Gather Little by Little

Photo by: jon hanson

We’ve been working on our salt water aquarium again this week. I’ve written about my adventures with the salt water aquarium previously where it way my fault the fish died. Well about two weeks ago, I got another infection of “salt water ick” that killed all of our fish again. Not my fault this time though, the water was perfect. Fortunately all of the corals, shrimps and other “creatures” survived. We also stopped buying expensive fish, so it wasn’t a big financial lose. My clown fish died though…hated that, they are my favorites. I’ve been doing a bunch of reading and research on salt water aquariums, so I feel like I have a much better understanding of the cause and how to avoid the problems in the future. We added some additional corals this week along with a few snails and a cheap little blue damsel fish to test the waters per say. Assuming it does okay, we’ll starting adding a few more over time.

While waiting for the bus this morning, my whole family was crowded around the tank watching the new fish, watching Jacques and Cousteau (our two cleaner shrimps) doing their their cleaning, and looking for all of the new little creatures and corals that just seem to be constantly growing. My wife and I were discussing how the aquarium has really become a focus point for our family along with a great educational opportunity for our 6 children. My 8 year old has been checking out marine aquarium books from his school library and reading them like crazy. It’s an expensive, but fruitful hobby.

While not fully up yet, I’m starting another blog to share my learnings around salt water aquariums and to write about my new found hobby. I’ll share the address with you once I finish setting it up which will hopefully be soon.

Blog carnivals this week

I participated in a number of blog carnivals this week:

• Mrs. Micah hosted the Festival of Frugality #110 — Simple Categories Edition where my article Money Saving Monday – Don’t pay for software, use free software instead! was included.
• My Two Dollars hosted the Carnival of Debt Reduction #124. My article A perspective on debt consolidation was an editor’s pick!
• The Divident Guy hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #137 – The Passion Edition. My article Improving your finances: Direction not perfection was included.
• Lynnae from Being Frugal hosted my personal favorite blog carnival, the Carnival of Money Stories #44 – The Circus Edition which included my article Keeping it real: Confessions of a personal finance blogger where I was again editor’s pick!

Make sure you head over and check all of these great carnivals. They feature the cream of the crop from LOTS of bloggers. They are a really great way to find some good reads.

The Gathering of my blog roll favorites:

From the M-Network:

• 75 Frugal Hacks for Your Home at Being Frugal. Great list of easy to implement tips.
• The Importance of Delayed Gratification at Cash,Money,Life- Patrick and I both share “BMW temptation issues”. We both have been able to fend them off thus far though!
• I’m a Cheetah Not a Gazelle at I’ve Paid For This Twice Already. – Here in the southern US, “Cheetah” is often pronounced more like “Cheater” so not sure if that’s a good thing or not!
• 50+ Frugal Tips, Ideas, and Resources at Moolanomy – Really comprehensive list of various frugal articles.
• how can I persuade my boss to promote me? at Plonkee Money – Being a “boss” myself, I’ve always found cash to work well ;-)
• The Real Cost of Homeownership at Single Guy Money – Yes, they are far more expensive than you think AND a great deal of work.
• Meet The M-Network: An Interview With Patrick From Cash Money Life. at My Two Dollars – Great interview with Patrick, our newest M-Network member. Watch for My Two Dollar’s interview next week as well…it’s with me!
• Idea Shower Firefox Extension: A Great Way to Store Online Information at The Dough Roller – I’m an avid Firefox user and proponent. The extension/plugin capabilities are one of the primary reasons. Not to mention it renders web site’s correctly unlike Internet Explorer.

From the rest of my blog roll:

• 5 Things I Can Do Without at Bible Money Matters – This is a new blog I found and I’m really impressed with what Pete has going on. So make sure you pay him a visit an tell him the glblguy sent you!
• Prime Time Money Lifehack: Use Google Alerts to Find Free Stuff at Prime Time Money – Had heard of alerts, but never used them until I read this article. Now I am thinking of all kinds of uses for them!
• Encouraging Young People to Be Entrepreneurs at The Simple Dollar – This is a great article. I’ve been trying to get my kids to think like entrepreneurs.
• On child-men, growing up, and finances at Mighty Bargain Hunter – Great article. I work very hard to be a good husband and good father. Statements like these get my blood boiling too. Don’t let the bad apples spoil the bunch.
• The New Social Security Debit Card – Benefits and Drawbacks at Credit Withdrawal – Great idea, but poor execution in my opinion. As if the elderly don’t have enough expenses to deal with, now they charged fees!
• What’s More Important: High Interest or Customer Service? at Consummerism Commentary – Flexo asks an interesting question. Personally, I think customer service is far more important, that is why I stay with ING Direct. Funny thing about customer service, it’s not important until you need it.
• Who Gets Your Services for Free? at Mrs. Micah – Lots of people get my computer services for free. But I don’t mind, I enjoy doing it.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Oh, don’t forget, Saturday’s are now guest post days on Gather Little by Little, so make sure you check the site tomorrow where Ryan from Millionaire Money Habits will be my guest! Interested in writing a guest post? Contact me!