But here are a couple of notable reads from fellow Pecuniary Associates from this past week that I think you’ll enjoy.

• Living Well On Less is planning a frugal road trip and talks about how she and her husband will make it frugal, healthy and simple.
• Counting My Pennies‘s cat recently had surgery and she found herself readily agreeing to have anything necessary done regardless of cost. (We’d be the same way with our dogs.) She talks about priorities and when she will scrimp and when she won’t in What do you value?

We also had our post Short Term vs. Long Term Savings With Bulk Buying included in the 17th Carnival of Pecuniary Delights: Online Slang Edition hosted at Budgets Are Sexy (apologies for the delay in linking back!)

Ciao!

From Pecuniary Associates

• Living Well On Less gives us 3 simple things you can do right now to improve your state of mind.
• Financial Nut asks if hyperinflation is looming in America’s economic future.
• Counting My Pennies ponders what she would grab in a workplace fire drill.

Elsewhere in the Personal Finance Blogosphere

• Money Ning says the lowest price is for losers.
• Moolanomy promotes saving money with homemade products.

Recent Blog Carnivals

Thanks to the following carnivals and hosts for including my posts in their recent blog carnivals.

• Carnival of Pecuniary Delights: Sweet 16 Edition
  Included my post: Resisting the Urge to Splurge

• Carnival of Personal Finance: New Zealand Edition!
  Included my post: Save Money on Clothes: Shop the Juniors’ Department
• Carnival of Pecuniary Delights 15 – Epicurean Delights Edition
  Included my post: Pay Bills Online and Save

I’ve been on a little hiatus from blogging due to a few things going on in my non-cyber-life these days. Madoline and I have been busy working at a business overhaul which has been occupying a lot of my mind so that I haven’t had much time and brain-space for blog post ideas.

We’ve also been trying our hand at air-conditioning-free life in the desert, and this heat wave has been a formidable living companion, but I am happy to report we are are doing quite well despite highs as much as 109 this past week. Perhaps I’ll post a little later on how and why we’re doing this.

Anyways, it is time for another financial link/Pecuniary Associates roundup, which you can come to expect on the 1st and 3rd weekend of each month.

From Pecuniary Associates

• At Financial Nut, Alex wrote a review on a book called The Skinny on Credit Cards, How to Master the Credit Card Game. It looks like an interesting and informative read for anyone who has questions or doubts about credit card usage.
• At Living Well on Less, Karen’s chef husband Tony contributed a 2-part series on 12 essential tools for a frugal kitchen.
• At Counting My Pennies, Megan shares a somewhat frustrating experience in which a co-worker who didn’t know her well criticized her for her frugality. It’s a short and very worthwhile read titled “You don’t seem the type.”

Elsewhere in the Personal Finance Blogosphere

• At Mrs. Micah, the missus shares a cute childhood story, which bears an important message: Keep Your Word to Children About Money.
• At The Paycheck Chronicles, Kate has discovered a way to make sure that she never misses a credit card payment while not having to worrying about overdraft charges on her checking account.

Blog Carnivals

I had posts featured in 2 blog carnivals this past week:

• At Green Panda Treehouse, Carnival of Personal Finance #211: Burn Notice Edition (one of my favorite shows!), which included my post Remembering Why We Do What We Do.
• At Taking Charge, The 14th Carnival of Pecuniary Delights: The ‘I Forgot Day’ edition, which included my post Discerning Luxury from Necessity.

Well, that wraps it up for today’s roundup. Thanks for being a Pecuniarities reader and have a safe and happy 4th of July!

From Pecuniary Associates

• Living Well On Less gives us:  Frugality is good for the Earth
• Financial Nut offers A Comprehensive Guide To Understanding The Pros & Cons Of Investing Into A Roth IRA, one of the many things I’ve been meaning to look into.
• Greener Pastures asks Should I Refinance? Obama Says Yes.
• Counting My Pennies talks about Keeping Money Matters Quiet, to which I completely agree.

Blog Carnivals

• At Money Ning: Carnival of Personal Finance #200 – Edition of Mini Accomplishments
  Post included: Slowing Down Makes Sense: Drive Safely, Save More Than Money

• At Mighty Bargain Hunter: Welcome to the Carnival of Personal Finance
  Post included: Falling Off Your Financial Horse: If  you’ve never fallen off a horse, you just haven’t ridden enough.

• At Wise Bread: Carnival of Pecuniary Delights No. 2: Saving Money Edition
  Post included: Honestly Frugal: the Ethics of Saving Money.

If you haven’t done your taxes yet, enter now for a chance to win 1 of 2 FREE prepaid access codes for TurboTax Premier Online which includes:

• Free Federal
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The Premier package is valued at $85 and includes investment income, 401-K  Maximizer, rental deductions and other features to help you maximize and expedite your refund. Click here for more information on TurboTax Premier.

Enter by 11:59 PM PST tonight March 28, 2009 for a chance to win!

Pecuniarities is Hosting 2 Carnivals Next Week!

Submit your posts for double carnival exposure:

• Carnival of Debt Reduction on Monday March 30th
  Submit your post by 5:00 PM PST Sunday March 29th to be considered for inclusion
• Carnival of Pecuniary Delights on Thursday April 2nd
  Submit your best post – remember there is no restriction as to the age of the post – by 5:00 PM PST Wednesday April 1st to be considered for inclusion

Apply to host and submit an article for the Carnival of Pecuniary Delights by April 1st for chances to win these 2 cute piggy bank magnets by Madoline Hatter:

“Money begets Money” magnet for article submissions, “Feast on your savings” magnet for applying to host.

This Week’s Blog Carnivals

We participated in 2 blog carnivals this week:

• Festival of Frugality #170 – Frugal Living is Timeless was hosted by Money Ning and included my post:
  When “Free” Things Aren’t Free: Beware the Hidden and Indirect Costs
• Learn The Basics of Investing – Edition #197 of Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted by Four Pillars and included my post:
  It Saves to Be Nice Part 4: How to Save Money by Helping Businesses Keep Operating Costs Down

Posts That Caught My Eye This Week

From Get Rich Slowly — 25 Useful Financial Rules of Thumb
Lots of goodies here for all aspects of personal finance

From Mrs. Micah — How Has the Recession Changed Your Saving Habits
A Twitter poll with answers from 12 different people in 140 characters or fewer. It includes one from yours truly! There are lots of comments from readers, too (most over 140 characters.)

From My Money Blog — Summary of California’s Upcoming New Tax Hikes
Increasing sales tax by a whole percent, income tax, vehicle licensing fees, and decreasing dependent credit. Needless to say, being a California resident, this makes me very, very unhappy. So much for economic stimulus blah blah blah.

From The Passive Dad — Money Saving Tip: Have Kids Help With Grocery Coupons
Even though I don’t have kids with opposable thumbs with which to clip coupons, I really like the idea of “no coupon, no purchase,” which can apply to everyone.

Recent Blog Carnivals

Broke Grad Student hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #193: YouTube Edition
Included my post: Free e-Book, Audiobook, Video & Music Download and Online Resources From Your Local Library

Free Money Finance hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #194
Included my post: Consumer Safety Resources from the Government on SPAM, Scams, Fraud, Phishing and Identity Theft

Green Panda Treehouse hosted Festival of Frugality #167: Dr. House Edition
Included my post: Beware of Fake IRS (Internal Revenue Service) Phishing Email Scams

Have a nice week!

Now the holidays are over, the days are getting longer, and we must go back to the hustle and bustle of daily life, which I’m not quite ready to do just yet. But I’ll start with a couple of news items for Pecunarities.

Pecuniary News

• Our First Blog Contest

  I just announced our first ever blog contest here at Pecuniarities, in which we are giving away a free 6-month print subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Those residing within the contiguous U.S. (48 states) and who have not subscribed to the Wall Street Journal are eligible to enter. So pop over and see how you can win!
  2009 Financial Resolutions Blog Contest: Win a Free 6-Month Subscription to the Wall Street Journal

• Hosting the Carnival of Personal Finance

  We have the privilege of hosting the Carnival of Personal Finance next week, January 19th, 2009. This is our first time hosting the CoPF about which I am very excited. If you are a blogger, make sure to get your submission in before 6pm EST Sunday, January 18th.

Giveaways

• Single Guy Money is also a giveaway for a $100 Target or Walmart Gift Card (winner’s choice). Head on over and see how you can win!
• Your Money Relationship is also holding a giveaway for a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate.

Roundup

• Living Well on Less risked injury by making the mistake of being too frugal with her exercise budget.
• Wide Open Wallet breaks down her budget to see where all the money is going.
• Master Your Card gives us Top 10 Resolution Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.
• Moolanomy  gives 7 Tips to Stick to New Year’s Resolutions.
• Almost Frugal shares Turning Resolutions into Reality in 5 Steps.
• I’ve Paid For This Twice Already says Resolutions Are Just Goals With A Fancy Name.

Blog Carnival Partipation

• This past week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, Fairy Tale Edition, was hosted at Clever Dude, who demonstrated his cleverness by formatting the carnival in prose. This is no ordinary litany of links to articles around the financial blogoshere, but rather each entry has a part in the story.

It has been a busy week for us here at Our Fourpence Worth. We partipated in another PF Bloggers Network Group Writing Project, the topic of which was our Personal Experiences with Loans. We wrote about the first time we purchased a car on our own and got in a little trouble by being clueless as to how the credit, loan and auto sales industries work. It was a once in a lifetime mistake that you can be sure we won’t ever be making again – Learning From Our Mistakes: Our First (Auto) Loan.

Check out the PF Bloggers Group Writing Projects page for more, and if you are a personal finance or frugal living blogger, you are invited to join in our Extended Group Writing Project. We also hosted the 16th Edition of the Finance Fiesta, the theme of which was “Devote Your Life to Money!” a cynical poem by David Kessel about the virtues of money.

A quick note before we begin with today’s roundup, we have been doing roundups once a month for the past few months, but plan to begin doing them twice a month. The reason we don’t do weekly roundups as many other bloggers do is simply because of our personal, work and blogging schedule. As you’ve probably noticed, we only manage to publish about 3 original posts a week so weekly roundups would not be a good balance of original and linking posts. OK, now on with the roundup.

PF Bloggers Network Members

• Wide Open Wallet shares her reasons for eating out. $400 a month is quite a lot, but if you enjoy it and can afford it, bon appetit!
• No Debt Plan talks about his “Thing”: Keeping a Bunch of Old Magazines. We have a similar “thing”. My Wall Street Journal pile, for instance, will soon be a WSJ mountain.
• Living Almost Large asks: is spending wrong? As with eating out, it really is all about what you can afford.
  
• Master Your Card gives a guide on How to Balance your Checkbook. In this electronic age, it probably is the norm to not know how to do this. Might I also suggest our Monopoly Game Expansion #2: Personal Checking Account for a fun way to practice this important skill.
• Girls Just Wanna Have Funds offers some car buying advice (something I was planning to do as well to follow up our experience with our car loan): Put On Your Lace Gloves: Get The Car You Want At A Price You Can Afford.

Elsewhere in the Personal Finance Blogosphere

• The Simple Dollar gives us Why Many “Alternative Income” Ideas Aren’t Worth Your Time – And What You Might Do With It Instead.
• I enjoyed Money Ning‘s What Motivates You to Make Money? It is important to know and not lose sight of your true motives.
• Living Well on Less explains the beneifts of Life without a microwave. We did this for a while when our 12+ year old microwave died. It was a little inconvenient sometimes, but not at all impossible.
• Saving Advice gives us Ten Money-Saving Reasons to Get Out of Bed Early.
• Taxguy instructs on Items to Bring to Your Individual Tax Preparation Appointment.

Carnival Participation

Lately I’ve been really disorganized and have consistently forgotten to submit to blog carnivals, but I did manage to remember one. We’d like to thank The Personal Financier for including my post on Switching to Paperless Statements in the Carnival of Personal Finance #170 – Famous Last Sentences Edition. This edition features many [entertaining] statements, hopefully fictitious, that have not always resulted in a good end for the money manager or investor who said it. One of my favorites is #20: “It just can’t get any lower than this…”

Head on over for more personal finance reading recommendations.

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I can’t believe it’s September already. I woke up today with that feeling of fall in the air, which is really nice. While I learned long ago to never wish life away by wanting a future day hurry up and come, I can’t say that I don’t look forward to the cooler weather and lower electric bills (till winter comes when we have to decide whether we should get our heater fixed or try to go without and save about $1,000 dollars in propane gas bills over the winter.)

Fall also means that Halloween is just around the corner and we’re [hopefully] going to get super busy in our pet clothing and costuming business. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I still haven’t been able to start posting more frequently and we’re still averaging 3 times a week. This is because I am working hard to get our new Franga Designs store up and running as soon as possible for the Halloween sales season. But enough about me and our other sites, lets get on with news about Our Fourpence Worth.

Our Fourpence Worth News

6-Month Anniversary!

First of all, Our Fourpence Worth passed our 6-month anniversary at the end of August. We’ve had 26,879 unique visitors in these 6 months and received a Google page rank of 4, which I am quite happy about. Thank you to all our readers who have been with us since the beginning and joined us along the way. We appreciate each of you and your comments and feedback.

9rules

Next, I am pleased to announce that Our Fourpence Worth has just been accepted today to the 9rules community. For those of you who don’t know what 9rules is, here is an excerpt from their about page:

9rules is a place where members and readers can connect, build relationships, and learn new things. 9rules started in 2003 with a set of 9 rules:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

This is very exciting for us and we would like to thank Scrivs, Tyme and Mike (The Triad) at 9rules for accepting us. We hope to be able to both contribute and learn from being a part of the 9rules community.

Now on with our roundup for this month.

Personal Finance Roundup and Blog Carnivals

PF Bloggers

• Get Rich or Die Trying opines that Parents Who Don’t Fund The Kids’ College Are Selfish.
• No Debt Plan shares A Six Step Guide to Asking for Fee Forgiveness from his recent experience in making and correcting a simple error in his credit card payment.
• Living Almost Large asks Why Aren’t We Honest when it comes to talking about our finances?
• Wide Open Wallet shares an interesting way of life in A New Car Every Year.
• Master Your Card tells How to use the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to Your Advantage.

Elsewhere in the Personal Finance Blogosphere

• My Dollar Plan gives students (and parents) a heads up on 10 College Money Myths.
• Saving Advice gives us 10 Things Money Can’t Buy.
• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity warns of The 7 Deadly Sins of Personal Finance.

Festival of Frugality

The 141st Festival of Frugality was hosted by Kelly at Almost Frugal. We would like to thank her for including our Fast and Frugal Recipe: Mediterranean Pizza Toast in this week’s edition. Kelly is an American living in France, so she chose to share some fun frugal French vocabulary in this edition. Ever wondered how to say “miser” in French? Well, head on over to Festival of Frugality No. 141 and find out! Allons-y!

Well, this wraps this month’s very long roundup. I hadn’t planned on it being this long, but I hope you enjoy the links.

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Wise Bread: Carnival of Personal Finance #205: Pay it Forward Edition included our post DIM (Did-it-Myself!) Country Kitchen Storage Shelf.

Almost Frugal: The Carnival of Pecuniary Delights No. 8 included our post Sewing: A Frugal and Fulfilling Hobby – Save Money by Sewing Your Own Clothes.

I Pick Up Pennies: Carnival of Pecuniary Delights No. 7 included our post The No-Budget System

Stretchy Dollar: Money Hacks Carnival – Otter Pop Edition included our post Use Amazon Price History Tracker to Make Sure a Sale Really is a Sale.

Roundup of Notable Reads

• Counting My Pennies talks about breaking things down into per unit costs, something I myself like to do. At my first job where I made $9 an hour, I used to sit at my desk and calculate how much I made per minute, per 5 minutes, per 15 … you get the picture. I’d be putting together a report or labeling office keys (I was a “secretary/receptionist” but basically I was assistant to 4 big bosses and an over-secretary) and think to myself, “Ooh, just made 15 cents!”

  Anyways, check out Megan’s post for a tip on a way to see how much you’re paying per movie through your Netflix plan at  How much does it really cost?

• Living Well On Less tells of her laptop’s near death experience, a good reminder to frequently backup important files. And don’t drink and type!
• Mrs. Micah says Doing What You Love Won’t Make You Rich, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
• Money Ning clears up some Misunderstanding of Frugal Living.
• Almost Frugal offers A Basic Guide to Smart Shopping and warns of seller tricks.

Blog Carnivals

Thanks to the following carnival hosts for including my posts in the following recent carnivals.

• Money Ning hosted the Carnival of Pecuniary Delights No. 5: A Little Definition Edition. If you’ve been wondering what “pecuniary” means, this is your chance to find out. And my post The Library Card: Your Other “Rewards Credit Card” was selected as Editor’s Pick – double thanks!
• Greener Pastures hosted The Carnival of Pecuniary Delights No. 6: Are You Cashing in on Going Green? which included my post Language Lesson ~ Frugality is a Virtue (if you’ve been dying to know the origins of the word “frugal,” check it out!).

• Carnival of Pecuniary Delights No. 1: The Madoline Hatter Pecuniary Art Edition
• Carnival of Debt Reduction No. 185: The Charles Dickens Debtor’s Prison Edition

Now, onto my roundup for today.

From Pecuniary Associates

• At Living Well On Less, Karen had to go away for a week and her husband Tony had to “live the bachelor life,” a point of worry for both of them. See how he planned/dealt with the situation and avoided falling into bachelor spending habits in his guest post How my husband plans to save while I’m away.
• At Financial Nut, Trevor walks us through the process of freezing our credit reports in Freezing Credit Reports Online. Why would you want to do this? To keep potential creditors, companies and thieves from getting access to your report.
• At Greener Pastures, Lisa offers an interesting read for those wondering which stocks to invest in during this recession, and a few tips for keeping the comfort food weight at bay in Is it Weight Gain or Weight Loss This Recession? Plus 7 Tips to Avoid Weight Gain.
• At Counting My Pennies, Megan talks about some of the issues Generation X faces in this economic climate in The “Plight” of the Twenty-Somethings.
• At The Passive Dad, Scott urges us to get a second opinion in Can’t Make Up Your Mind? Call A Frugal Friend.

Elsewhere in the Personal Finance Blog Community

• At The Simple Dollar, Trent gives some great advice How You Can Become a Jack of All Trades and why this can be valuable. Being a mini Jacqueline of many trades, though not as advanced as Trent’s friend Darwin, I have to concur that having a wide range of skills, even if limited, can be very convenient in your daily life as well as making you a valuable asset to your employers.
• At Bargaineering, Jim reminds us about the point of it all in The Secret About Money… (A must see)
• At My Money Blog, Jonathan discusses changing your consumption habits in Internal vs. External Frugality: Different Ways of Saving.

Pecuniarities in the Personal Finance Blog Community

I am excited to announce that Pecuniarities has been included in FIRE Finance’s Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs, ranking at #76. You can expect me to do all I can to make that number smaller!

We have also had the privilege of being included in the Personal Finance Category of a new site called Greatnexus, a  site not unlike Alltop, of which we are also a member.

I have some news today. Since the demise of the PF Bloggers group to which I use to belong, I had been thinking about starting a new group, which I did a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Pecuniary Associates, and consists of 6 blogs:

1. Pecuniarities
2. Living Well On Less
3. Financial Nut
4. Counting My Pennies
5. Greener Pastures
6. The Passive Dad

(I have decided to cap recruitment for now in order for us to start getting to know one another and see how we work together, and therefore am no longer looking for additional members at this time.)

A few things we will be doing which you will see here at Pecuniarities:

• Recommending posts from each others’ blogs that we think will be interesting or useful to our readers
• Participating in group and community writing projects in which we will each share our viewpoints and experiences on certain topics
• Community writing projects in which we will invite all personal finance bloggers to participate

So keep an eye out for our first group writing project!

Now on to this week’s roundup.

From Pecuniary Associates

• Counting My Pennies tells a tale of frustration in Friends and money don’t mix.
• Financial Nut reports his experience with fraudulent activity on his credit card this week. This is a good reminder that we can never be too careful and must remain vigilant in regularly checking our statements.
• Living Well On Less offers a suggestion I’d be more than eager to follow if I was ever faced with renting and moving again (but never will because I am determined to never move again unless I want to.) Moving on a budget? Consider staying where you are
• The Passive Dad offers 10 ways to deal with financial stress, something we can all use.
• Greener Pastures advises to just use a little less.

Elsewhere in the PF Blogosphere

• The Paycheck Chronicles offers some tips for Laundry on the Cheap.
• Free From Broke asks: Is Saving 8 to 12 Months Expenses Even Possible Or Practical? I say, definitely.
• Wise Bread advocates Borrowing, renting, substituting, and doing without

Blog Carnivals

We’d like to thank the following hosts for including us in their recent blog carnivals:

• Money Ning hosted Money Hacks Carnival #55 – Thank You Edition which included my post:
  Who’s to Blame for Your Spending? You or You?

• Green Panda Treehouse hosted Carnival of Personal Finance #196: Music Edition which included my post:
  Financial Lent: A Frugal Fast to See What You Can Live Without

Another Reminder

Personal finance, frugal and green living bloggers:

If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to submit your best post and apply to host an edition of the Carnival of Pecuniary Delights and enter the giveaways for some really cute Piggy Bank Magnets which we just received in the mail and look even better in real life than onscreen!

That wraps it up for today, which incidentally is my birthday, so off to party I go! (Before your imagination runs away with you, by “party” I mean watching Sense and Sensibility (and/or another Jane Austen film) on DVD and consuming copious amounts of fish n’ chips.)

Thanks to these recent blog carnivals for including my post on Frugal and Meaningful Valentine’s Day Gift & Date Ideas:

• Carnival of Personal Finance 190: Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?
• Festival of Frugality: Singles Awareness Edition

We participated in 2 blog carnivals this week and would like to thank the hosts for including our posts:

Taking Charge hosted the 189th Carnival of Personal Finance: Super Bowl Edition which included my post on Best Free Anti-Virus & Anti-Malware Solutions and How to Disinfect a Virus Infected Computer.

Gather Little By Little hosted the 162nd Festival of Frugality which included my post on Websites for Watching Free TV Full Episodes, Movies and News Online.

Now for the roundup.

• Fire Finance shares 12 Tips To Lower Your Heating Bill
• Mrs. Micah tells Why She’s Glad They Didn’t Pay Off the Car Last Year
• Free From Broke shares his opinon on Why Economic Stimulus Handouts Are Bad – It Kills Innovation
• The Digirati Life commented on How Obama’s Stimulus Plan Affects The Middle Class
• Prime Time Money tells us It’s Time to Get Hardcore Frugal!
• Remodeling This Life shares Love Where You Live
• Bible Money Matters tells how The Best Decision Doesn’t Always Make The Most Financial Sense
• Money Ning published a review on E-Trade Bank Savings Account

Oh, and thanks to Credit Withdrawal who hosted the Jan 12th edition of the Festival of Frugality, which included my post Save Money and Get More Exercise With a Mini Home Gym. Apologies for the delay; I got so wrapped up in my own carnival that I forgot to link back last week.

Pecuniarities participated in 3 blog carnivals last week.

• The Carnival of Personal Finance #184: From the Land Down Under was hosted by Saving to Invest who spent his Christmas holidays in summery Australia. This edition included my post on our plans for a frugal Christmas: Frugal Christmas: Skipping the Tree and Presents This Year.
• The 157th Festival of Frugality: The Queen’s Speech Edition was hosted by Miss Thrifty all the way from the Mother Country and included the Queen’s annual Christmas message which has been a tradition since 1932, as well as an alternative for those who can’t be bothered to watch the Queen. Madoline’s post, Using Nature’s Gift Wrap: The Eggshell was selected as an Editor’s Pick in this royal edition. Double thanks for the honors!
• The 44th Money Hacks Carnival – The Merry Christmas Edition was hosted by Where You Are Now and included my post on how Gifts Cards Could Be a Blessing This Christmas.

Well, that’s all for this week. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy your New Year’s festivities.

Christmas is in the air and I am bundled up to resemble a fat penguin, wearing 4-5 layers, and huddled in front of a space heater as I type. The weather also forecasts snow for us tomorrow, which is somewhat rare as we live in the Mojave Desert in Southern California. Having grown up in Hawaii, I can’t say I’m not a little excited about the snow but don’t really look forward to the accompanying cold.

But anyways, on to our roundup for this holiday season.

• Wide Open Wallet offers 10 Holiday Budget Busters.
• Frugal Dad offers Holiday Saftey Tips.
• My Dollar Plan shares 37 Homemade Gifts Under $20.
• Master Your Card shares 42 ways he’s going to make 2009 awesome.

We participated in 2 blog carnivals last week and would like to thank the hosts for including our posts.

• Carnival of Personal Finance #182 – Don’t Go Broke Over The Holidays Edition was hosted by Free From Broke and included Madoline’s post on Two Natural and Economical Ways to Shed Dry Winter Skin.
• Festival of Frugality #155: The Chic-Tacky Christmas Edition was hosted by Greener Pastures and included Madoline’s post on Beautiful Homemade Christmas Ornaments from Eggshells.

Well, this wraps it up for today. Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was so nice that I’m not ready for it to end – and in fact it hasn’t really because I’m still eating turkey twice a day – a 22 lb. turkey between 2 people and 2 medium sized dogs means we will probably all be eating turkey till almost Christmas at which time we’ll probably get another. But I blame the turkey for the laziness I’ve been feeling since Thankdsgiving day and as the reason my roundup is 2 days late and shorter than usual.

• Master Your Card reports that UK Credit Card Owners are to get an Extra 60 Days to Pay. The banks’ intent may be dubious, but I sure wouldn’t mind having an extra 30 days to earn some interest in my savings account.
• Wide Open Wallet offers an interesting Holiday gift suggestion: Put stocks in their stocking. While not as fun, this might prove a more useful gift in the long run than a Nintendo Wii.
• Living Well on Less reminds us: Christmas presents, not status symbols. Your friends and family wouldn’t want you to go into debt buying them big, expensive gifts. Remember, it’s the thought that counts.

We participated in one blog carnival last week (I keep forgetting to submit until the deadlines are past!) last week, Festival of Frugality #152: Affected by Recession Edition, which was hosted at Financial Wellness Project. My post Save on Groceries and Household Supplies with Amazon’s Subscribe & Save Program was included in the Specific Products/Services, Reviews, Deals category. Be sure to check out this edition for other tips on how to save money.