Frugal Blog Network Round Up

We have a new member at the Frugal Blog Network – Frugal Zeitgeist has joined us.  I’ve been impressed with her for quite some time, reading about her quest to pay off her mortgage, which she did this summer ($200,000 in something like 6 years!)  She’s got a great post this week, about how relationships and people are more important than money and things.  Go check it out – you’ll be inspired to call someone you love.

From Almost Frugal, we have the fifth entry in her saving-money-around-the-house series – this time it’s in the home office.  My husband and I both work from home, so we spend a lot of time in our home offices.  We went paperless a couple years ago, and love it.  The only paper floating around here these days is mail, and we try to minimize that as much as we can.  We use electronic everything – email, electronic fax, VOIP, Cute PDF writer, external hard drives for data backup… I can’t remember the last time we bought ink or paper.  But I’m a doodler – I doodle when I talk on the phone.  So I keep a stack of junk mail on my desk as scratch paper – my husband thinks it’s pretty entertaining to look at my desk at the end of the day.  He can tell how long my phone calls were by the amount of doodling going on.

Not Made Of Money has a post about getting the most bang for your buck at a farmers market.  We tend to shop in natural food stores rather than farmers markets, just because they’re closer.  But this post makes me want to find a farmers market just for fun.

Andy at Tight Fisted Miser is driving 55.  My mother told me that she’s started setting her cruise at 55 these days too.  I’ve been driving about 60 on the rare occasions when I drive somewhere.  Another update from Andy – he’s not going to live in a van down by the river afterall.  He’s got a better option – moving in with his girlfriend, who was apparently not excited about living in a van with Andy and her dogs.  I was looking forward to hearing about his experiences in the van, but I’m glad that things are going so well in his relationship.