Welcome to the 62nd edition of the Carnival of Money Stories. I’m your host, Finance Girl.
Since this is my first ever carnival and the title of my blog is Finance Gets Personal, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of my personal money experiences from the past week. Because as we all know, money stories happen every day…
Editor’s Picks
Three years ago, my husband and I went to Vegas to visit some friends for New Year’s Eve. A few other friends made the trip to Vegas too, and the six of us hung out that week and partied on the strip. Sunday night, we heard from the couple we stayed with that one of those friends died of cancer this week at the age of 28. My husband and I had only met him a few times outside of our trip to Vegas, but our other friends knew him well. It really got me thinking about things… On New Year’s Eve, while he was joking around about trying to find a stranger to marry him in Vegas, he had no idea that in three and a half years, he’d be dead. I’d like to think that I’m going to live for a very long time, but what if I don’t? His death reminds me that although I’m trying to get completely out of debt in five years, I still need to make sure to have some fun along the way. After all, you never know how much time you’ll be given.
Mike at Living the Cheap Life urges us to spread the message: don’t join the club. Money is not the secret to happiness, and frankly The Secret is crap (I’ve seen the DVD, so I will go ahead and pass judgment). Great post, Mike!
Amy at My Daily Dollars offers a unique frugality tip in Frugal Souvenirs from the Farmers’ Market. We have a great Farmer’s Market in town - maybe I could pick some things up there to give as gifts when I visit out-of-town friends and family members.
Erin Turner at Working for Financial Freedom has joined the ranks of frustrated home sellers and recently lowered the asking price on her home. I’ve been watching the real estate listings in my subdivision and keep seeing the price of houses larger than ours go down lower than the price we paid for our house. Scary! I hope you get an offer soon.
Decision-Making
My 10-year high school reunion is coming up next month, and I’m trying to decide whether to go. You see, tickets are $50 each with a cash bar (cash bar!?). I always figured I would go, but now I’m not sure the people I’d want to see will even be there. A couple of my friends have already decided they’re not going, and half the class is revolting because of the price, location and timing of the event. What to do, what to do? In the long run, I don’t think I’ll really regret spending $100 to go to my reunion. It should at least make for some interesting stories, and there are rumors that there will be a mechanical bull. 
Grey at Frugal Fu tries to decide whether to use her economic stimulus payment to pay for summer daycare upfront, or to put it in her Emigrant account and transfer the money each week. I think I would probably keep it in Emigrant as long as the transfers are automatic, just in case some other emergency comes up. What do you think?
Where’s My Money?
I work at a small company that announced a freeze on raises this year. Recently, one of the senior team members resigned, and since we aren’t exactly busy, I thought we might be getting those raises now after all. However, the company is looking to hire someone else and is also spending tens of thousands of dollars on new marketing materials and computers, months after we were told they could afford to give us an annual raise. So, I worked up the nerve to mention it to the VP, and I’m glad I did. I made the case for everyone, not just myself, and suggested that the timing of their spending wasn’t sitting well around the office. I’m not sure what we’ll come of it, but at least I know I tried to do something about it.
PT at Prime Time Money asks Where Is Our Economic Stimulus Payment Direct Deposit? I too filed by paper and put my direct deposit information in even though I owed money. I believe mine wasn’t processed by the 15th because I didn’t mail it until the 13th, but I still got it by direct deposit. Hope you get it soon.
nickel at fivecentnickel warns you to watch out for online bill pay errors. Remember those human errors too - one time my co-worker paid her cell phone company $1,000-something dollars instead of $100-something dollars. Oops!
Kelly at My $mall C€nts reviews Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. I signed up too, and found that I didn’t feel like doing any work for less than five cents! It would take forever to reach the $10 threshold.
Frugality
I have a nine-year-old stepson who starts summer school today. His summer school teacher mailed a letter last week with a list of supplies he’ll need. The letter clearly states, “You do not need to purchase your child new supplies for summer school. If they have supplies left over from last year, please send that in.” Nevertheless, my stepson declared that we needed to go shopping because his school supplies were “old.” Ha ha HA! Not happening! I think he had a good time rounding up everything on the list around the house last night, though.
Shawna at Bumblefucked declares, “I am a phantom power ninja.” By unplugging “phantom” power suckers, like your unused coffee maker, you too can slash your utility bills.
Amy at The Q Family lists 13 Fun (Free) Things to Do This Summer. Some of the places mentioned are specific to Atlanta, but should give you some great ideas of things to do with your kids in your city too.
Dollar Frugal offers a co-worker $100 for a bed advertised at $250. Faux pas? Not in my book!
David Carter at David Makes Cents has made every day Bring Your Lunch to Work Day. Ah, spending money on lunches…my personal weakness.
Dorian Wales at The Personal Financier explores the psychology behind purchasing expensive wine. Right on! I drink cheap wine because I can’t tell the difference.
Saving & Investing
Although all of my extra money goes toward debt-repayment, I do have a little short-term savings plan for replacing our nasty, uncomfortable, inherited mattress. It’s called: Garage sale! On Saturday, we received the homeowners’ association newsletter, and the neighborhood garage sale is going to be June 14. I’ve never had a garage sale, but I’m excited. I hope we can bring in at least a few hundred bucks.
Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity shares a personal blunder of his and reminds us to remember certificates of deposit during fed rate cuts.
GBlogger at CAN I GET RICH ON A SALARY discusses a Money article in Success Stories: Single Parent Saves Over $310,000 By Age 38, which describes an excellent method for saving.
Jamy at Wealth=Wise(Investments+Strategies) talks about her recent vacation and how living within one’s means allows you to maintain the same standard of living in good times and bad. Similarly, she reflects that a wise investor can also thrive in both environments.
Credit & Debt
On Thursday, my co-worker mentioned that they’ve had three different companies come out and check their house for termites in the past week. Three? She says the reason is that their economic stimulus payment is burning a hole in her husband’s pocket, who recently began working after going back to school. During that time, they basically lived off credit cards, but are planning to use the money to do some home improvements instead of paying off the balances. I always considered her lucky that she could afford for her husband to quit his job, but I guess the sacrifice actually took a little more than luck…
Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life shares four methods he’s used to reduce credit card debt. I’ve personally used methods #2-4.
Heather Allen at The DebtFree Playbook Blog reflects on what “a lot” of money is and concludes that maybe her debt isn’t that big (or unsurmountable).
plonkee of plonkee money shows us that there is life after bankruptcy in getting out of debt Amy’s way.
Joanne at Open Mind Required reflects on Credit Card Insanity: The Minimum Payment. It’s a great reminder of the costs of credit.
FIRE Finance warns not to go over the limit on your Citi Cash Returns card due to its hefty over-the-limit fee. That’s right - Citibank wants you to use, use, use your card, and then stop…payment time!
Inflation
My husband asked for a “raise” in his gas budget, which is currently $150 every two weeks. So he’s going to take an extra $20 each paycheck, which means we now spend (drum roll please…) $490 per month on gas! I hope you are enjoying that Jeep, baby!
Luckily, there’s a chance his group at work may get to begin telecommuting two days per week.
Kyle at Amateur Asset Allocator asks, “Do official inflation numbers match your experience?” Personally, inflated food prices have had only a minimal impact on my budget, but gas prices are (obviously) a problem for me.
Love and Money
My husband and I had a chat Thursday night about our debt payoff schedule. We will be done with our “bad” debt next paycheck, and might have our student loans paid off by the end of the year. If we’re lucky, we’ll have our second mortgage paid off by December ‘09, and then all that’s left will be the first mortgage. I told him that when we’re out of debt, I’m going to buy a bunch of new clothes. He said that he is going to buy a new computer. It’s good to be on the same page about things and to have something to look forward to!
ScrapperMom at Don’t Feed the Alligators confesses to breaking her financial contract with her spouse. Juicy! But I must know - what did you buy?
BeThisWay at Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You? tolerates her husband’s $5 per week lottery habit because it allows him to dream. My husband also buys PowerBall tickets on occasion and says he’s “buying a dream.”
Kids and Money
My stepson’s shoes are getting old and ratty, so I bought him a new pair the other day when we were at Target. He said he liked them, and they were on clearance for $4.48. A few days later, I noticed that he was wearing his old shoes again. “Are the new ones too big?,” I asked. He said he wasn’t sure, but that another kid in his class had said they were ugly. Of course, I’ve obviously been out of high school for a while, because I was all, “So what? Screw ‘em!” He’s continued to wear the old shoes, but I’m hoping he’ll come around eventually. I just didn’t realize that nine-year-old boys even notice shoes.
LivingAlmostLarge discusses a recent MP Dunleavy article and her opinion on whether teaching kids about money should begin at home or at school. Unfortunately, I wasn’t taught much about money in either place!
Luckily, there are some parents who know and teach their kids about money. DR at The Dough Roller shares his methods.
Todd at HarvestingDollars is tired of getting advice from strangers when they find out he doesn’t yet have children. These strangers do what all annoying strangers do - tell him to travel, have fun and save money before it’s too late. I can relate to Todd a bit on this one - I’m so sick of people telling me how expensive kids are! My stepson can’t possibly cost us more than $400 per month, and most of that is before and after school care. I know people with higher car payments!
Pets and Money
My dog turned three on Friday. I love my dog! For his first birthday, we got him a cake, but we haven’t gone to that extreme since then. This year we got him one of each kind of treat from the treat buffet at Petco, a new collar and some peanut butter tennis balls. It’s OK to spoil pets though, right?
FMF at Free Money Finance discusses a coworker’s recent vet bill in $1,200 Vet Bill Around the Corner. I know the feeling of big, unexpected vet bills - my dog ate a bunch of carpet once and incurred a bill upwards of $700. When it comes to life and death, there’s no telling how much money I would spend on my dog.
Vacations
Last July, we went to the beach. This July, we’re going nowhere.
Well, that’s not exactly true. We’re taking a staycation, where we go on vacation in our own town (sans hotel). This week, we’ve been planning all the fun things we’re going to do: baseball games, theme parks, plays, museums, picnics, bars, etc. I’m pretty excited about it, actually. After our staycation, we’ll have no excuse for not seeing all the touristy things in our city.
Lise at Frugal in the Fruitlands is feeling the effects of overspending in Vacation Bloat. Albuquerque is a lovely place to visit though, don’t you think?
Thank you for joining me in my first hosting experience. If you didn’t see your post here, please remember that submissions need to be money stories (the “story” part is key) or personal money experiences, published within the past month and specifically related to finance. Please visit the Carnival of Money Stories homepage for details, and join us next week, when the carnival travels to Bible Money Matters.
Snowflaking, the popular concept of throwing all your extra little bits of money toward your debts, has quickly snowballed into its own website and carnival. Check out the first edition of the 
