Have you downsized your gift giving this year? I definitely am for sure.  I have a lot of financial stuff on my plate right now and a lot of unexpected expenses these past two months.  Thus I felt it more important that we stay financially healthy than spend money on Christmas giving.  I’ve actually been [...]

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I just wanted to talk about Black Friday Shopping.  I went, but at 10 am. I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed to Babies R Us and got a stellar deal on wipes and diapers.  I bought 3 boxes of mega wipes @ $5 each, about a penny a wipe. I also got 2 bags [...]

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One of my younger coworkers said something that gave me a pause.  She’s a very great, responsible young woman of 23, engaged to be married next year.  They are responsibly living together, carefully planning on buying a new car, wedding, etc.  Sounds great right?
Well she tells me so jealous of her friends who ran up [...]

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About two months ago MP Dunleavy wrote about her rising concern with inflation.  She noticed that her spending from a year ago has gone up dramatically.  She spent $400 last year on groceries, this year it was $587.   She spent $140 on miscellaneous items last year and $346 this year.  She blames inflation.  Was her [...]

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Gas prices are on the rise again.  The average price is $2.67/gallon.  Yes it’s a lot lower than last year’s peak of $4.11/gallon.  Last year I noticed a huge uptick in people riding public transit.  It’s come way down this year and I haven’t seen an uptick yet.
But how will rising gas prices affect you?  [...]

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Slate had an article talking about how the recession is wrecking friendships.  The articles gives a few different examples of how the economy is affecting people and their relationships.  The article suggests that the sudden changes in people’s circumstances are making it difficult to navigate friendships.
The first example was a woman who just bought a [...]

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Next week I’ll be hosting the 209th Carnival of Personal Finance.  Please submit posts here!   Anyway here are some of the carnivals I participated in this week.

Festival of Frugality Baseball Edition
208th Carnival of Personal Finance
5th Carnival of Money Stories
68th Money Hacks Carnival

Please come by on Monday to read the Carnival of Personal Finance.

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Fabulously Broke had a great post called “in defense of the rich,” in response to Madame X post called “Rich are still Rich.”  Madame X’s post talks about few different articles which show that the wealthy have become less so in the US.  That millionaires have lost around 30% of their wealth.  She ended with [...]

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I was just reading an article by Nouriel Roubini.  He talks about the failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism.  Basically he says that our economy has failed because we allowed it to become the Wild, Wild West.  That we allowed unregulated capitalism to run rampant according to the efficient market hypothesis.  That the market will behave most [...]

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This week an article was published called “Confessions of a TARP Wife” in Portfolio.  Suggested by NY Mag to be Liz Peek, former NY Sun business writer, married to Citibank CEO Jeffrey Peek, it’s an interesting look at what the mega-rich are dealing with right now.  Their perspective on their loss of wealth and income.
TARP [...]

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