I’m fine with being called cheap, but I personally think of it as hating to waste money on things I don’t want. I am perfectly willing to pay for things I value. Top on the list are food and travel. On this trip I’m eating my way through the Bay Area of California. Here’s a taste of my culinary itinerary. I tend to prefer smaller restaurants that aren’t too pretentious or overpriced.

East Bay
La Note – Berkeley; Provencal cuisine, excellent breakfast
CheeseBoard Pizza – N. Berkeley; Awesome vegetarian pizza.
Gregoire – N. Berkeley; Affordable French. You must try their potato puffs.
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Given that money matters are hardly taught at school at all, much of people’s financial knowledge comes from their parents. Given that I grew up in an apartment smaller than the one I live in now with just my wife, I learned quickly the value of money and not to waste things. At the same time, I also resented at times not being able to have what the other kids had when growing up.

But now, I see that being taught to live within your means and to have to work for what you get is infinitely more valuable than simply being given whatever I wanted. While I try to be more financially successful than my parents (as they want as well), I hope that I can pass these same values on to my own children. On that thought, I say – Thanks Mom (and Dad)!

We moved a bunch of our stuff over to the new house today, after borrowing our friend’s truck. It was a great little early-90s Toyota Pickup (that’s really what the model was called – “Pickup”) with 150k miles, manual transmission, and not much else. I’ve always wanted a little beater truck to refine my stick-driving skills and to have a 4WD vehicle to ride to the slopes, in addition to all the other useful things a truck offers.

To be sure, it would just be an expensive toy. And yes, I’d have to pay extra for gas, insurance, and any possible repairs. But I imagine I could find one for about $2,000, play with it for a year, and resell it with very little depreciation. Or I might even be tempted to trade in my current car. And even my wife seemed open to the idea… I think because her dad loves trucks too.

I’ll explain later if I can, but always. put. everything. in. writing. Handshake or verbal agreements that involve money or services promised are stupid. Even if it’s between ‘friends’. Me stupid.

I had a tough time deciding on how to host this week’s Carnival. Honestly, I haven’t read (or submitted to) one in weeks. As Carnivals get larger, the host tends to get overwhelmed and all you really get is a long list of links. If you’re lucky you get an asterick by the ones they like. If a list is what we want, then why don’t we just write a nice little computer script that churns out them out for us?

What I would like to see is Carnival hosts get back to being hosts and not just spend hours and hours copy-and-pasting HTML. Show us interesting new blogs and their posts. Tell us why you like them.

I received over 50 submissions this week. And they were good submissions. How is one supposed to choose? I don’t know, but do you, the readers, really want to sift through that many posts? Do hosts really want to spent all their time writing HTML? What about when we reach 100 posts? or 200? Or maybe I’m wrong, and everyone really does just want a huge link dump to choose from. If that’s so, I really think a script would save a lot of time for future hosts. (Of course, then why would we need hosts?)

For now, my goal was simply to create a nice mix of newer and older blogs, as well as a wide variety of topics from frugality to anti-frugality, giving to the homeless to winning the lottery, and differing investments. I gave myself from noon to dinnertime to do it =)

Carnival of Personal Finance #43

2 Retire at 50 presents I don?t want to be ?Normal? when it comes to our Finances!!. Not only he not want to be normal, but he has lived on one income while banking the second. Now with another child on the way, his Amazing Wife (why didn’t I think of that?) can stay at home with the kids with very little pain from the financial transition. Very nice.

Money and Investing presents Clutter Reduction. As I write this I’m surrounded by boxes of just… junk! I really hope I can take advantage of some of these tips during our upcoming move. Where did all this stuff even come from?!

Ask Uncle Bill presents You, Inc.. “Reduce your taxes and stick it the Man by starting your own company.” Ha. Sometimes I just feel like I’m just sticking it to myself, but most of the time it’s great 😉

Money and Values presents Gandhi on Budgeting. Man, that Gandhi dude knows about everything!

Financial Options presents The Week Ahead: Your Financial Road Map for April 10-14, 2006. Things to mark on the calendar for the so-inclined.

Inchoate Random Abstractions presents Lending Money to Relatives. IRA introduces an interesting site that proposes to formalize inter-family lending. I just don’t see it ever catching on, unfortunately.

The Almight Dollar presents You’re Never Too Young to Buy Life Insurance. I usually think someone needs to be dependent on you for you to want to buy life insurance, but maybe even the possiblity of dependence is enough…

FIRE Finance presents Investing – Digging for Gold – Online! Investing in precious metals seems to be the hot thing right now. Why does that make me feel like I should avoid it like the plague?

InsureBlog presents Beware the Fine (and not so fine) Print. Another reason why I am so wary of insurance companies… I’ll have to remember this when I start shopping for HSA plans again.

Don’t Mess With Taxes presents To err is human, especially at tax-filing time. Just in time for you slackers!

Stop Buying Crap presents How To Get Rid of Late Fees? Just Ask!

The Investimist presents Rebalancing my portfolio.

Fat Pitch Financials presents Portfolio123 Review

MusingMoney presents Enrolling in a graduate level Investment class?for free.

Flash’s Saving Blog presents Men Don’t Buy Tampons and other Budget Busters.

Mighty Bargain Hunter presents Is your spouse on your side with your investments?

Investing Guide presents Index Investing.

Brion presents The Power of Body and Mind

Personal Finance Advice presents Take Your Own Drink

Free Money Finance presents Maximizing Your Greatest Asset: Why Your Career is So Important.

The Family CEO presents Cheap Closet Makeovers.

Indie Mission presents When do you Give $$$ to Panhandlers?

It’s Just Money presents After Winning the Lotto, Should You Take the Cash Value or the Payments?

Canadian Financial Stuff presents Advice: Best Financial Advice Ever Given.

Financial Reference presents Why I Stay out of our finances (for the most part)

City Girl’s Financial Blog presents Ways to save on the electricity bill

Escape from Cubicle Nation presents Is saving $1,000 a year worth giving up my latte habit?.

Fidelity Observer presents American cars: What’s the problem?.

Next week’s carnival will be hosted at FiveCentNickel.

I’m hosting the Carnival of Personal Finance next week. Go submit! I plan on taking a more active role in highlighting my favorite posts this time.

If you love getting a good deal and have a partner that shares your passion, then you probably already know that you can double your pleasure by both using the same coupon (one per person, right?) or signing up for bonuses separately, and then getting double the money!

Alas, I, who truly loves wringing money out of companies, has a wife who hates this stuff. She works hard and controls her spending well, but is the type of person who chooses which credit card to carry based on how cute it looks. The words ‘S&P 500’ mean nothing to her. There could be a $1,000 bank bonus and she wouldn’t care. I can’t even sign her up for offers myself anymore, since she really hates having to deal with customer service reps if something goes wrong. The last thing she signed up for was the $100 gift card from Citi, and only after I did it first (and convinced her she could spend it on cute stuff). But I still love her =) So – does your better half care about money as much as you?

This video has been floating around for a while now, but since it’s great Friday material, check out it if you haven’t already – Saturday Night Live – Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford. “It’s funny ’cause it’s true.”

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Please let this work… Added: Ok, I’m still not sure what happened but this site broke sometime last night. I have restored the database from a backup, and manually restored about 50 comments from yesterday, but there are still some that were lost. Sorry about that. Everything ‘should’ be back to normal now.

Oh, the wise words of Kanye West. Just kidding 😉 All this marriage and money talk brings up the obvious – what about pre-nuptial agreements? My wife and I discussed it only briefly, and we don’t have one.

This may surprise people, but I think that a prenup should be legally required for every married couple, just like you have to choose beneficiaries for your IRA. That way nobody is the bad guy/girl for bringing it up and everyone can have an open discussion about money before getting hitched. At the very least, every couple should be taught what will happen without a prenup, as this can vary widely among states. Maybe a good one will even make having separate accounts pointless? I have no idea, not being a lawyer. If you have a prenup, what did you put in it?

An e-mailer asked a question that opened up a very interesting discussion for my wife and me. It was “I know you are married, but is the Net Worth for you only or for both?” My initial internal response was “Duh, of course it was for both of us. We are married, how could it be any other way?” But in reading NYC Money’s post about splitting the money in marriage, my eyes were opened. Check out this comment (not by NYC):

My wife and I also maintain seperate accounts. In fact, when she needs money she applies for a loan with me. I then charge her the appropriate interest rate and make sure she pays on time (late charges make a nice side income)… I see marriage as a business venture with my wife being the most important client. It?s cold but why mix love and money?

What?
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