From the Frugal Blog Network, lots of good stuff this week.
Almost Frugal has a wonderfully creative post about ways to entertain kids using food. I especially love the ice cube watercolors! I’m trying to avoid chemicals and toxins as much as possible, and am on the lookout for things our son will be able to do that don’t involve a chemical soup. I will be all about the ice cube watercolors. I’m thinking a little beet juice and water, some paper spread on the grass in the back yard, and we could have quite the creation.
Not Made Of Money has a post about how buying stuff just because you can afford the payments is a bad idea. So true. It makes a lot more sense to ask yourself if you can afford to spend $3000 on a new TV (I sure can’t!) than to say that you can afford to make $90/month payments on the TV. Same goes for cars. Our approach is to pay those monthly payments to ourselves, and when we’ve saved enough, we can buy whatever it is we were saving for. At least that way if life throws a curve ball at you (and it has a sneaky way of doing that) you can always stop making payments to yourself for a while. Won’t work so well to stop making payments to the car loan people when times get tight.
Andy from Tight Fisted Miser is having a charity drive for Cancer action in honor of his late uncle. He’ll donate extra money every time someone subscribes to his blog, so go check it out.
And from other spots around the blogosphere:
Outdoor Baby has a great how-to for making a child-sized sleeping bag from an old adult bag. Love the picture, love the directions, love the idea. We’re definitely planning on camping with our little guy, probably starting next summer. We don’t have any old sleeping bags, but our local thrift store probably does, and I’d love to give this a try.
Notes From The Frugal Trenches has a post about self-discipline. Great post, and it applies to all areas of life – not just money and frugality. Eating well, exercising, parenting, housework, a successful career – everything worth doing requires some degree of self-discipline. Go read the post for some inspiration.
Have a great weekend!
RetiredAt47 says
Figuring out whether you can afford the total purchase price, rather than the monthly payment, is totally the way to go. I’ve found a lot of salespeople, especially those selling cars and homes, try to get you to focus just on the payment. Of course they don’t point out how much you’ll be paying in interest and for how long!