Roundup, Carnivals, and Festivals

The Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Sound Money Matters, and the Festival of Frugality is up at My Two Dollars.  I had articles featured in both,  and there are tons of other great posts.  Whether you’re looking for frugal ideas, investment guidance, ways to weather a rough economy, or tips on increasing your income and decreasing your expenses, you’ll find something you like.

In the Frugal Blog Network, we have a new member!  The Frugal Dutchess has joined us.  She’s a newspaper columnist for the Miami Herald, and has even written a book about Frugality!  I love her recent post about 37 things to do with $1000.  Welcome Frugal Dutchess!

Not Made Of Money has a post about organizing your pantry.  I really like the idea of a dry erase board to keep track of things.  Our pantry isn’t very efficient – we just have deep shelves with lots of space between them.  Somewhere on my to-do list is a plan to put in shallow wrap-around shelves with less space between them, to make stuff more visible and cut down on wasted space.

Almost Frugal is giving away cloth diapers and covers that her daughter has outgown!  I love cloth diapers.  That’s all we use for our son.  Even when we’re out and about, we just take along a bunch of cloth diapers, some wet washcloths in a ziplock bag, and a plastic bag for holding wet/dirty diapers.  I could sure use the beautiful wet bag that Kelly is including in her giveaway!

At Tight Fisted Miser, Andy checks out the details of a $700/month budget.  I love Andy’s focus on reducing living expenses.  I’m all about increasing income, but mainly so that we can save more and pay off our mortgage faster.  We still live on pretty much the same budget we always have.  We do have a $1200/month mortgage and a $430/month health insurance bill, but we try to keep the rest of our expenses to a minimum.

Frugal Zeitgeist has written a thoughtful piece about who pays for rescues from hurricanes, snowstorms, and the like.  It’s especially appropriate given the massive rescue that is being handed to the financial industry from Uncle Sam right now.