The Friday Feast ~ the 3rd of June

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: Retire Before Dad, Budgets Are Sexy, Making Sense of Cents, The Resume Gap, The Smart Dollar, The Practical Saver, A Streamin' Life, Debt RoundUp, A.J. Leon, and The Frugal Toad

Happy Friday! And woohoo, it's finally June! Temperatures over the weekend are set to touch 113 degrees here in southern Arizona. Summer is definitely unavoidable! From the A/C'ed trailer, here's a little of the awesomeness I got to read this week in the Personal Finance community.

First, run over to Retire Before Dad who gave us some advice about cash flow and changing shit up when things aren't going as you expect.

And elsewhere, J$ from Budgets Are Sexy published a guest post about a young family selling their home and buying a travel trailer! Wonderful story!  ;)

My favorite post of the week

My favorite post this week comes from Making Sense of Cents who writes of truly horrible money habits that are keeping people dreadfully broke.

"Understanding your bad money habits and making a change can help you stop living paycheck to paycheck, eliminate debt, pursue your passion, save for your goals, reach retirement, and more."

One of the biggest factors of debt, as she discusses in the article, are emotions, which dictate how we feel about money and our life in general. "According to NerdWallet, the average US household (who has debt) has an average credit card debt of $15,611, and I’m sure some of that is due to emotional spending."

More from the personal finance community

Over at The Resume Gap, Matt writes about getting one of those ideal side hustles after leaving full-time work, only to find out that side hustle may not have been so ideal after all!

The Smart Dollar killed it with a huge write-up of side hustles and passive income generation. Some are more doable than others. :)

Also, The Practical Saver talks 6 simple truths about retirement. "Planning for retirement is no easy task. If it were, then, a lot of people would be retired by now."

Lastly, my wife blogged over on A Streamin' Life about putting yourself out there and making friends within your community. By the way, did you know that my wife and I actually met online?

Honorable mentions: Debt RoundUp asks if cutting cable really saves us money, A.J. Leon reminds us that this isn't our practice life, and lastly, The Frugal Toad writes about how to transform your finances in an hour each month.

Photo of the week

From my America in Monochrome gallery, here's a cuddling couple sitting in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens during our trip to New York last summer. I couldn't resist!

Coming up in the week ahead on ThinkSaveRetire: On Monday, I am going to talk about what every school should be teaching our children (hint: enough with advanced placement Calculus!) and on Wednesday, I am going to publish the second ever guest post about 4 things that NEW lifers say (responding to my earlier post).

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