If you like watching shows but don’t have or like the idea of paying for a DVR then save a few bucks and check out hulu.com.  It’s free to use and is sponsored by the TV networks.  That means that its free, legal media over the internet.  Yes, you have to watch it on a device connected to the internet, but I think that you can use a bunch of different devices that will do that, or you could just watch on a desktop computer or a laptop computer.

TV isn’t the most valuable thing you can do with your time, but its quite nice to have control over when you watch various things and know that the

I’ve recently had my eyes caught by a few articles that I thought I’d pass along.  Please consider reading the following articles because they’re either informative, well written, or both.

Fivers - check out the details on the new five dollar bills.  If you don’t, someone else will!

Extravagant Spending -  Is extravagant spending even remotely insane?  If you’ve ever watched a show like Pimp My Ride, Cribs, or any of the many copy-cat shows that are out there to show off (estimated) wealth, then you’ve wrestled with some of the neat toys and known you couldn’t afford it and feel right about the expenditures.

Watch Your Laundry Maker -  A handy article about doing laundry the right way: measure twice, wash once.

Fully Funding Accounts - How much does it cost to fully fund various savings accounts and retirement accounts?

The Home Shopping Brainwash Network - A great analysis of the Home Shopping Network and how they market to their watchers.  This stuff scares the snot out of me because I know there are people at home just sitting there waiting to spend money they have, don’t have, or should keep.

I participated in two carnivals this week.

The Personal Finance Carnival #144 took my article on principles as the core need for learning in life. I have to read the rest of the articles linked there, but I wanted to make you aware of this carnival and its contents.

The Carnival of Debt Reduction took my article on the Moved Buffer Theory Budget. The format for this carnival is unique and I recommend checking it out. Further recommendations will be coming shortly.

I love gardening and my wife and I looked into doing square foot gardens this last fall for the upcoming Spring.  Go check out this great writeup on making your own at being frugal.

The King of Debt over at We’re in Debt posted this great article about thinking and planning through the impact of various home projects.

I have been buried in work this last week. I have hardly had time to sleep, let alone blog. I did manage to write up a guest post at GenXFinance before fully submerging in the code that is for a presentation next week at a client’s conference in Texas.  I’m not dead, I’ve got some ideas for the next video in the podcast series, and I’ve just got to wrestle some time free from the swamped time monster and then I’ll get them wrapped up.  In fact I might just shoot some video in Texas.

The good thing is that I’m working, the bad thing is that my time is limited.  I hope to be back in the swing of things in the upcoming week while in Texas.

My buddy, friend and pal, Trint, has written up a great post about the Economic Stimulation Checks.  In short he’s indicated that the stimulation is a problem.  Of course the few comments I’ve had on my own post have definitely indicated that the masses aren’t stimulated.

I found this fantastic info-graphic at the New York Times.  Definitely check it out.

Clicky-Clicky.

Those who get paid well in this chart seem to also save well.  Imagine that.

This could totally apply to debit cards for those of you who, like me, are not huge fans of the credit cards.

Please Don’t Taste My Credit Card!

I have noticed that the employees who have to handle my plastic often are careful with the card to avoid looking like they’re doing bad things with it.  However, there’s always a nut somewhere

OK, that’s not so shocking. What is cool though is that there are sites like opensecrets.org that share things like campaign finance information - even if it is from past years. For example you can keep up on folks like Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and of course Mitt Romney, who is apparently quite wealthy on his own. You can check out the whole running crew, too.

As a voter, assuming you are one, this is a great way to look at the financial state of a campaign and make some conclusions about different organizations that donate funds. For example the list of top donors that includes AT&T (thanks for making communication so expensive, but turning that expense into political contributions, guys), the NRA, and various unions. You can also see what political party they favored here.

I have a guest post up at DollarFrugal.com today.  It’s actually about a different kind of exchange.  Thanks to Brooke for the great guest post exchange this month!  Whose up for an exchange next month?