Hello everyone! Welcome to Weekly Money Roundup! Here I wrap up happenings here at Color Me Frugal during the week and share with you some of my favorite posts that I enjoyed from other sites this week. There were some pretty awesome articles making the rounds in the personal finance blogosphere this week, so I hope you’ll enjoy! If you haven’t already, please consider Following us on Twitter or Liking us on Facebook.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links.
Here in the CMF household we’ve been recovering this week from the long weekend and events surrounding! We had an excellent Labor Day weekend, but it was crazy busy. We enjoyed a surprise birthday party (for Mr. CMF- shhh, don’t tell anyone but he is turning 40 this weekend!), and baby shower for Baby CMF on Saturday. Somewhere in between the party on Friday night and the shower on Saturday we managed to squeeze in a four hour trip to the ER with my mother, who had surgery last week and was having problems related to that on Friday night. Thankfully she is now much better! We also managed to squeeze in a wedding reception, two boating trips, and a 30 mile bike ride with friends over the weekend. Whew! I am tired just typing all that. But we had a stellar weekend (save for the hours in the ER), packed with lots of time with family and friends.
On Monday night we returned home from our weekend adventures to find somewhat of a disaster at our house, what with all the birthday party remnants (leftover cake, black balloons, etc), baby shower gifts (TONS of baby shower gifts!), and lots of things left strewn around from when my mother stayed with us last week after her surgery. Not to mention a lawn that screamed Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” to me every time I looked at it! The lawn looks better now, but the rest of the house is still a work in progress. 🙂
Below are some popular posts we published recently:
Thursday Aug. 14- Why You Should Buy or Borrow Used- Not Brand Name or New- Baby Clothing
Monday Aug. 18- Menu Planning- Success So Far!
Monday Aug. 25- Making Big Life Decisions: The Regret Test
Cool giveaway alert!
Here are some articles we enjoyed from other sites this week:
Laurie at The Frugal Farmer writes, Debt Payoff: How to Zap Doubt and Discouragement. I love this post because I think it is a great reminder that in a world filled with people who may wish to tear you down, it’s important to keep your perspective and remember what is important. Laurie offers some great tips here on how to do that.
Michelle at Budget Bloggess writes, One Chair At a Time. This post is a great reminder of the wisdom of generations past. From a personal finance perspective, I think I’d have to agree that back in the day when it was unheard of to buy on credit… yeah, they were pretty smart. Many today could stand to be more like this!
Matt at Mom and Dad Money writes, Why New Parents Are in the Perfect Financial Situation. Being as Mr. CMF and I are new parents, this post really resonated with me. Matt makes some great points here about why being a new parent is not an excuse to let your finances slide; rather, just the opposite! It can be a huge motivator to get your financial act in gear.
Alexa at Single Moms Income writes, How Living on Less Transformed My Life. This post is such an awesome reminder of what is really important in life- this one is definitely worth a read!!
Christian Personal Finance writes, 16 Amazing Websites Designed to Save You Money. I am a big fan of list posts like this that offer lots of high-yield information, and this is a great one. There were even a few sites on this list that were new to me!
CMF’s favorite FREE money management tools!
Some of the best online tools out there for money management are at Personal Capital, and the awesome news is that they are all FREE! Cash flow tracker, 401(k) fee analyzer, investment checkup, net worth monitoring, and many more! I’m a net worth junkie, so the net worth monitor is my favorite. Check out my Personal Capital review here, or click here to check out all the awesome tools for yourself!
Sounds like you’ve had an incredibly busy week! Glad to hear that your mom is doing well, though. I also loved “One Chair At a Time” and “How Living On Less Transformed My Life.” Those are both fantastic. Hope you have a great weekend!
Loving all of these articles this week, too! Happy Monday Dee!
Hope you had a good weekend! My grass got crazy-long too- finally mowed it yesterday.
Belated happy birthday Mr. CMF! I’m glad that your mom is doing better now, my mom had a surgery last 2 years ago, oh, how time flies so fast!
Thanks so much for the mention, Dee! This didn’t show up in my comments section – sorry for the late reply. Hope all is well with your beautiful baby girl. 🙂