From the category archives:

investing

What I’m Reading 5/8

by Carrie on May 8, 2009

Here’s a wrap up of what I’m reading lately. To get daily updates on this check the sidebar at www.itsfrugalbeinggreen.com.

Finance

How Much Money Should you Save? @Get Rich Slowly – I’m saving a minimum of 25% of my take home pay and am surprised to see that’s at the high end of the scale, I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised based on the current state of the economy though.
Five Frugal Lessons from My Parents @The Simple Dollar – The second tip is to always cook more food than you need. I do this on a regular basis and keep my freezer stocked.
Ten Things I Wish I Had Done When I Was Twenty @The Simple Dollar – I think I’m well ahead of the curve on most of the financial issues but maybe I should get back in touch with some of my college classmates

Food

Spend Less, Eat Healthier: The Five Most Important Things you Can Do @CheapHealthyGood – this quickly summarizes some of the major points in my 30 Quick, Green, and Frugal Meal Planning Resources list
One Pot Spring Gardening @Joy the Baker – if square foot gardening is still too much for you then you might want to give one pot gardening a try

Green

The 80/20 Rule for Going Green @The Concious Shopper – I got some flack about how my newspaper subscription and recent vacation that I mentioned in my How to Want Less post aren’t exactly green. I’ve been trying to think of a way to express how being green most of the time balances out a few splurges other times. The Concious Shopper hits that nail on the head.
Enjoying your Gadgets the Eco Way @Focus Organic – The second tip about waiting and trying to maximize your current tools worked out great for me when Amazon released their Kindle for iPhone application.

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April 2009 is the month I reached the ripe old age of 25 and a custodial brokerage account that my parents set up for me when I was a very young child transferred to my ownership. When they set it up they chose 25 rather than 18 or 21 as the age it would transfer to me because they weren’t sure how financially responsible I’d be – thanks to their good influence and my rational mind I turned out to be financially responsible by the age of 5. Hopefully this money will go towards a house in the next 5 years (depends how the market looks) so I’m not splurging with any of it and in the meantime I’ll be using it all to rebalance my portfolio.

Rebalancing is a tool that helps you buy low and sell high. After you’ve selected and achieved your asset allocation targets you should rebalance on a regular basis (but not too often – quarterly to yearly is ideal). The areas you are selling to maintain your targets are the areas that are up and the areas that you are buying to maintain your targets are the areas that are down. When you sell those areas that are up you’re selling high and when you buy those areas that are down you’re buying low.

Featured in the Carnival of Everything Money #13.

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What I’m Reading 4/24

by Carrie on April 24, 2009

Here’s a wrap up of what I’m reading lately. To get daily updates on this check the bottom of the page at www.itsfrugalbeinggreen.com.

Finance

Investing 101: An Introduction to Asset Allocation @Get Rich Slowly – asset allocation is the ground work of sound investing
Spend to Save Trap @Bargaineering – this is a very easy trap to fall in to, here’s how I manage my spending to avoid spending to save

Food

Eat This, Grocery Reminder @The Kitchn – a PDF checklist you can print to keep track of what you need to use up this week, combine this with a categorized recipe list to make meal planning easy
How to Save Money on Grocery Purchases @Free Money Finance – I’m a combination of the savvy and store brand shopper
Substituting Ingredients Saves Money @Like Merchant Ships – every week when I make out my meal plan, I think of what I have on hand that can substitute for the ingredients I don’t have in the recipes I want to make

Green

Saving Money and the Environment: Where Green and Frugal Meet @Get Rich Slowly – they meet right here at www.itsfrugalbeinggreen.com, but they also meet a lot of other places

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What I’m Reading 3/13

by Carrie on March 13, 2009

Here’s a wrap up of what I’m reading lately. To get daily updates on this check most of the way down on the right hand column of www.itsfrugalbeinggreen.com.

Finance

Active, Passive, and Portfolio Frugality: Where Should One Start? at The Simple Dollar – this is closely related to my post about passive income from last week
“Why would anyone keep investing when the market keeps going lower every day?” at I Will Teach You To Be Rich – this post emphasizes what I believe to be the basic stock market concepts

Food

Seasonal Food Chart at Frugal for Life – I posted before that one of the reasons I’m really loving Everyday Food: Great Food Fast is that it sorts recipes by season so you can utilize seasonal produce, Frugal for Life’s chart compliments that nicely
12 Ways to Prepare Ground Beef at The Kitchn – ground beef is cheaper than steak but I haven’t been buying it lately because I had run out of ideas for it but now I’ve got some new ones
Eating Down the Fridge at Slashfood – I thought I had come up with this frugal food idea to use what you already have on my own but now that the idea is in my head I’m seeing it everywhere
Weekly Menu Planning for Singles, Couples, and Working People at Cheap Healthy Good – glad to see I’m not the only non-family planning my meals

Green

Are Couch Potato Shoppers Greener than Mall Rats? at Green Inc (NYT) – I always thought so. I mentioned that I try to shop online only in my guest post about fashion on a budget at Get Rich Slowly last month
The Five Rs of Basic Frugality at Frugal for Life – I’m not the only one who thinks frugal and green go so closely hand in hand

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The Best of Less Is More: February 2009

by Carrie on February 28, 2009

February 2009 has been the month that I feel this blog has really taken shape. I finally feel like it’s going somewhere. I hope you agree and enjoy reading Less Is More.

Here are a few of my favorite posts from February here at Less Is More: