Natural Family Living Blog plays host to this week’s Festival of Frugality and twelve editor’s picks. That’s how good the festival was this week!

The three (of twelve) that I thought were tops of the best of the best were:

• SVB talks about how cheap can be great on the wallet but bad overall. These are excellent points, cheaper isn’t necessarily better, just like more expensive isn’t always better.
• MBH hit one out of the park this week with his 7 ways to conquer Chuck E Cheese, including buying the tokens on eBay.
• Shawna shares some ideas for entertainment on the cheap.

Being Frugal plays host next week so get your submissions in early to help them out!

The fine folks at FIRE Finance have put up the 96th Festival of Frugality, a very healthy sampling of the past week’s frugal goodness. There were nine editors pick and of those, the ones I enjoyed the most were:

• Kris from Cheap Healthy Good provides some great humor and healthy tips in 11 Things Dwight K. Schrute Has Taught Me About Food and Frugality. Anytime the Office is mentioned, you get a vote in my book!
• PoetLoverRebelSpy from Less Than a Shoestring showcases a recipe for frugal travel Comparing Foreign Websites for Deals. Back in the day I bought DVD’s from Amazon.Canada and sold them via eBay here for profit… shh don’t tell anyone! (They were the same DVDs, just cheaper because them Canadian dollars)
• The Happy Rock guides us to free land in Kansas and North Dakota via 40 Acres And A Mule - Free Land Still Available In The United States. Very very good idea, except Kansas is really far.

Next week the festival makes its way over to Natural Family Living Blog where I’m sure Tiffany will do a fantastic job (her blog is gorgeous), so please get you entries in via this handy form.

My Retirement Blog hosted the 120th Carnival of Personal Finance last week and then hosted the 95th Festival of Frugality this week, it must have been a busy week! This week the number of posts was staggering but they were categorized into meaningful sections for your reading enjoyment. The top submissions were:

• juicefairy presents Great Kitchen Makeover Tip, a review of meds and how the generics will often do just fine when you’re not feeling fine.
• Silicon Valley Blogger presents 8 Lessons I Learned From The Cheapest Family In The Nation.
• Very appropriately, Summer presents Make Your Own Cheap Halloween Costumes.
• The Dough Roller presents Stop Frittering Away The Fruits Of Your Frugality.
• Frugal Panda presents 57 Creative Ideas to Save Money As a Pet Owner.

FIRE Finance will be next week’s host so get your entries as soon as you can.

David at My Two Dollars hosts this week’s 94th Festival of Frugality and reminds us to start collecting Social Security! We had totally forgotten!

Anyway, David did a great job and his choice articles were: (this is a direct quote from My Two Dollars)

• Emily C presents Ruminations on Frugality posted at And then there were three. As you can see, these four aspects of a frugal (and happy!) life require a delicate balance. The result of fine-tuning that balance is peace within ourselves, our homes, and our relationships. Well worth a little extra work to find what fits, isn’t it?
• Kyle James presents Frugal Tips You Can Use Right Now! posted at Rather-Be-Shopping.com Blog. If you are like me, you print out a lot of blogs and other articles for reading. Don’t recycle the paper when done, instead use the other side for further printing, then recycle it.
• Trent Hamm presents The Backlash Against Frugality posted at The Simple Dollar. Thanks to frugal choices and a big slowdown on consumerism, I now have money in the bank, no high interest outstanding debts, and I have a lot of plans for the future that I actually have a clear path toward. Frugality works, and I don’t really mind the backlash - I’ll keep talking about it.
• FIRE Finance presents Save Money: Reuse Mailing Boxes and Packing Supplies! posted at FIRE Finance. We never throw away any packing supplies, bubble wraps, fillers and polystyrene foams…we clean and store them as well. So next time when we need to ship an item, we merrily reuse an appropriate mailing box or envelope.
• Stephanie presents Frugality Sometimes Requires Perseverance posted at Stop the Ride!. Few things in life that come easily are worthwhile. Frugality is no different. If you try something and it is hard or doesn’t exactly go as planned, set your self a time frame and keep trying. By the end of your time frame, you may find the activity wasn’t as hard as you thought and decide to continue.

Next week My Retirement Blog hosts the Festival so please get your entries in!

Recent Money Blog Network member No Credit Needed, NCN for short, is this week’s host of the 92nd Festival of Frugality. The sheer number of entries is staggering, it’s no wonder NCN went the route of listing the articles as is.

I will admit I didn’t read every submission, but here were the ones that did catch my eye:

• Stephanie at Stop the Ride found a gem of a book at a recent used book sale.
• At Saving Advice, there is a list of good romantic ideas that are light on the wallet/purse.
• If you write about being environmentally friendly, you’ll always catch my eye; this week it’s Moolamoney and a talk about Freecycle.
• The Frugal Duchess gives some tips on buying refurbs.

Next week the Festival makes its way to Money and Values so get your entries in!

Bean Sprouts, recently interviewed in Delicious magazine (a UK foodie magazine), played host in this week’s 90th Festival of Frugality - the second carnival that poor blog’s hosted in one week (I’ve done it before, it’s very difficult!).

My favorite post had to be the Frugal Duchess’ Feed Flowers Sprite & Other Frugal Tips for Cut Flowers if only because she recommends feeding flowers Sprite (you gotta get rid of that interstitial! I thought I was surfing Buy.com before I found the “Skip This Ad” link).

Next week our host is Stephanie at Stop The Ride, please get your entries in as soon as possible!

FILAM Finance stands for “F-inancial IL-literacy A-nd M-ishaps” (as in learning from those mishaps!) and they were the host of this week’s Festival of Frugality, number 89. Excellent job from them, with great categorization (+ fancy titles!), as well as a an Editor’s Choice section that featured several great articles you must not miss.

The Editor’s Choice picks were (plus the reasoning):

• Millionaire Mommy presents How to Treat Affluenza: Spend Less, Save Our Earth and Live a Happier Life posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door. “Affluenza is defined as: The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Jones’s; An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the pursuit of the American Dream; or An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.”
• Golbguru presents Is this frugal or just not quite right? posted at Money, Matter, and More Musings. “Frugality is making the most of your resources. How can people be called frugal if they are reducing their own expenses by grabbing someone else’s resources? Is it frugal to take more than your fair share - even if it is free?”
• Silicon Valley Blogger presents Who are the cheapest people you know? posted at The Digerati Life. Some people think that they are frugal but in actuality they are really cheap!! What do you do if you run across someone who’s really cheap that it makes you shake your head?
• Zen and the Art of Personal Finance in 4 steps at Teaspoon Finance. Teaspoon explores applying some of the principles of Zen to personal finance.

As usual, the Festival introduced me to two blogs I hadn’t seen before (though Millionaire Mommy is an active participant in the MBN Forums) so it definitely gets your name out there if you participate and write great posts.

Next week the festivals goes to Bean Sprouts so get your entries in!

The Happy Rock, written by Frank (or Rock if you prefer), is the host of the auspicious 88th Festival of Frugality on 21 August 2007 and not only links to the article but each blog author’s About Me page - a clever idea! The five Editor’s Picks are:

• Save Gas - Tips To Save Money On Gas! by FIRE Finance
• I’m Frugal, So Why Can’t I Save More Money? by Silicon Valley Blogger
• Ten Ways to Save on Birthday Parties by Saving Advice Blog (Main Page)
• I Shoulda’ been a Cowgirl by Fish Creek House - INNside Innkeeping
• HOWTO: Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) Deconstructed by Graham

Next week the Festival heads off to FILAM Personal Finance so please get your entries in as soon as you can!

Dawn, the Queen of Frugality and the first blog I ever read about frugality (heck, it’s called Frugal for LIFE), hosts this week’s Festival, good ole 86th Festival of Frugality. In fact, she’s so frugal, she’s willing to host the festival two weeks in a row!

Dawn usually does an excellent job hosting the Festival (she’s only done it, oh, 6 times already) and this time was no different, apparently she found a tattered cope of the Frugal Clipper and coincidentally it held all 40 submissions this week!

If you were interested in seeing a blast from the past, check out all the Festival’s she’s hosted:

• Festival #4
• Festival #16
• Festival #30
• Festival #49
• Festival #60
• Festival #72

Again, next week Dawn will be hosting again (for the eight time!), so please get your entries in!

Frugal Babe hosted this week’s Festival of Frugality, even though she had a sizzling makeover that, I think, looks great.

Trent gets the top honors of the frugality post of the week with his article on how maximizing frugality trumps maximizing investing, something both Frugal Baby and I both agree with. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you don’t spend!

Next week, the festival makes its way over to none other than Frugal For Life so get your entries in.

Also, I write My Retirement Blog, host for the week after, but I won’t be able to do it because I’ll be traveling for a family emergency. If you would like to host the August 14th Festival, please email me ASAP.

Dawn will be hosting the Festival back to back!