Master Your Card

Well, it’s another blazing hot day here in Texas, so I think I’ll be staying in doors to get some reading done. I’ll start with a big thanks to Megan at Counting Pennies and Emily at Taking Charge for hosting Finance Fiesta’s this week. Both ladies did an amazing job and have lots of great links, so be sure to check them out!

Ok, on to what I’ve discovered in the blogosphere.

Frugality

There’s a bit of a theme in this section of my links. With school shopping on the rise, buying clothes can often overwhelm our pocket books. So, here are a few interesting articles on deciding between the cheap stuff and the quality stuff.

Shanti at Antishay has a great post about the frugality of buying quality shoes. The fact that I’m a girl who loves shoes immediately drew me to this post, but the argument that Shanti makes about why quality shoes are the more frugal choice is appealing.

Tricia at Blogging Away Debt has an older article that I ran across which I found interesting. She talks about buying a new pair of jeans and whether to go quality or cheap. Personally, when it comes to jeans, I like quality. I want to know that they’ll last…I’ve had that embarrassing moment where the seams have ripped apart, in public, in front of the whole school. Never again!

This hilarious post from Fabulously Broke isn’t really about frugality, but since I was intending this section to be about back to school clothes, as it were, this is definitely worth a peek. FB talks about the finer points of buying the right pairs of jeans.

Other Interesting Posts

Nickel at Five Cent Nickel gives a short post on WaMu upping their savings rate. You’re likely to see a lot of this as some of the major banks’ stocks drop. They need to attract the funds in order to keep up their balance sheets, so these rates attract people.

JB at Get Rich or Die Trying writes about his own anxieties in dealing with the financial roller coaster. I bring this to everyone’s attention because the frustration seems to be widespread amongst those I’ve spoken to at the credit union, and I wanted to point out that things aren’t all that bad. JB says it better than me, though, so check out his post.

Trees Full of Money has a guest post from Yielding Wealth that talks about four easy ways to start investing. Investing is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to get your money to work for you. Given that you can’t rely on pensions and social security anymore, you’ve got to come up with your own ways of getting retirement money. This post reminds us that it’s not as hard as we imagine to get started.

Patrick at Cash Money Life talks about Obama’s plan for another stimulus package. As the first stimulus check didn’t seem to have all that much of a difference, I agree with Patrick that a second may not be effective either.

Trent at The Simple Dollar talks about viewing debt as an investment. Essentially, paying debt where you get a tax deduction is considered “ok” debt. I can see the logic, but I have to agree with his usual statements that no debt is the better place to be.

Hope everyone finds something that interests them today! Have a great week!