A Frugal Adventure, of course! This week the festival travels to My Frugal Adventures, where the editor-selected highlights include:

MoneyNing presents Side Hustle, Self Employed, Entrepreneurship.

Monevator says “Borrow now and have less later” in The Really Obvious Thing We All Forget When Borrowing Money

Thanks for hosting! Next week the festival travels to Money Relationship, so get those frugal entries in!

I used to watch a lot of TV.  Not a lot of TV compared to the average American, but still to me, a lot of TV.  I watch a lot less TV now but I do still enjoy a few hours a week of programming.

But instead of fitting my life around TV, I prefer to fit TV around my lifestyle. I don’t want to choose when to watch what, and I don’t want to be forced to pay significant money for premium programming.

That, for me, is where Hulu comes in.  Hulu is a website that has programming on demand so to speak – I can open it up and watch clips from shows I might be interested in, or entire episodes of shows I am.  I watch Burn Notice through the Hulu website, wich in my opinion, the best show on TV.

Also if you are interested in network programming not available on Hulu, make sure to check the network’s direct website.  I watch NCIS through the CBS website – I love me some Mark Harmon.

This frugal tip provided by paidtwice, who is breaking her cable addiction one website at a time.

The festival of Frugality travels to Financial Highway this week, presenting on the road to the Honeymoon Destination edition!  It is chock full of frugal insights and tips, including these editor’s picks:

• Fabulously Broke presents The three levels of frugality posted at Fabulously Broke ….in the City.
• Lazy Man and Money presents Save Money on Groceries posted at Lazy Man and Money.

Thanks for hosting!  Next week the festival travels to My Frugal Adventures so get those entries in!

Today is a silly little frugal tip I use on my four year old.   He likes to eat some things with sauce (generally barbeque sauce) and he seems to spread the sauce all over his entire plate in the process of dipping.

And then he complains that he doesn’t have any sauce.  Because he can’t dip any longer.

So I take a butter knife and scrape all the suace up into a pile and have him use that, versus putting more sauce onto his plate.  It is a silly little thing but it works for him, and saves me from using up an entire bottle of barbeque sauce a week.

Sometimes frugality is a big step, but sometimes it is just s tiny little action repeated daily, weekly or monthly that makea difference.

This frugal tip provided by paidtwice who finds frugal four year old thinking fun!

It’s the Revenge of the Fallen edition of the festival today at Stupid Cents, which is a Transformers reference.  I’m not up on Transformers lingo but I do know these editors picks are more than meets the eye!

• Peter presents 7 Common Questions About The 2009 New Car Sales Tax Deduction posted at Bible Money Matters.
• FMF presents Four Home Upgrades Worth the Tax Break posted at Free Money Finance.
• FFB presents Go To The Museum For Free posted at Free From Broke.
• J. Money presents Bring Lunch or Buy Lunch? I Say a Little of Each. posted at Budgets are Sexy.
• DR presents Say Goodbye to Cable and Hello to Free Digital TV! posted at The Dough Roller.
• Silicon Valley Blogger presents Best Places To Retire For Cheap posted at The Digerati Life.

Thanks for hosting!  Next week the festival travels to Financial Highway so make sure to get those entries in!

Sometimes we come into money by surprise, be it a gift, an unexpected payment, or other means of receiving money we hadn’t planned on.  The temptation is to splurge, to spoil ourselves, to treat ourselves to something we weren’t planning on with our newfound gains.

Try and resist the urge.  If not completely, at least a little.  A windfall applied to our already existing financial goals, even in part, will help those goals go further, faster. It could be just the jumpstart you need to get out of debt, save for something important to you, or just get your finances back on track.

Be strong.  Windfall your goals and not your urges.

This frugal tip by paidtwice who hopes to windfall her goals to make her dreams become reality.

The festival travels to Personal Finance Analyst this week, and is done in a baseball theme with posts assigned positions on a baseball team.  Since I don’t have any idea what I would pick as the most important position, I am going to report on the choices for my favorite position, Designated Hitter:

• Make it from Scratch gets its average over .300 with Firsts on the First – Making a Purse from Jean Legs posted at Make It From Scratch.
• Don’t Buy It is part of the lineup every day because of posts like Don’t Buy It: Wedding Bands posted at Don’t Buy It.
• Passive Family Income drills a 3-2 slider into deep left with Why Multitasking Leads to Inefficeincy posted at Passive Family Income.
• Craig Ford works the count like a professional hitter with Fifteen Ways to Save Money When you Fly on your Family Vacation this Summer | Money Help For Christians posted at Money Help For Christians.
• Jim takes a cut and connects with Buying Discount Postage Stamps posted at Bargaineering.
• Lazy Man doesn’t look lazy in the batter’s box when going deep with Save Money with Yard Sales posted at Lazy Man and Money.
• Deposit Accounts makes great contact with Don’t Forget to Plan for Windfall Money posted at Deposit Accounts.
• Dawn shows off a sweet swing with Ways to Cut Down on Plastic Food Containers posted at Frugal For Life.
• Tushar Mathur demonstrates fast hands and good bat speed with Long Term Investing posted at Everything Finance.

Next week the festival travels to Stupid Cents so get those entries in!

If you own a house with a mortgage, chances are you have an escrow account that your bank handles, and pays the property taxes and insurance out of annually.    The bank doesn’t want your municipality taking your house from them for lack of payment, so they take control and pay it for you.

Escrow accounts, however, have a minimum amount that has to be in them at all times, so the bank in essence is holding some of your money for you.  But I’d like to have that control myself, if I can.

In our case, we can’t handle our own escrow account until we owe a lot less on our house than we do right now, but maybe you can.  If you can handle your own escrow account, you can earn the interest on that money being held until needed instead of the bank.  And you don’t have to have an extra cushion unless you choose to.

Explore the options you have with your escrow.  Don’t default to what is customary.

This frugal tip by paidtwice who is actually happy about her escrow account… for once.

The Festival of Frugality travels this week to frequent host Frugal For Life, who is back to blogging about all things frugal!  Her frugal gifts for this week include:

• Darren wrote about My Chest Fridge Conversion
• Katheryn submitted Buying a Car for $500 (Not a Typo)
• J. Money wrote on The Price of Faith: Muslim & Jewish Financial Challenges
• Kelly submitted her post I’m Not Always Frugal

Thanks for hosting!  Next week the festival travels to Personal Finance Analyst – make sure to get those frugal thoughts noted and entered!

Shaving cream is expensive.  Some of us need to use it, but for others, it may just be marketing.  Dry shaving is only for the strong of heart (and skin!) but there are many other substitutes that can cut that cost by more than half.

I use body lotion instead of shaving cream, which may not save money by volume when buying it, but the total amount I use of lotion compared to shaving cream is less than half, so it saves me money in the long run.  (And I can get free lotion a lot easier than free shaving cream.)  Another alternative is using hair conditioner, which works the same way – it takes a lot less volume than shaving cream.

So explore alternatives to the traditional shaving cream.  you can even try plain soap and water (although this doesn’t work for me, I cut myself.)  Shaving cream isn’t the only thing you can use.

This frugal tip by paidtwice who doesn’t cut herself shaving.