The Friday Feast ~ the 9th of October

The personal finance community is filled with so many talented writers and truly inspiring people and families who want something much different in life than the traditional plan of buying lots of stuff and retiring in their 60s.  Here is a look at the best of this week's personal finance blogs.

In this episode of Friday Feast: Budgets Are Sexy, Our Next Life, Money Mozart, I Pick Up Pennies, Blond On A Budget, Mixed Up Money, Adam Chudy, Self Employment Movement, Frugal Woods, Northern Expenditure, Gen Y Finance Guy and Even Steven Money.

Another week has gone by, which means another opportunity to talk about some of the greatest material from the personal finance blogosphere.  I have grown to love these Friday Feast articles as they allow me to remember more closely some of the insights that I've read lately.

J$ from Budgets Are Sexy wrote about the 5 R's of not wasting money, and it is definitely worth a read.  How many of us follow the 5 Rs routinely?  I admit that I'm not 100% successful, but it's always wise to stay focused on saving cash through these easy techniques.

The transition from baller to saver is definitely a mind game - just ask Our Next Life who penned an article about their life-changing metamorphosis.  It truly is an amazing shift in how you think about life, what you truly need to be happy and how much is "enough".

And we all save money in very different ways.  My wife and I have a very strict budget that helps take some of the guessing out of the equation, but I love how Chris from Money Mozart has found another way to kick ass in personal finance without strict budgeting, and how Abigail from I Pick Up Pennies saves money during the Christmas season.  And Cait from Blond On A Budget?  Yeah, she just bans herself from shopping altogether.  Love it!

Alyssa from Mixed Up Money sent an article into the digital airwaves about three tricks she uses to spend less dough on stupid crap that she doesn't need (okay, this article was actually published last month, but it bears mentioning anyway!).  Perhaps the best trick of all: pretend that you have less to spend than you really do...because it just might be true (hey cool, that rhymed)!

In addition to J$'s completely kick-butt personal finance resource RockstarFinance, I also like perusing through what Adam Chudy is reading during the week.  It's not all about personal finance, but I like that.  For example, do you devote time every week to getting your shit together?  Brendan does.

Adam also links to an article in Seeking Alpha that discusses whether the 4% safe withdrawal rate has now become the 2% safe withdrawal rate, at least during the first year of retirement.  Interesting read.

And Self Employment Movement is done being bitter.  Excellent post, a lot of which I can relate to!

What else is out there?  Well, Frugal Woods wrote about how getting Lasik surgery was the best $4,225 they ever spent (I've also had Lasik and happen to agree!).  Maggie from Northern Expenditure wrote about the positives and negatives of having kids, one of the only truly from-the-heart posts about kids that I've ever read. Dominic from Gen Y Finance Guy talks numbers in his buy vs. rent post, and Even Steven Money kills it with a post about the dangers of credit card abuse.

Honorable mentions: I'm fine, but could be better, You can be too careful, Why I don't love 5-star hotels, and 1500days's household junk mail rant.

Coming up in the week ahead on ThinkSaveRetire: A post about why my wife and I are going to remain DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) heading into retirement as well as a look at a problem we just discovered with earning enough credits for Social Security benefits later in life!  First world problems, my friends.

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