Welcome to the January 13, 2009 edition of Festival of Frugality hosted here at Credit Withdrawal. It’s still cold here in the mid-west, but there’s a sprinkling of good recipes, good ideas, and great reading to help you take some of the chill off.
Favorite Posts
Chris presents The Joy of Owning Nothing posted at financial reflections, [...]

My Mom was a wonderful woman. She was strong-willed, intelligent, and had a great business mind. Early in her life she owned an antique shop, buying and selling antique dolls and making thousands of dollars from each sale.
Yet, when she died, she was almost completely broke.
This is My Life
A bit of history first. I came [...]

2008 was a BAD year for retirement funds. Aside from the fact that it was a bad year for pretty much anything financial, retirement funds in particular are suffering for some non-financial reasons as well.
It’s estimated that at this point investors have lost between 30% and 45% of the value of their investments. That wipes [...]

There’s a saying;
You can’t get anywhere without deciding where to go.
As it’s a New Year now, it’s time to re-examine the past year’s goals and see where we are. It’s also time to set new goals for the coming year.
Setting goals is a basic task for making your life and situation better. If you sit [...]

Well, it’s official. We’re staying home for the holidays. Originally we had planned on visiting family in Seattle, but with the recent horrible weather they’ve been having, a huge number of flights to SEA/TAC have already been delayed or canceled. That and thousands of people are already stuck in Seattle/Tacoma airport just trying to find [...]

Last week, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Reserve, and the National Credit Union Administration gave the American people a huge Christmas present, albeit one that we won’t be able to open until 2010.
These three offices of commerce have decided that credit card companies are participating in “unfair,” “unreasonable,” and “deceptive,” tactics when dealing [...]

I only wish this were a funny or silly headline to grab reader’s attention, but it’s just been reported earlier today that a Wal-Mart employee has been trampled to death by shoppers rushing to take advantage of the Black Friday Christmas sales specials.
At the Wal-Mart at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y. a [...]

This year, the wife, kids and I are staying home and having a family dinner rather than going to the larger family get-together. Much of this is because of the recent family tragedy that has pretty much cancelled any festivities this year. Some of it is also due to the wonderful economy, and other factors that makes flying cross-country something to look forward to.

Wow! This flu is just hanging on by a thread FOREVER! Still suffering from the lingeringiest, don’t-wanna-go-away-but-just-barely-there cough you’ve EVER seen.

Again, we have another set of major players in the market that are coming, hat in hand, to the government asking for a handout. The Big Three American auto makers are to appear before congress to request a stimulus package and low interest bridge-loan to help them survive these rough economic times.
When the price of [...]

If you grew up during the 1980’s, you’re familiar with the term ‘Conspicuous Consumption’. It was the age of The Yuppie Generation, preoccupied with the acquisition and flaunting of wealth.  The BMW was the car of choice. Power suits, corner offices, and Republican dinners were a requirement for the up-and-coming young professionals of that time.
It [...]

In a move not terribly shocking after last week’s 100+ store closings, Circuit City has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
Circuit City started life in 1949 as the Wards Company, founded by Samuel S. Wurtzel. It changed it’s name officially to Circuit City in 1984 and went nationwide with a chain of warehouse-styled stores, selling electronic [...]

Welcome to the Sunday Roundup of Credit Withdrawal posts and other interesting posts around the blogosphere. It’s another one of those soggy weekends, and the whole family is getting over a cold, so no fun here ;(
Just a quick post to highlight some of the more interesting posts I’ve come across recently, and an update [...]

Now that Pres. Elect Obama is done with the election, with a decisive victory, control of both the House and the Senate, what is in store for the country?
We still have a little over two months before he officially becomes president. With that kind of available time, there’s still significant things that can happen before [...]

With a fairly decisive victory last night, Pres. Elect Barack Obama is set to be sworn in as the 44th president on January 20, 2009. He is also the first African-American to hold the highest office in the United States.
All in all, the Democratic party made an impressive showing on these elections. The Senate is [...]