If we had to separate people into 2 different clans: The Thrifts and the Spendthrifts, I would probably be closer to the latter. Unfortunately, the thing I like most about money is spending it. However, being a husband and father of two beautiful children has helped me be more responsible financially. While I never really wasted my money, I have always enjoyed earning more to spend more in order to indulge myself from time to time.

Now that we live on a single income, I have to double my efforts to become more frugal and concentrate on priorities. I guess this is what attracted me to read more about “being cheap”, which led me to “In Cheap We Trust” by Lauren Weber.

About Lauren Weber:

The author “grew up in Connecticut with a father who rationed toilet paper, set the thermostat at 50 degrees during the winter, and rarely used his car’s turn signals (to prevent them from burning out).”

Strong from her frugal background, Lauren always had a passion for writing. She has been writing for Reuters, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and American Banker just to name a few. Since 2007, she has concentrated on writing “In Cheap We Trust”, a combination of personal anecdotes intertwined with social and historical data wrapped up with a political taste for frugal living.

About the book:

Lauren captivated me during the first few pages about her cheap thrills introduction. And why the word “cheap” has become so negative over time. It’s as if the amount of money spent annually has become the measure of your social class in our modern (capitalist) society.

This book uses history to bring us back to the very definition of thrift and how frugality has been an important part of our value system for a very long time. Through a well documented (sometimes too exhaustive though) research, she depicts the history of frugality since the very first person set foot on American soil.

The last decade (apparently) has brought us wealth and comfort. Yet, recent economic events show us that we, as a spendthrift nation, simply incurred a huge credit bill over these same 10 years and it is now time to pay the interest and reimburse the capital. If we had not forgotten the efforts from our ancestors in building the foundation of a strong and frugal society, we might not have hit such a brick wall in today’s recession.

I particularly liked the Paradox of Thrift revisited by Weber. The paradox of thrift was created based on the principle of the economy declining due to the fact that everybody is saving instead of spending. Technically, if consumers stop buying and save their money, it should create an economic contraction resulting in more job losses (I guess this is why Bush was telling us to take our stimulus check to go to Disneyland!).

While the premise is accurate (spending less will result in a longer and deeper recession), spending more will simply postpone the problem for a few years. It’s akin to not going to the doctor because you have the flu, instead wait until you get pneumonia. I feel that a balance between savings and spending would be most appropriate.

I also found it quite interesting to actually understand the roots of frugality and Weber’s personal stories included in her book got me thinking about how far from being thrifty I actually was. It was nice way to get into the mood to save money!

Now the Giveaway!

I actually have 10 copies to distribute amongst Gather Little By Little and The Financial Blogger readers. Each blog will giveaway 5 copies of “In Cheap We Trust”.

Participation rules:

- Comment below with a frugal tip or spending philosophy (1 entry per comment).

- Follow me on twitter (1 entry)

- Register to my free mailing list (on top right of the site)

You can actually participate on both sites by commenting.

The giveaway winners will be announced on Friday, November 6^th.

Last week’s Carnivals:

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The winner of the iPod touch is….Joel!

The winners of the 2 gifst certificate at Amazon for $25 each are:

Patrick from Cash Money Life and Kim.

I will be sending an email to the winners during the weekend so they can get their prize.

Congratulation to the winners and a big thank you to everybody. You are definitely making this blog unique!

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This is why I have decided to run a contest in order to know what you like from Gather Little by Little and also what you would like to read in the upcoming months. Are there any topics that you prefer or you wish to read about?

Here are the prizes:

#1 16GB iPod touch

#2 $25 Amazon gift certificate

#3 $25 Amazon gift certificate

How to enter the contest:

You just have to write a comment saying what you like from GLBL or what you would like to read in the future.

Each comment gives you a chance to win. You are normally limited to one comment but if you have 3 ideas or more, you will get 2 chances!

The winners will be announced on Friday, July 31^st.

Your feedback is very important to me as it will guide me through the direction I will give to Gather Little by Little.

Thx for your help!!

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Wow!  I received 231 contest entries: 165 via comments, and 66 via subscriptions with the secret phrase.  Thanks to everyone that entered, and a very special thank you for all of the kind comments you left.  They met a great deal to me.

Now, jumping right to it…

The Winners!

Winners were selected by placing everyone’s entries into a spreadsheet and using randomizer.org to generate a set of 8 random numbers for the 8 prize winners.  Those numbers were matched to the rows in the spreadsheet and resulted in the following winners!

Grand Prize: 8GB iPod Nano -  Alan Y. Alan said he has been reading Gather Little for a year or so.  Thanks Alan, honored to have you for the past year.

You Need a Budget Pro – Jason E.  Jason just started reading but said he would definitely continue.  Thanks Jason, glad to have you.

1-year free subscription to NeoBudget – Matt G. Matt has been reading for almost a year and said: “Since then, I’ve eliminated 30K of debt an saved a 6 month emergency fund! On to attacking the mortgage…”  Wow!  Awesome progress Matt, and hopefully NeoBudget will help you get there.

Upside Living in a Downside Economy by Mike Slaughter – Mike M

Money Strategies for Tough Times by Matt Bell – Lorraine Edwards. Lorraine is a blogger,  and said: “I don’t garden but found myself reading every word about building a composting bin. Keep the good articles coming!! My favorite: 100% giving..“

The Skinny on The Housing Crisis by Jim Randel – Chris H.

The Skinny on Willpower by Jim Randel – Jenny B. Jenny said: “I’ve been reading your blog for about a year. I got into it when my sister introduced me to google reader. I subscribed to about 15 pf blogs in my first week, and yours is one of my ‘always read’ ones. Congrats on two years.”

The FAITH-BASED Investor by Jay Peroni – Laura K. Laura said: “Congratulations on 2 years! I discovered RSS feeds and pf blogs around 2 years ago, and I’ve slowly been whittling them down to the ones that I continually get good information from. GLBL is one of my favorites!”

Congratulations to all of the winners.  You’ll be receiving an email from me shortly!  If you didn’t win, thank you so much for trying…maybe next time!  To everyone, again: thank you so much for reading Gather Little by Little and for all of the wonderful comments!!

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The contest is now closed.  Thanks to everyone that entered.

Can you believe Gather Little by Little has been online for 2 years now?  Me neither, but it has.

Since July 2nd of 2007, I’ve published 700 articles (this is article #700), had more than 690,000 unique visitors, 1.1 million page views, and more than 3,000 people have subscribed!!  Wow.  God has really blessed.

Gather Little by Little started on a small personal blogger blog where I was writing about personal finance, then towards the end of July I decided to start a personal finance blog.  The sole purpose was to share what I was learning about personal finance in order to help others.  Since then I’ve received several hundred emails from readers thanking me for writing on Gather Little by Little and sharing how much GLBL has changed their lives.  I even have one couple who reads my daily articles together.

Gather Little by Little has grown far bigger than I ever thought it would and it has taken me places I never imagined.  2 years ago I barely knew what a blog was, now I not only have a top Christian personal finance blog, but a number of other smaller blogs as well.   Coupling my blogging experience with my technical background also allowed me to start my Empty Cabin Media consulting and development business which has become another huge success.  Who would have thought huh?

My success though is due to God and you.  I truly believe that God gave me a mission through GLBL and without you, the readers of Gather Little by Little, this blog would be just another of the millions of websites on the internet.  You are what makes Gather Little by Little a special place.  I cannot say thank you enough.

To help say thank you, I’ve lined up a number of giveaways to celebrate GLBL’s 2 year anniversary.  As always, I’m making the contest very easy to enter.  You can two entries this time though:

• Adding a comment below will earn you one entry.  I’d love to hear how long you’ve been reading and what about GLBL makes you keep coming back.
• Subscribe to my daily feed. If you subscribe and send me the secret phrase displayed at the bottom of each of my published daily articles you’ll get another entry.  If you aren’t sure what “subscribing means”, it just means you’ll automatically receive a my latest posts via email or RSS feed.  You can subscribe via email or RSS.  Don’t worry, I’ll never SPAM you and if you aren’t sure about RSS, you can read about RSS here.

Important Update: A number of people have been posting the subscription secret phrase in the comments section.  If you do this, the secret phrase is no longer secret!  Please don’t do this.  If you do your comment will be deleted and you won’t qualify for the giveaway.

Here are the prizes up for grabs!

• iPod Nano 8Gb – If you win, you pick the color!
• Free copy of You Need a Budget Pro
• 1-year free subscription to NeoBudget
• Upside Living in a Downside Economy by Mike Slaughter
• Money Strategies for Tough Times by Matt Bell
• The Skinny on The Housing Crisis by Jim Randel
• The Skinny on Willpower by Jim Randel
• The FAITH-BASED Investor by Jay Peroni

The contest will run for a little over 2 weeks.  I’ll post the winners on Friday July 17th.  Please make sure you leave a valid email, as that is how I’ll contact you if you win.  If I can’t contact you, you can’t win.  Winners will be chosen randomly and each winner will receive only one prize.

Thank you again for reading Gather Little by Little.  2 Years!  Woot Woot!

Photo by: ritchielee

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I received 16 comments on the iPhone applcadation giveaway article and with 2 codes being given away, everyone had really good odds of winning!  The winners are:

Rebecca who added comment #6 and James who added comment #7

Congratulations to both of you and you have emails from me with the download codes!!  Thanks to everyone that entered!  Watch for more contests coming very soon!

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Forgive me if you commented last week to enter, but I’m restarting the giveaway with this post.  All you have to do to enter the contest is add a comment!  Maybe share how you think the app would help you, or state why you love your iPhone or Touch device, etc. etc.  I’ll giveaway a code for free download to 2 random commentators and announce the winners this Friday (6/12).  One note, the coupon codes are valid for the U.S. iTunes store only.

Here’s a screen shot:

Here are just a few of the features:

• See when your planned debt-free date will be, and watch the effect that increasing the amount for your snowball will have.
• View the estimated time left for individual debts on the main debt screen, so that you can see what effect just paying the minimums on those debts would have.
• Join www.payoffdebtapp.com/forums to discuss paying off debt.
• View graphs of your progress on each individual debt and on all of your debt as a whole for motivation and encouragement.
• Order your debts any way you choose: from lowest balance to highest balance, from highest interest rate to lowest interest rate, or in a custom order selected by you.
• Email your debt snowball information to up to 4 different email addresses.
• Choose to view the application in English, Spanish, or French.

I don’t have an iPhone or Touch, so can’t give you a full review, but it looks slick and definitely like something I would use if I had an iPhone.

Good luck on the Giveaway!

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Kim (the first one)!!

In her comment, Kim said:

This sounds like a REALLY great book, and I’d love to win it to give to my teenage nephews. They will be looking at colleges soon, and could use this advice to get off on the right foot financially, especially since I’m sure they will be inundated with credit card offers. And, with their father laid off and no jobs in sight, and me only a temp (with permanent employment a distant, slim, possibility!), and, worst of all, we live in southeast Michigan, every little bit of info and advice helps! Thanks for all the great advice and inspiration! Keep it up!

Congratulations Kim!  Thanks to everyone that entered, and don’t despair!  I have 5 other books I’m working on writing reviews for and all 5 will reviews will include giveaways.

If you missed the giveaway, head over to the review I wrote.  It’s definitely on my “must buy” list.

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77 comments were made to my YNAB Pro giveaway post.  I visited random.org and the random number it provided was: 14.  The 14th commentator was:

Linda Jacobsen who is the winner of the free copy of YNAB Pro!  Congratulations Linda!

For those that didn’t win, don’t despair.   For the next week, you can purchase a copy of YNAB or YNAB Pro and receive a 10% using the discount code: MAYDAY. This code is only valid through Monday, 5/18.  You won’t find discounts to YNAB products often.

Thanks to everyone who commented and for sharing your thoughts on budgeting.  I think it was really inspirational to read over how much budgeting helps all of you.

Look forward to more great giveaways coming soon!

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We interrupt this regularly scheduled Money saving Monday to provide you with one of he coolest giveaways I’ve done here on Gather Little by Little.

Those of you that have been reading for a while know that I am a huge proponent of budgeting. Personally, I think a budget is a foundational tool for controlling your finances and being financially successful. I started budgeting monthly 2 years ago. I first used a piece of paper, then a simple excel spreadsheet which then developed into a more complex and easier to use excel budget spreadsheet, then I discovered You Need a Budget Pro (you can read my full review over at my You Need a Budget Pro review article).  I’ve waffled back and forth between my spreadsheet and YNAB Pro, but both are great tools with their own set of advantages and disadvantages.  Regardless, YNAB Pro is a great piece of software that does one thing very well: budgeting.

Jesse and the other kind folks at You Need a Budget were kind enough to provide me with a free  copy of You Need a Budget to giveaway here on Gather Little by Little.  What do you need to do to win?  Just leave a comment stating the one reason you like budgeting and you’ll be entered.

The giveaway runs through 5:00pm on Sunday May 11th.  After 5:00pm, I’ll place all of the comments into an Excel spreadsheet and use Random.org to pick the winner.  Make sure you leave a valid email address, as I’ll be using the address you provide to contact you.  The winner will have 24 hours to reply.  If no reply is received within 24 hours, another winner will be selected.

If you’ve been wanting to use You Need a Budget, but have been hesitant to spend the money now is your chance.  Good luck!!

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