January 2011

Unintentional Product Placement and Brilliant Marketing

Companies are becoming increasingly more clever about their product placement strategies. Where else have you seen some examples?

State of the Blog 2011

I review the state of the blog, inspired by the President’s speech (which I did not see), and the upcoming birthday of the blog itself.

Swap Used Kids Clothes Online with ThredUp

ThredUp is an online clothing swap service that leverages the power of the Internet to bring parents together, eBay style, and provide a forum for exchanging unused clothing. Brilliant!

Timeframe Shift: A Simple Method to Stop Buying the Latest Gadgets and Tech

The last two years aside, as a society, we’ve done a fairly sucky job at controlling our urges to buy the latest and greatest gadgets and label them as “needs.” How do we fix this problem?

Does Having AFLAC Make Financial Sense?

I don’t know how AFLAC makes money with our pregnancy insurance policy, but I honestly don’t care–it pays off for us in the end. Can it do the same for you?

The Hierarchy of Financial Needs

Something in a recent book made me think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which in turn got me to think about the hierarchies present in personal finance. Do you like my pyramid or would you like to suggest another angle?

How We Save $1,000s on Health Spending Every Year

When we combine the power of our HDHP and our HSA savings account, we save thousands of dollars every year on our health insurance spending!

Awesome Links for a Lazy Sunday

I review some of the best writing around the Web from recent weeks. This made for some great Sunday reading!

Wow! I Am Completely Blown Away (+Joyce House Update)

Joyce House traffic exploded at the site yesterday. Here are some more resources to get you guys started on the coupon journey, and a special Joyce House update.

What is a Health Savings Account (HSA)?

A few weeks ago, I talked about the benefits of high deductible health plans as a good alternative to traditional insurance. Today, I take a look at HSAs–a big component of those benefits.

Introducing the Fizzle Grocery Coupon Experiment

Because of great interest in using coupons for groceries, we’re starting our own experiment to see how much spending we can cut using coupons.

Baby Expense Report: Month 12

Having a baby doesn’t have to be expensive! As we celebrate my son’s first birthday, here’s a look back at all of our expenses from the first year and how we compare to national averages.

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January 2011

Selected Reading