Good morning and happy weekend to all of you! It’s been an interesting week, with the stock market being so volatile and the $700 billion bailout being passed and signed into law. I’m still of the opinion that the latest government action will not be enough to bring us out of our economic slump that we’ve hit, but with any luck it will at least restore confidence to the American business and consumer. As long as confidence is restored it should go a long way toward bringing us out of this slump.

As usual I’ve spent some time reading other personal finance blogs like Debit versus Credit and I’ve found several good articles that I wanted to share with you. So without further ado…

Frugal Dad has a great post where he shares Five Unique Strategies To Recession-Proof Your Household. He shares some great basic survival tips, but also has some interesting ideas that I’ve never even thought of such as using coupons off of eBay in order to save on stockpiling non-perishables.

Ramit from I Will Teach You To Be Rich has begun an interesting series that he calls The Money Diaries. He’s asking readers to send in diaries of what their financial life is like for an entire week and he posts them anonymously on his blog. This week he’s posted one featuring a young lady who doesn’t make enough to cover her shopping habits. Check Out The Money Diaries.

Michael from Money Musings shares his thoughts on the bailout and some of the untruths that he feels are being passed around regarding it. He’s definitely cynical with his thoughts, but he truly does bring up some great points, most of which I am inclined to agree with. Check out And Pigs Will Fly.

Trent from The Simple Dollar tries to talk us out of being afraid unnecessarily. He quotes from FDR’s inauguration speech where he says that the only thing to fear is fear itself. Trent is referring, of course, to all of the doomsday talk that’s been going around lately and is trying to make the case that there are plenty of things to be optimistic about. Check out The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself.

Blake from Youngdough.com talks about Parkinson’s Law of Finance which states that ‘expenses expand as to fill the available budget’. He follows up by sharing his ideas on how one might “beat” this law. Check out Defeating Parkinson’s Law of Finance.

That’s it for this weekend. Check back next week for some great things at Debit versus Credit. Monday October 6th is our 1 year blogoversary and I’ll be kicking things off with a redesign and a contest to boot! Stay tuned…

It’s been an interesting week for me. I finally finished with the summer semester at ASU so now I’m on break for about two weeks before classes start up again. I pulled off a couple of A’s so I’m extremely happy about that. Anyway enough about me. Here are a few posts which I ran across over the last week:

For those of you who are health-conscious and into the organic movement there’s a great post over at organiccoupons.org covering 25 ways to make an organic lifestyle more affordable.

While we’re on the topic of frugality I thought I’d bring up a great post I ran into over at Iwillteachyoutoberich.com about how you can save money by purchasing expensive items abroad.  Check out I saved $2,500 by purchasing two items abroad.  Is that un-American?

For those Extreme Makeover fans out there here’s a sad tidbit of information.  A family who received a home via the Extreme show in 2005 is facing foreclosure after a failed business attempt with funds taken out of the equity in their home.  Check it out at AccessAtlanta.com

That’s it for this week.  Stay tuned for more next weekend!

There’s been some great reading online this past week.  A lot of the links that I’m posting this week are related to simple ways to save money, which should come in handy with the quickly increasing cost of living that we’re experiencing here in the U.S.

David at Moneyning posted some fantastic advice on how to take advantage of the wonder that is google, specifically google alerts, by setting up alerts for when coupons and deals are taking place for items that you have been searching for.  Check out Setup Google Alerts to Get Coupons and Deals.

Pinyo at Moolanomy is looking out for those who are looking at potentially buying a house in the near future.  He gives some fantastic advice on how you can test your finances and see if you can really afford that house payment.  Check out Test Drive Your Home Ownership Experience.

Is the price of gas killing your finances lately?  It’s getting warm outside now too… what are you going to do about your increased energy bill?  Trent at The Simple Dollar has some practical advice about using ceiling fans in order to be able to use your air conditioning less.  Check out Ceiling Fan Hacks: Save Big on Energy Use.

Here’s one for those of you interesting in investing ideas. Jonathan at My Money Blog posted an update talking about a new global index fund from Vanguard.  Might not be a bad fund to invest in if you’re interested in diversifying into the global market.  Check out Vanguard’s New Global Stock Index Fund.

That’s it for this weekend.  See ya next week!  ^_^

Buenos Noches everyone!  It’s my last night in Mexico, so you can fully expect some updates about what I’ve learned and experienced while here… look for that sometime next week.  In the meantime here’s some links to what I’ve been reading this week.

David from moneyning wrote a fantastic post about practicing patience when it comes to making purchasing decisions.  He gives some nice practical advice about what you can do to avoid making impulse purchases which you might regret at a later time.  Check out Patience Will Keep Us From Spending Unnecessary Money.

Pinyo from Moolanomy wrote about a challenge he ran across called the 100 pushup challenge.  He explains why he thinks health is a huge part of personal finance.  Check out Better Health and Finances With 100 Pushups. (On a side note I’m going to participate in the 100 push up challenge.  More on this soon.)

Trent at The Simple Dollar wrote a profound post about addiction, how it affects personal finances and ways to overcome all types of addictions.  A must read for anyone, especially if you have this problem or know anyone with it.  Check out Addiction and Personal Finance.

I normally wouldn’t post mainstream articles posted on sites such as CNN Money or Yahoo Finance, but I ran across a really interesting article about Bill Gates and what he plans to do with his time now that he’ll be retiring from working full-time at Microsoft.  Definitely an interesting read.  Check it out at CNN Money.

That’s it for this week!  I’ll be back on June 23rd with some new updates!

Welcome to the first edition of Weekend Reading. A lot of blogs out there do this and I think it’s a fantastic idea. Most of the following links are from my blogroll, so I’d definitely recommend your taking the time to go through the blogs I link to occasionally. There’s some great information out there. This week there’s some great reading. Our topics include fuel prices, credit card companies and their targeting of college students, Warren Buffett’s advice to a novice investor, ways to save money when going out and advice on investing in dividend paying securities.

Ryan at The Better Credit Blog brings up a fantastic point regarding personal finance education (or the lack thereof) and how credit card companies specifically target college students because of their vulnerability. Check out How College Students are Taught Personal Finance by Credit Card Companies.

Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, recently attended the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting and had the opportunity to ask Warren Buffett a question. He asked Mr. Buffett, “If you were 30 years old and had no dependents but a full-time job that precluded full-time investing, how would you invest your first million dollars, assuming that you can cover 18 months of expenses with other savings?” Warren Buffet responded with a very unexpected answer. Check out Tim’s post about this experience: Picking Warren Buffett’s Brain.

Michael at Money Musings talks about everyones favorite current subject: gas prices. It’s actually a redux to a previous post by him about the stress caused by increasing fuel costs. It’s an interesting read and also has a link to a downloadable excel spreadsheet which can be used to calculate fuel costs if it were to cost a certain amount ($6 a gallon, anyone?). Check Out Gas Price Stress Redux.

With the increase in fuel costs it’s becoming more difficult to stay within a budget, especially for us twenty-somethings. Trent at The Simple Dollar gives some practical advice on how to have fun and go out while keeping your costs low. Check out Sixteen Ways to Go Out on the Town on the Cheap.

Blake at Youngdough.com shares with his readers his strategy for investing in SOLID dividend paying securities. Check out How I Invest in Solid Dividend-Paying Securities.

That should be enough to keep you busy this weekend. I’d love to hear your comments on this weeks weekend reading. We’ll do this again next weekend.