saving up for new speakers and I’m saving my money for new bake ware. So far it has worked well!