Hey guys!
Ever wanted to see a live stream of alllllllllllll the financial blog posts being published in our community? Check this out: http://directory.rockstarfinance.com/feeds
We just launched it last week, and it tracks every article published in the last 24 hours from our entire database of personal finance blogs we’re tracking – now at 1,004 (!!). (When we launched the directory three months ago we were at 658!)
So now there’s never an excuse about not finding something to read ;) And it auto-updates every hour, on the hour, too so you always have the latest stuff available.
(We also kept the same sorting functionality of the main directory so you can drill down to just see what early retirement blogs are writing about, or the debt bloggers, or even if you want to search for something specific like “saving” (4 articles currently) or “Miley Cyrus” (0 articles unfortunately).
I’ve been watching the flow over the month since we started building it, and it seems on the weekends the community publishes about 60-80 new articles a day, and then during the work week anywhere from 125-250 articles a day.
So on average, about 1,000 new articles on money every single week!
Pretty wild.
If you pay close attention too, you also catch trends here and there. Like how certain times of the month bloggers talk numbers and net worth more (first week of the month), or how when it gets closer to the weekend people shift to frugality and saving and more lifestyle related items. Which actually inspired today’s main topic that we should probably finally get to :)
On Friday I was checking the feeds for my daily curating for Rockstar Finance (another great place to find awesome blogs btw, since the only stuff we share there are the plucked-out gems!) and I kept noticing bloggers talk about “5 frugal things” left and right.
At first I thought it was a coincidence, but after seeing my 5th and 6th article I realized it was some sort of financial meme going around. Here’s a few of them to show you what I mean:
- 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week @Medium-Sized Family
- Five Fabulously Frugal Things I’ve Done This Week @ Money Saving Journeys
- Thrifty Foodie #5frugalthings @ Family-Budgeting.co.uk
Back when I first started blogging we were ALWAYYYYYYS doing fun memes together, but somewhere over the years either they died out or I stopped getting invited to them :(
So today I thought I’d crash the party and feel young again ;) And if you wanted to join in too, even better! We’ll all learn from each other!
I’ll go first…
5 Frugal Things I’ve Done Recently
#1) I cut my own hair. Doesn’t get cheaper than wielding your own electric shaver! I trim up my ‘hawk once every two weeks, and while I do goof up here and there it’s been quite the money – and time – saver. (We also cut our boys’ hair too)
#2) I’ve eaten all my breakfasts and lunches and dinners at home. Another thing that’s great for the wallet, however I can’t say the same for my social life – womp womp… Maybe I’ll get like 10 invites this week and totally negate the savings ;)
#3) We threw our 3 year old’s birthday party at a park (for free). Do you know how much people pay to throw their kids a party?? It’s crazy! We went to one the other month that I swear had to at least cost $400-$500. I honestly don’t think kids care (or notice) either, so long as they a) get to run around and play, and b) (a biggie) get to bring home a cheap goodie bag in the end ;) They go ga-ga for those things!
#4) Sold some of my coins to help fund the purchase of more coins! Nothing like a hobby that helps support itself, eh? (Shameless plug: visit CoinThrill.com and say hi so it forces me to blog more about coin collecting! It’s been months!)
#5) And lastly, I finally got to put my vintage card idea to use. If you recall, I found a box of old cards I had made for my parents as a kid while decluttering our basement, and I thought they would not only make a good gift idea for future holidays, but also save myself a few bucks in the process.
Well, my mother had her birthday recently and I had the pleasure of watching her face as she opened it up (again) now 30+ years later by her now 30+ year older son :) To say she was overjoyed was an understatement. I can’t remember the last time she teared up from a card I’ve given her, probably because Hallmark cards don’t have the same effect!
Here was the card I gave her:
(Luckily she didn’t ask me about all the weapons!)
Alright, your turn :) Share your own frugal wins and let’s see what other tricks we can learn!
When you’re done, click on over to our new Blogger Feeds and check out what others are writing about too. I have a feeling this is only the beginning of what we’re going to learn from connecting everything in one spot here. My ultimate goal! To make it stupidly easy for anyone to learn about money any time they wish.
Sometimes you gotta kiss a few frogs to finally find the one that inspires you, right? Not everyone thinks budgets are sexy, to my dismay ;)
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“If you pay close attention too, you also catch trends here and there. Like how certain times of the month bloggers talk numbers and net worth more (first week of the month), or how when it gets closer to the weekend people shift to frugality and saving” — Hmmm, very interesting indeed. More month at the end of the $$ perhaps?
I’d be more interested in what you see trending or the “data” that can be gleamed off….
Yup, that’s the plan! Continue watching and seeing what interesting data/themes come out over time :) I think I need a stats person on our team though who can obsess over it as my skills are pretty surface level, haha…
That card one is awesome. My parents have been downsizing and I’ve been getting random pictures of crappy book reports or art projects. I’m sure they mean more to my parents then they mean to me now, just like my kids’ crappy art projects really hit the sentimentality button!
Haha yeah – my kids projects are ruining my minimalism! I can’t seem to get rid of any of it cuz it’s soooo cute!!
My wife and I found out that we’re having our 2nd child. So we have been scouring Craigslist for items that we feel like we want/need. There are always a ton of baby items for free or at significantly cheaper prices. So we have alerts set up so that we can quickly pick them up. That’s how we’ve been frugal the past couple of months :)
Smart smart smart! And congrats!!! Two kids is a whole other adventure, haha…
How awesome! I follow a few blogs through Feedly, but am not that much exposed to new or other blogs lately. This will certainly help with that.
On the frugal part, I’m currently decluttering a bit around the house. And already sold a few items here and there. Always a good thing to sell items you haven’t used in years :)
Yes it is :)
Nice feed!
One frugal thing we always do is I cut my son’s hair. I’m not brave enough to cut my own yet but cutting his is so easy (#2 all around). It saves money but also time… I can cut his hair in like 5-10 minutes, it would take that long to drive to the closest place. Time is money!
I do the basic trim on my hair but my wife has to touch it up. I’m not as stylish as you, but she does a great job at the basics.
Stylish as ME? Did you think you were replying to someone else? :)
Yikes! I struggle to keep up with the feed of blogs that I set up for myself! My feed does get pretty quiet on the weekends, though, so I will definitely use the Rockstar feed to find some new sites. Thanks for all of the hard work you’ve been putting in to build up the finance blogosphere!
Ok, the cutting your own hair thing fills in a lot of questions I’ve had over the years… ;)
Haha… I did accidentally shave off a small patch last month – not optimal!
We have pretty much always done our kids birthday parties at the splash pads near our house. We do end up paying to rent the covered area, only because it is the only way we can make sure we have a spot. Even then, its pretty cheap and the money helps pay for the park anyways.
Yeah, sometimes it’s worth grabbing those slots for sure… We were pretty ghetto this time around and crowded around a park bench to eat some cupcakes, and it def. wasn’t *as* comfy as the reserved tables. On the other hand, it forced us to spend like only 10 mins there and then the kids ran off again :)
My three year old son and I got our haircuts (at home) last week so we’re still good there. This week, my son and I went out to do some DIY yard repairs (filled in a massive sinkhole with clay dirt) and car maintenance. Busy being frugal!
That card is hilarious! Love it! I have been decluttering to and came across a stash of cards I’d bought for future events and then promptly forgot about so I was super happy. I love to give cards that are fun but they are outrageous now. One I was looking at for Mother’s Day was $9.99! It had singing kittens though so I was thisclose to buying it anyway but resisted. My other frugal wins for the week were selling $100 worth of my stuff, trading for 5 Disney pins instead of buying some, bike commuting all week, and also cutting my own hair.
Singing kitties!! I remember once hearing that the amount of technology that goes into one of those cards once took up a massive computer a few decades ago. Pretty interesting to think about how far we’ve come :)
The feeds are awesome. What a great idea–thanks!
Frugal wins–I’ve mastered a favorite Indian dish (Vindaloo) and can now make it for four for about $5, instead of paying $15 for one portion at a restaurant. My husband also got a free colony of bees that he’s keeping in the back yard for honey. Let’s hope they stay alive!
Where does one get a free colony of bees?? Haha…
When a bee hive gets too crowded, a large mass of bees will swarm with a new queen to establish their own colony. Many times, they’ll settle on a branch or somewhere less convenient. When people see that, they’ll call the ag extension who will put out the call to local beekeepers. Getting a swarm like that is a really nice little bonus for bee keepers.
Fascinating!
Your mom is lucky to have you. I bet she’ll save that card forever! That leads me to my 5 things: 1) Bought mothers day cards for $2 each in a dollar store (cheapest were $5 to $6 elsewhere), 2) Went 4 days without using the car (cheating since Mr G and I both had colds), 3) washed a king size blanket at home not the laundromat 4) made yogurt and 5) found some un-stylish jeans I buried in a drawer 2+ years ago and wore them.
If you just rip em up a little or throw some paint on them they’ll get to being stylish no problem :) (And cost-effective!)
Let me echo the part comment. We had a party for our five year old in my back yard a few weeks ago. Other then filling up a few water balloons and the cost of three extra large pizzas the whole thing was free. My son had a blast and is still talking about it.
#1 Finishing my own basement. While not inexpensive, compared to having it done for me its a down right steal.
#2 Ketogenic diet. Not intentionally frugal but the reduction in my food consumption saves money. Also, you know, swim suit season is fast approaching and I still have this winter flub…
#3 Starting a garden. A little money up front that will pay dividends over the summer,
#4 Stopped buying energy drinks, mostly because because they are so horrible for your heart but it saves me $2 every time I abstain.
#5 I did not buy my wife an anniversary present. I know I know…but we agreed no gifts prior to. We are both tired of obligatory gifts just because they are “expected”. We had a nice KID FREE dinner out instead. Time and undivided attention was better than anything we could have bought each other.
You know what I would have had at that kid free dinner? Vokda Redbull :) The only time i can ever drink one of those energy drinks – yum.
I’m partial to Monster – Orange Sunrise, or at least I was… and yes, there were drinks, just not spiked with caffeine.
Great card! I continue to brown bag my lunch, which included snacks and beverages too. No out of pocket costs while I’m at work.
Whoa! That feed is awesome. Do you curate the list at all? How do you keep out the spammy sites?
It’s not curated per se like we do Rockstar Finance, however, all blogs it pulls from were moderated and made sure to be legit $$$ blogs before being added to the Directory. That doesn’t mean all the articles are great, just that they’re real blogs and not bots/spammers :)
It’s actually a pretty cool ecosystem… We capture the entire community in one spot, and then filter the best of the best from there and feature those on Rockstar Finance. Then the blogs we feature tend to promote Rockstar and our Directory, which in turn spreads more traffic all throughout the system again.
So it’s very much a community project more so than my own – which I love!
Very cool. I’ve been using it daily already. I’m just starting out but I will definitely submit my site in the future when I have a bit more content to share.
Well hey, any new way to stalk money bloggers is a-okay in my book. :) Bravo for getting on the 5 Frugal Things wagon! I do a version myself, but it’s mostly geared towards how I spend my weekends, since it’s harder to be interesting and frugal after full work days.
Anyhoo, here’s what we were up to this week:
1. I used my zoo pass and got into the zoo for free last week. We bought the passes last fall and they’ve already paid for themselves!
2. I weeded a bed in our backyard and planted hundreds of wildflower seeds in it. Hopefully these little guys will attract more pollinators to our garden. But the best part was that all of the wildflower seeds were free. :) I scored some from a Cheerios promotion and the rest were unwanted favors left over from a wedding I attended. Score!
3. I bought black high heels for my new job (woohoo!) from the thrift store. They cost a whopping $12 total. :) I also earn thrift store rewards, so hopefully I’m coming up on a freebie soon.
4. We pre-cooked molasses cookies, cinnamon raisin bread, bacon, sausage patties, black beans, and cakes over the weekend. I was nervous about starting my new job today, so I did a lot of nervous baking. Oops. ;)
5. I mended a few of Mr. Picky Pincher’s shirts and we plan to return a few that don’t fit quite right.
You had me at thrift store rewards!
Wow, that’s a lot of posts every week. Maybe too much…
I wish we could throw a birthday party at the park, but our kid’s birthday is in February. :(
We went to a laser tag/arcade and it was fun. A lot more expensive than having it in the park, though.
Here’s my list:
#1 – I haven’t gotten my hair cut in over a year! (Cinco de Mayo 2016 was the last time). Saved $360
#2 – I’m still a one car, 6 person family. Busing to work saves me over $8k/yr
#3 – I do DIY in the home I rent. Landlord lets me deduct the rates from my rent. Avg. ~$100/mo throughout the year
#4 – I just pre-made my work lunches for the MONTH of May. I normally spend $600/mo, so I hope to save ALL of that.
#5 – I didn’t go grocery shopping this week. Instead I’m making do w/ that I can find in the pantry. I saved my normal grocery bill of $300
What happened on Cinco de Mayo in 2016? Haha…
(Sweet deal w/ the DIY in your rental! For both you and the owner.)
1) Cut my hair for the first time last week – I know look like I joined the military. No bueno, but I suspect the learning curve is steep.
2) I sell everything I can on craigslist. If I can’t use it I try to sell it. If that does not work after a month I then donate it.
3) I am trying to eat breakfast and lunch at homes. We probably eat 90% of dinners at home too.
4) I am going to mow my own lawn here soon.
5) I read free blogs on line instead of buy books. Oh and I love our library.
WOW blog heaven here for those who have the time! Here’s our 5 frugalities:
1) My husband & I have been cutting/trimming each other’s hair for 10 years.
2) We groom our dog (save $40-$50 each time)
3) I got free bananas ($1.88) at our local grocery the other day. They said I earned this reward last month just by using our store loyalty card.
4) I paid $21.69 for a $25 gift card with free shipping in Ebay (Mother’s Day gift)
5) I mentioned this on another post this morning–last week I bought 2 cans of franks & beans at Dollar General for 1 cent each & several cans of Armour Canned Meat barbecue for 22 cents each. I’m not exaggerating! All expire in 2018 & 2020. I love the “clearance” tables at Dollar General
Every little bit helps!
Yeah it does! Can never go wrong with free bananas too – best fruit EVER.
Held my husbands 50th birthday at a local brewery. Carried in some appetizers and everyone bought their own beer and even my husbands! It accommodated everyone. Provided entertainment and it was very inexpensive
I WANT THAT FOR MY 50TH!!
Love the card for your mom! I bet that’s the best gift she got. :)
Here are my 5: 1) Cut the dog’s fur rather than taking her to the groomer, 2) planted 75% of my garden (without spending a dime – I started everything from seeds I already had on hand, 3) no grocery shopping for 7 days, 4) Alan (my husband) fixed the boat himself (thankfully), 5) Alan and I made my nieces graduation gift (a rustic headboard for college).
Cool gift idea!
Wow the card is just too cute! :)
I find it hard to believe that awesome Mohawk is DIY?? I cut my own hair too, but the classic buzz cut is about as fancy as I get. I need to up my hair cutting skills.
Oh nooo…., more finance blogs to wade through:) – love that you presented it all on a silver platter.
THANKS!
Only for when you get bored reading my own ;)
Some quick hitters on top of the: Get rid of cable, stop eating out so much, stop buying stupid stuff:
1). My 11 year old daughter has cut my hair for about 2 years now!
2). Airvoicewireless – ~$12/month for phone service
3). Made my own sushi!
4.) Low flow toilet (.8 gallon vs. ~3 gallon old toilet. Hopefully get us close to 100 gal./day for a family of 7!)
5.) Bike to work, for 3 years now.
So good for your health too!!
My frugal win this week comes from complaining. I ordered some stuff from AliExpress for a project. After it arrived, I evaluated it and was pretty disappointed. So I complained in my review about the quality of the product.
Surprisingly, the company refunded my money this weekend. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a surprise!
Only way for companies to know how you feel is if you let them know :)
Love the birthday card :). Also, great work on that mega blog feed- it’s definitely a handy place to find awesome posts!
The financial memes are crazy sometimes – I’ve had times when I’ve spent two weeks working on a post and scheduled it in for the next day. Then somehow in the 24hours before hitting ‘schedule’ and go live I see three or four articles pop up on the exact same topic! Like some kind of crazy financial hive-mind. :)
Better than them changing the date and then having to scramble to put out something else! That’s happened to me a bit in the past and dives me nuts :)
The art work on that card is amazing! They kinda look like little pink oompa loompas with weapons.
For my silly frugal story, we used to go to the local Sams Club around dinner time and feast on all the free samples they would pass out in the grocery aisle. Sad, but we never left hungry.
My kids would love you :)
That feed is great! Exactly what I’ve been looking for. Thanks for sharing!
So glad, Candy!
Brilliant! More blogs to add to my list, although it’s pretty sweet of you to have presented it all with a pretty bow too to top it off. Makes it that much easier. Thank you so much.
It should get better as we go as well… already have a bunch of tweaks and features to add for the future :)
1. One year for my mother’s bday, I sent her a letter for how appreciate I was of the things she did for me growing up. Cost barely anything to send in the mail, and was totally worth the heart felt warm reaction she gave me once she read it via skype!
2. I bought a bike a few years ago, moved closer to work, have been biking to work ever since!
3. Peanut butter and Jelly lunch weeks to save on the food budget once a month. Its quick and easy so save time + money!
Thanks for sharing !
Yes to mail!! Easiest way to make someone feel good these days – no one spend the time anymore :)
J.
Is there any way to see the articles from prior to 24 hours? I usually browse around the financial blogosphere mostly on the weekends. It would be great if you could put out all the new articles when it updates every hour to an RSS feed or something people could subscribe too.
Thanks,
Adding both to our ideas list and will see what we can do :)
Nice post.
I am suck at cutting my own hair and I decided to go baldheaded. I already had an electric razor that I brought with me from Russia. So I bough an electric adapter for $2.99 and here I am, bald and bold. (Always have problems with spelling these words)
My lovely wife dyes her hair and buys $9 hair color in a drugstore. But the result is much better than it used to be when she had to spend $150 on this. Crazy I know.
I will soon be where you are, my friend… my hair line is receding and literally only leaving my ‘hawk center in the middle right now! once that’s gone, I’ll be bold and bald and beautiful right there along with you :)
I remember reading about you finding the old cards from childhood (a few weeks back, I think). And while, for the life of me, I can’t quite understand the guns :D this is still an original & amazing gift to give someone you love on their birthday.
I don’t know why either!! We don’t even let toy guns in our house around our kids, haha… I guess growing up that was different :) (and i probably loved it too! my kids hate not being able to play with guns but just freaks us out too much)
I love the blogger directory and am sooo getting myself on there with the rest of you :-) The search function is superb.
As for my frugal 5……1) Have Ms MM cut my hair for free (can’t get more fugal than that), 2) Use my bike as much as I can, usually for travel less than 1km, so the car sits in the garage a lot of the time, 3) Make my own home-brew cider at $1.25 per litre. Not only frugal but very drinkable and intoxicating, 4) Can cook so tend not to dine out much these days which is not only expensive but also often disappointing, and 5) if I need to buy something, I first head for Gumtree (like Craigslist) to see if I can (and usually do) get it for cents in the dollar second-hand.
I WANT TO DRINK SOME OF THAT CIDER!!!! If you ever go to FinCon please bring some for us to savor! :)
One benefit of being bald is saving money on haircuts.
Now I cut my own hair once a week, for free, instead of once a month and paying someone to do it.
FYI: This may be the only benefit of being bald.
Also, stalking is such a harsh word. I prefer obsessively shadowing :)
Thanks for the update to Rockstar Finance, J!
ShadowingIsSexy.com :)
Hah! Nothing says happy bday like a few gunman and archers to take out you heart! Very cool idea, if you have some old cards like that :)
I cut my own hair for over a decade after college. When we hit FI I gave up on my cop hair and grew it out. Now Mrs CK does my cuts :)
Dude – the weapons on the card?! So cute! Well, or weird if you turned out to be a psycho. ;) As for the birthday party – so smart. Kids could care less! My mom had all our parties at home and she used to bake cupcakes in ice cream cones. We thought they were the coolest things until she started making giant cookies with m&m faces baked onto Popsicle sticks. Seriously cool.
I am in LOVE with the new feed. Of course, it is taking all the time I saved from my vow of financial celibacy but totally worth it! Your feed is similar to being a news reporter – I now get the news hot off the press before the rest of the rest of the world gets the paper. Working on a post today and I plan to check the feed to see if it appears. SO exciting!
Rock on!!
Eventually I want to start sharing daily “snapshots” of what’s going on in the community every day. The goods, bads, interestings, everything… The PF Gazette! Haha…
I definitely don’t understand spending big money on children’s birthdays. Just love them and give them space to run and grow.
I started using the crockpot my girlfriend gave me before she moved away. So many lunches not eaten away from my desk.
Love finding new and exciting blogs to read so that Blog Feed is a great tool! Would be interesting to see the stats on the community vs the market. When buys or sells are happening vs market conditions/ fluctuations. Easy way to make a stock watch list, especially for beginners, would be to just filter the data by how many people buy or talk about a specific stock that day and add it to the list.
Oooooh interesting ideas indeed! Although I feel like it’s mostly only dividend bloggers sharing what stuff they buy on a regular basis? The only other times I really see it is from the FIRE crew and in which case it’s a matter of 3-4 Vanguard index funds that are always showing up, haha…
Im also frugal and like to keep track of my spending. For me, I use a site called Whoppered.com that determines how many hours people have to work to buy something. My experience is that if you simply become aware of how much things cost relevant to your income, you can make good financial decisions.
That def. helps!
First of all, this directory is amazing. Thanks for setting it up. The FI community and many others will benefit from this tremendously.
Savings wise, this is for the ladies (sorry boys), I’ve been saving a ton of cash by taking care of my nails myself vs. hitting up the nail salon on a weekly basis. The $$$ add up fast!
Really glad you’re finding the Directory helpful :) It’s so fun watching the community use it!