Welcome to the January 1, 2009 edition of penny pinching. Happy New Year!

Wenchypoo presents Now for the Bonus Round... posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 15 Ways To Control Your Holiday Budget posted at The Digerati Life.

2 Pennies Earned presents Does a Home Garden Really Save Money? posted at 2 Pennies Earned.

Paul presents Increasing your hourly rate in order to get rich posted at Paul, saying, "When it comes to making more money, a lot of people think about working harder or working more. They equate the amount of money you get out with the amount of effort you put in. But this isn't really the case."

Kevin Surbaugh presents Save VS Borrowing: Why Borrowing Is Stupid posted at Becoming & Staying Debt Free.

Ed presents Feel Clever While Saving Money on Printing posted at Daily Dose of Optimism, saying, "After spending about $200 on toner cartridges in the span of a few months, none of which seemed to quite achieve the 2,000 pages per cartridge as advertised, I began looking into alternative solutions. Here's a great solution I found that I hope you enjoy!"

FMF presents Save Money on Prescription Drugs by Getting Free Samples posted at Free Money Finance, saying, "Simple money saving tip."

Steve Faber presents Another Way to Save Big Money Every Month posted at DebtBlog.

Barry Mahfood presents How to Avoid Religious Scams posted at The Price of Rice!.

Dean presents Top 5 Online Photo Printing Sites posted at Mr. Cheap Stuff.

Crystal presents How To Make Free Online Money posted at myspace, saying, "I've complied a list of online money making site what have worked for me and common questions and answers concerning them."

Thomas Humes presents Retirement - The Real Cost of Procrastination posted at Wealth Building World, saying, "If you want to accumulate $1,000,000 when you are 65, how much would you have to save? It all depends on when you get started."

KCLau presents Money Lessons from Tranformers movie posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Transformers is an entertaining movie. It also teaches us about personal finance."
Kathryn Lang presents Make Dinner a Snap posted at The Peculiar Club, saying, "Eating out will empty your wallet. Here are some tips to give you the ease of take out without the drain on the income."

Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents 10 Ways to Save on Travel Expenses posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door.

Larry Russell presents Roth IRA Contributions versus Traditional IRA Contributions for Renters posted at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog, saying, "What if Fran and Fred make 100% of their annual IRA contributions into Roth IRA accounts rather than into traditional IRA accounts? To find out the answer to this question, Fran and Fred modeled their lifetime cash, bond, and stock fund assets in both taxable and tax-deferred IRA accounts. In effect, Fran and Fred are testing whether paying taxes now or later would have a higher or lower lifetime value."

Cade Krueger presents A Few Ways To Save Money With A Small Business Opportunity posted at Write To Right.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Test Your Buyer’s IQ: Quit Wasting Money On Costly Crap posted at The Digerati Life, saying, "Thank you for your consideration!"

The Happy Rock presents Cheaper Than Cheap Tip Of The Week #1 - Pretend You Are Running Out posted at The Happy Rock, saying, "Frugal Tip - Pretend you are running out."

Ruby presents 12 times when you should forget about being frugal posted at Advice and Rants.

Tracy Coenen presents Dateline NBC investigates identity theft posted at FRAUDfiles.

Steve Faber presents Strategies to Save Money When Buying a House posted at DebtBlog.

edithyeung presents 7 Habits of Highly Effective Money Managers posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act..

Save Money presents Step one to getting rid of debt posted at How I Save Money.net.

Frugal Panda presents Top 50 Frugality Bloggers posted at Frugal Panda.

Jason Elder presents Offshore Options For Bankrupts And Those With Poor Credit posted at A Bankruptcy Lawyer's Blog, saying, "This is a great option for people with bad credit. It might be something you never thought about before."

KCLau presents When is the Perfect Time to Rebalance our Investment Portfolio? posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Rebalancing should be a standard operating procedure for every investor since it is relatively easy to restore a portfolio to its original allocation mix. Regardless of your objectives and risk tolerance, the major benefit of periodic risk management is significant reduction in portfolio volatility."

Jason Antic presents How to Save Lots of Money and Make New Friends on Your Next Vacation posted at We Go to Cool Places, saying, "This is an intro to couchsurfing, a great way to save a ton of money AND have a more fulfilling experience while traveling."

Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents Frugal Millionaires? The Key To Wealth Accumulation posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door, saying, "Before we reached our million dollar milestone, I thought millionaires lived an extraordinary lifestyle replete with fancy sports cars, mansions, and plenty of bling. I thought one could name a millionaire just by looking at her. I was wrong."

Allen Taylor presents Good Stock Investments - How To Spot The Best Stocks For Your Portfolio posted at Investing World Today, saying, "So what are some good stock investments for your portfolio? Just about everybody wants to know this. The truth is, the answer all depends on what type of investor you are."

Aaron presents Seven Important Things to Consider When You Apply for a Credit Card posted at College and Finance, saying, "Establishing good credit is important for your financial future, and can help save you a lot of money in the long run. This article outlines seven important considerations in applying for a credit card."

Welly Mulia presents Do These 5 Steps In 2009 To Ensure Great Success posted at Internet Business Make Money Online With Welly Mulia.

Patrick Bateman presents One Million Bucks!: My Personal Finance Journey: The Frugal Father In Law posted at One Million Bucks! (OMB!): My Personal Finance Journey, saying, "A series about the extreme lengths that my father in-law goes to in order to pinch pennies..."

Raymond presents The Best Online High Interest Savings Accounts posted at Money Blue Book.

Raymond presents New Credit Card Rules posted at Money Blue Book.

Destroy Debt presents What to Do if You Get Laid Off posted at Destroy Debt.

Lazy Man and Money presents Credit Card Bill of Rights Passes posted at Lazy Man and Money.
Save Money presents Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps: My Take posted at How I Save Money.net.

Mr Credit Card presents Living Without Debt, An Extreme Example posted at Ask Mr Credit Card.

The Investor presents Three new ways to control your spending posted at Monevator.com, saying, "Three methods I've successfully used to avoid spending money on stuff I didn't really need."

Kevin Fleming presents How to Save on HDMI Cables posted at Satellite TV Guru, saying, "If you recently bought an HDMI cable from Best Buy or Circuit City for that new Plasma TV you got for the holidays, you were probably ripped off."

Jason Isbell presents Spaghetti For an Army Tired Garden posted at Tired Garden, saying, "Saving money is important. Try making big batches of food, freezing most of it, this will save both money and time."

Vince Scordo presents Fixing It Versus Buying New: Finding Experts to Make Your Stuff Last Longer posted at Vince Scordo.

FIRE Getters presents FIRE Finance: Lottery Tickets - Our route to Wealth? - A Top Personal Finance and Investing Blog for Early Retirement and Money Management! posted at FIRE Finance.

Sam presents Credit Card Debt. Get Out of Debt and Take Back Your Power $$$$ posted at Surfer Sam and Friends, saying, "Credit Card Debt Get Out of Debt and Take Back Your Power If you feel like your credit card payments have you backed up against a wall, there are steps to help you manage your money. Money management is the key to escaping from debt. No matter how irregular your income is, or how broke you are, it is better to face your money troubles squarely than to deny the problem. Take heart. In this country, no one is sent to prison for not paying credit card debt. No matter how easy it is to get credit, borrowing should not be considered a way of life. Changing the way you spend money is the first step out of debt despair. In other words, you bring in a certain amount of money each month, and when it's gone, it's gone. Accepting that reality is the key to living a happier, wealthier life. Step 1 The List If you are swamped in debt, borrowing more money is not the best step to take. Before you do anything else, list your financial obligations so that you know where you stand. Your list should include lender’s name, balance owed, rate of interest, late payment charges included in the balance and the minimum payment. Total up the dollars owed and all the minimum monthly payments. How much debt is too much? If your total monthly payments, including your home mortgage payment, exceed 36% of your monthly income, you’re carrying too much debt. Credit card companies are getting rich off of you. Step 2. The Baseline Budget The next step is to prepare a baseline budget. This is a simple list of the money you need every month to meet your basic living expenses. Your baseline budget will include rent, utilities, car insurance, housing expenses like mortgage payment, property tax and insurance, costs to get to work, medicine, and basic food. The baseline budget total tells you how much money you need to live without any luxuries. It doesn’t include pizza, fancy food, dining out, clothing, impulse purchases, entertainment, vacations or cable TV. None of these things fit into a debt-reduction budget. Your lifestyle must be revised to include brown-bag lunches and value-priced groceries. The purpose of the baseline budget is to remind you what you need to get by and how much of your take-home pay can be used for paying off your debt. Put your baseline budget into practice right away. The baseline budget is your first brave step to taking charge of your money. Step 3 The Paydown"

KCLau presents Introduction of a new scheduler tax deduction (STD) posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "About LHDN introducing a new scheduler tax deduction (STD) system"

Doug Ragan presents How YOU Can Help Save The Economy posted at I'm A Pundit Too, saying, "Who’s going to save us from our failing economy? Do you really think that Congress can save both big business and you at the same time? It is obvious to everyone that the economy is in big time trouble. But what everyone doesn’t understand is how to put it back together. There is much debate about fixing the economy, bank bailouts (thanks Paulson), auto manufacturer bailouts (thanks Bush), freezing foreclosures (thanks Fannie), expansion of government programs that take jobs from the private sector(thanks Obama), the list goes on. One of the interesting things about this very long list is that it mostly seems to be about what the government can do to fix the economy, instead of what the individual can do. The government has a habit of trying to tell business what to do, then trying to prop business up to keep it from failing. This has created problems that won’t be fixed by more of the same. If you really want to talk about “Change” then you need to talk about what individuals can do to put the US economy back on track instead of what the government is going to attempt to do."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of penny pinching using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
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