The Friday Feast ~ the 25th of March

The personal finance community is filled with so many talented writers and inspiring families in search of something better out of life than the traditional society-approved plan of buying lots of stuff and retiring in your 60s if you're lucky.

Here is a look at the best of this week's personal finance blogs.

In this episode of Friday Feast: Our Next Life, Gen Y Finance Guy, Mad Fientist, Net Worth Explosion, Shoeaholic No More, Budgets Are Sexy, Passive Income Pursuit, Penny Thots, Roadmap 2 Retire and Wallet Hacks.

Welcome to another Friday - my wife and I returned from our amazing trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last weekend and are slowly getting back into the routine of everyday life. By this time next week, though, life changes again. We'll be moving into our Airstream. More on that next week!

Let's start the feast over at Our Next Life who wrote a post about the ups and downs of getting close to early retirement. It's a mixed bag of emotions. The closer we get to that wonderful goal, the more we want it, more anxious we become and less likely we are to want to wait!

Also, Gen Y Finance Guy rocked it this week with a monster guest post over at 1500days where he talked about 10 guidelines virtually anyone can use to help reach the wickedly awesome goal of financial independence.

My favorite post of the week

The time has finally come for the Mad Fientist, who was informed recently that his company doesn't want him working remotely from the UK. In fact, they didn't even know that he was working from half way across the world, a testament to how powerful and effective remote work can be.

What's a guy to do? How about quit. "After consulting my trusty FI spreadsheet one more time, I knew financially everything would be okay. When I started thinking about the non-financial aspects of leaving my career, I also realized everything was going to be alright."

Congrats!

More from the personal finance community

Net Worth Explosion talks about how to use a budget to find money.

How about lowering those damn utility bills? Kristi over at Shoeaholic No More has you covered. How many out there use timer switches?

And just for the hell of it, I am trying a new side income idea I learned about over on the Budgets Are Sexy blog. It's the Mechanical Turk!

Lastly, Passive Income Pursuit looks on the bright side of those shitty minimum wage jobs because, quite often, they teach us about what we don't want!

Honorable mentions: Penny Thots talks about free stuff on your birthday, Roadmap 2 Retire asks are you protecting your credit rating and lastly, Wallet Hacks gives us the low-down on his awesome Flattery Project.

Photo of the week

This photo was taken a dinner on our trip to Puerto, Vallarta, Mexico, this month. As always, the trip was wonderful. I love Mexico, and the fact that nearly everything is cheaper down there certainly doesn't hurt!

Coming up in the week ahead on ThinkSaveRetire: On Monday, I am writing about a special event in the professional career of my wife - she broke the news that she's quitting to her boss! And on Wednesday I will discuss the simple game show logic behind early retirement.

Thanks for reading, and cheers to another financially productive week ahead!