My Mother’s Day Roundup 05/18/08

Today is the day we’ll be celebrating Mother’s Day with our families…since I don’t have to work and we’ll have time for the drive home. I’m glad that they live quite close to each other, so we can stay with my parents but spend time with both our families.

This is a cross between a carnival roundup and an M-Network one. I’ll start with the carnivals.

Last week, I participated in 3 carnivals—the Carnival of Personal Finance, the Festival of Frugality (I made editor’s pick), and the Carnival of Homeschooling. There were plenty of good articles in all of the carnivals. Here are just a few:

• Probably the best article I had was “marrying debt” by feminist finance. Her fiance looked at all his debt and realized it was $42,000…in credit cards. Crazy. Now unlike me, she didn’t feel comfortable marrying debt (and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable, had it been anything but student loans). Amazingly, her fiance has managed to pay off over half of that in only 6 months. Astounding. Seems like she picked a keeper. 🙂
• David (Money Ning) suggests that we miss deals to save money. It makes sense…not buying at all is cheaper than buying on sale. Only if we need it is it a deal.
• And from the homeschooling carnival, some tips for avoiding homeschooling burnout. I think they apply to a number of things you do with your kids. The key is finding what works for you instead of clinging to ideas like “we must have a schedule” or “we must not have a schedule.” Our family did both, depending on how old we were.

And now for some highlights from my fellow M-Networkers:

• Single Guy reports that apparently people are stealing gas now. I heard someone complaining about that here in DC.
• This is from plonkee’s blog last year…but I just ran across it and it’s so good: Starting a business will not make you rich. I need to write a similar post about blogging.
• Patrick gives a sample resignation letter…one he happily got to use this last week.
• Ok, this I love. From My Two Dollars, you can find out how much your congressional representative is worth. What I want to know is how my old senator (Biden) ended up with -$12,000 (or he was when the data was recorded).
• From Dough Roller—some of the best organizational sites.
• Gibble asks, what can you do about lies and money in marriage? Coming clean has to start now.
• Pinyo explains annuities. If you don’t know what they are, be sure you find out before considering buying. Many are almost impossible to get out of.
• PaidTwice reminds us why debt stinks…sometimes it forces us to make cheap choices. Fortunately, she didn’t have to make a cheap choice this time.
• And finally, congrats to Lynnae! She paid off her credit card.

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