Gather Little by Little

Wow, Friday already. This week has really flown by. I guess that’s the benefit of staying busy.

I know many of you are following our house situation and the move we are planning to make, hopefully sooner than later. No big update other than we continue to work on house to make it more attractive to potential buyers. We have new carpet being installed today and my wife is finishing up repainting one last room. Our realtor has a big open house scheduled for Sunday afternoon and we hope that brings some traffic through. Since school has started, we haven’t had one single showing.

Reader of the week

One thing I learned very quickly when I started Gather Little by Little is the importance of your readers. Google visitors come and go, but my readers are the one’s I truly write for and the ones that make Gather Little by Little the best that it can be. To say thanks and frankly to give you some of the recognition you deserve I going to start something called reader of the week. The reader of the week will be the reader who leaves the most “value add” comments here on Gather Little by Little the previous week. The reader of the week will be selected on Friday and featured the following week. I’ll feature the selected reader along with some basic information and hopefully a picture (yes I know some of you won’t won’t want to do that…that’s ok) in my sidebar. If you have a blog, you’ll receive a link too.

I think this will be fun and hopefully allow me to say thanks in a small way for reading Gather Little by Little. So get those comments flowing!

Carnivals

I once again remembered to participate in blog carnivals this week. I’ve set myself a goal to do this each week, we’ll see how it goes! I participated in the following carnivals this week:

• BankerGirl hosted this weeks Carnival of Personal Finance, and included my article Teen Money Management Mistakes
• My article Paying credit cards before a mortgage was included in the Carnival of Debt Reduction
• Frugal Babe hosted the 142nd Festival Of Frugality and included my article Personal budget categories
• The 76th Carnival of Money Stories was hosted at The Copyeditor’s Desk and included my article Share Your Story: What Is the Dumbest Thing You’ve Ever Spent Money On?
• Old School Value hosted the Investing Carnival #11 and included my article What is a Roth 401k?
• Living Almost Large hosted the Money Hacks Carnival #29: Food Heaven edition. My article Online survey scams? was included.

The Gathering

Here are my favorite articles from the M-Network and other blogs on my Blog Roll:

• Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac – Looks Like I Own Part Of $5.4 Trillion In Mortgages Now. @ My Two Dollars – These kinds of things for me are just one more step in the move away from capitalism to socialism. I personally don’t believe in giving the government more power and neither did our founding fathers.
• Are You Throwing Money Away? Unused Expenses and Untapped Discounts @ PT Money – I know I throw money away. I’ve been working diligently to be better about this though.
• How to Save Money on ATM Fees @ Cash, Money, Life – Great tips. I hate paying ATM fees!
• Reset Your Rooms: Simplifying Your Life @ Blueprint for Financial Prosperity – Excellent tip. We just recently did the same thing, and it really does work!
• My Walgreens Adventures For September @ I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… – I love Walgreens. My favorite drugstore hands down.
• Why Everyone Should Keep at Least $30 in Cash on Them at All Times @ Generation X Finance – I’ve started keeping cash with me. I found everytime I didn’t, I always needed it. I keep $20. A ten, a five, and 5 ones.
• How to Keep Christmas Shopping from Taking Over Your December Paycheck @ Mrs. Micah – Yep, it’s almost that time again and this is great advice. I do the very same thing.
• a retirement calculator for you @ plonkee money – Another cool spreadsheet for you!

Photo by: /kallu