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?

The PaidTwice.com blog asks an important question: what else could one save money on for seeking businesses to change their billing, interest making and the like.  She’s after Saturn to help pay for expensive vehicle repairs.  Go read the article and offer up a word of encouragement.

Apparently MSN thinks that spending all of your income means you’re middle-class.  Or at least that is the picture painted in this piece of journalism.  My sister sent me that link and she was aghast at the stupidity of the content there.  Watch the video, if you can stomach it.  There is such a prevalent mindset that ‘having’ is middle-class.  Instead lets ditch the class system and go for accountability.  Class is about stuff, but we’re not concerned with stuff.  If you read various books like “Millionaire Mindset” you’ll see that there are plenty of ‘middle-class’ looking folks who are actually very, very wealthy, they’ve just figured out how to be wealthy by spending less than they make and investing the rest wisely.

Don’t spend as much or more than you make, making more later will just be more to spend.  Instead, start early, start often, and start saving.  I don’t watch Oprah regularly, but I do remember an interview of her where she said that her dad told her to save half of her income… and she has.  And now she’s a multi-billionaire.  You don’t get there from spending, you get there from saving.  Save the ‘middle class’ by saving, not spending.

Trent over at the Simple Dollar wrote a great post clarifying the benefits of staying at home with your children.  Its got a comment discussion going on that is useful, too.  Go Read: The Real Value of Stay At Home Parenting.  I would strongly suggest that there are emotional benefits for the kids and parent that are invaluable as well.

I just read this great guest post about a couple’s journey towards financial freedom.  You should totally check it out.  The author’s blog, Millionaire Mommy Next Door, is a read of mine - she’s definitely in my RSS feeds.

If you have ever managed people then the manager-tools.com podcast series is for you. Why does this relate to money management? Because if you’re looking to get ahead to increase your income then you will need to be a better communicator and more than likely a manager of people as well as finances. The advice on that site is free (with for-money advice also available), the advice is practical, and it is sure to at least begin to prepare you for life in the wide-weird-world of management.

If you’re currently just an employee then you’ll want to listen to this stuff simply to learn how your manager may be trying to communicate to you. Sometimes managers don’t know that they’re doing a bad job of communicating and you may learn from these audio lessons how to help your manager manage better - heck, you may even want to pass them along to your manager.

If you’re a parent these are valuable because they even apply some things to rearing a child. And let me tell you: rears of children should always be managed. If you’re a manager you should listen to these because odds are you’ve never been trained to be a manager, you’ve just been thrown into it. I have recently been chucked in front of the wheels of an oncoming management train myself and this sort of thing is going to be handy.

I would recommend starting at the bottom of the page and working your way up so that you can get a feel for their methodology. Its not difficult to listen to and you’ll want to keep a pencil & paper or a word processor open to take notes. I have a page of notes from one podcast already and am just starting my second. This stuff is dynamite strapped to the body of a dead manager - go ahead and light the fuse… its attached to you.

Tonight as I scan through my feeds and do some more serious reading of some of the content I have run into a few good articles and thought I might share.

Advertising in the World Series was STUPID!  My Two Dollars calls it like it is.

Awesome time savers: memorize keyboard shortcuts.  Leave some tips there to help Bob collect the most time saving material outside of a help file.

I remember we used to get free stuff in school, and the principal would take us to Burger King and we’d all get a kids meal and that was the extent of the free food (outside of working at the school cafeteria).  Now they’re trying to gimmick the kids in with their families to safe $3.00 on a dessert.

And don’t forget to check out the Credit Rate Reduction Rally!

This weeks’ Carnival of personal finance is hosted in rhyming Dr. Seuss-like form: read it here.  There are a lot of posts there so take your time to read them.  I’m still going through them but thought that the readers of this blog might enjoy a rhyme or two given my previous challenge about poetry & personal finance.

I just read this article about a guy who negotiated on the price of everything for three months.  The language is coarse at times and I won’t say anything for the advertisements I saw on the esquire site, but it was interesting reading.

So today two different sites did two different things that happened to link to Watch My Money Maker.  The Gather Little By Little blog linked as a daily RSS read, and I reciprocate - I read every GLBL post in my RSS reader.  The Hustler Money Blog graded a huge number of sites for content quality and newness.  This blog ranked lower than I’d like, but I guess that I can shoot for something better next year.

My RSS reads for Personal Finance and Money Management are available as an OPML download.