The Friday Feast ~ the 5th of February

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: Deals Plus, The Simple Dollar, Debt Discipline, Northern Expenditure, Living A FI, Becoming Minimalist, Debt Roundup, Money Mozart, The Frugal Girl and Retirement Manifesto.

Aaaaaand, we're back!

After posting yesterday about using Twitter instead of the blog for my Friday Feasts, I received some feedback - both in the comments section of the article as well as through email, that has indicated the Feast posts are a little more popular than I had thought! So, no problem - after only a day of the new "plan", I'm bringing the regular Friday Feasts back.

I will probably still use Twitter to post a lot of these posts individually, but fear not - I will continue with these posts to the best of my ability.

Enough chatter - let's get right to the blogs!

First, check out my guest post over on the Deals Plus blog about getting the most out of your credit cards.

The Simple Dollar penned a very similar post about all the free stuff that your credit card company probably offers you. Most of us are not fully aware of just how much our cards - if used properly, give us.

Also, with Valentine's Day right around the corner, Americans are preparing themselves to spend a good amount of money on flowers, candies, and other completely unnecessary items. I say don't buy anything at all, but if you must do something, give Debt Discipline's recent blog post a read first!

My favorite post of the week

My favorite post this week comes from Northern Expenditure, who wrote this week about what "I can't afford it" actually means, and it shouldn't necessarily mean that we can't keep the lights on if we were to make that purchase anyway.

"We have enough cash to make it happen, but we choose not to buy another car because we (already have two and three would be ridiculous) would rather save that money to retire early. For my young children, it is often unclear which definition people are using."

More from the personal finance community

Mr. Doom from Living A FI wrote about the personal cost of blogging, but warning - as usual with Mr. Doom, the post is quite long but extremely fun to read.

Becoming Minimalist brings us an interesting piece about how all those supposedly "generous" return policies at retailers actually decrease the chances that we will return an item. Interesting read!

When do you cut off your children from the financial gravy train that you provided when they were younger? The Debt Roundup blog discussed this topic.

Honorable mentions: Money Mozart discusses "underspending disorders", The Frugal Girl talks about the process of leveling up your life for awesome financial goals and lastly, the Retirement Manifesto reminds us not to overreact to market volatility.

Photo of the week

This beautiful owl soared through the skies during the Raptor Flight at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum yesterday. Beautiful bird!

Coming up in the week ahead on ThinkSaveRetire: On Monday I'm going to reminisce a bit about our trip to Glacier National Park and especially our lunch stop in the beautiful city of Coeur d'Alene. And Wednesday, let's chat about the habits that most people have that will forever keep them from getting rich.

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