Here’s some of the most informative blog carnivals from the past week:

Carnival of Money Hacks

Festival of Frugality

The Money Maniac

Bankruptcy and Debt Carnival

Carnival of Financial Planning

Money Hacks Carnival

Carnival of Everything Money

Carnival of Wealth, Money, and Life

Personal Financial News Carnival

Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

The Washington Post just released an article that serves as a glimpse of what’s to come with credit cards: more fees. Here’s a short summary of the main points:

• Mail Monitor statistics are mentioned, citing a 67% drop in offers received in the mail compared to a year earlier. Likewise there was a measured change in annual fees with new offers, jumping from 18% to 27% compared to a year earlier.
• Card issuers say that the new regulations on lending will force them to raise interest rates and fees irrespective of a particular cardholder’s risk profile
• Even those with existing credit lines need to check their statements more closely to make sure they are aware of any rate and fee changes that are involuntarily added to their cards

Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

An excellent article on PoliticsDaily.com steps back for a moment and looks at the broader trend in the news media since the beginning of heightened awareness of the current economic crisis near the middle and end of last year. Basically, the media focused a lot on the economic crisis, but it has not dominated the headlines at least since April.

The idea that economic panic has given rebirth to a sense of resilience is reason for optimism. But the fundamental changes in spending behavior that many of those with large debt burdens have turned to are still valid and just as critical as a couple of months ago. It may take the economy a while to recover, and many experts predict a slow bounce back. Radically readjusting to a frugal lifestlyle and keeping recurring expenses from month to month under control are two of the most important strategies to keep in mind. Along the lines of frugal living, check out any of our articles on novel ideas for enjoying life whilst spending little or nothing. The suggestions in them go far beyond the typical advice for cutting costs, and range from dating and dining advice to vacations on an even thinner shoestring than usual.

Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

Finovate Startup 2009 held in San Francisco was an exciting conference that featured the DebtGoal product. Here’s video footage from April:

DebtGoal Demo

Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

Here’s the top ten frugal ways to celebrate graduation without putting a dent in a wallet – either that of your parents or your own. Most of these ideas are equally applicable to college or high school.

10. Skip the photos. Well, don’t skip photos altogether, just the photography services on site that cost an arm and a leg for an eight-by-ten developed picture. Have friends or family members with camera experience snap the shots, or if you really want professionally-done images, pool your resources with a group of friends and hire a modest photographer to handle a couple of shots for each person.

9. Get smart on the party. Instead of hosting a full-blown event in a facility, consider inviting just the closest of friends and family out for some casual drinks. Save a ton by commiting to having only one or two drinks. Inject a drinking game that actually limits spending, like, having each person tell a memory from college and the person who guesses right gets their graduation drink covered by one of the other friends. You get the idea: there’s a way to have fun and save money at the same time.

8. Carpool to the event. There’s no need for all of the friends and family that plan to show up on campus to drive separately. Enough said.

7. Skip traditional graduation announcements. Or, if you opt to announce to the world that you will shortly have your B.A./A.B./B.S. etc. in hand, use it to suggest that graduation gifts be limited to cash contributions to your “get out of debt” fund.

6. Admittely, there’s not much you can do on the graduation regalia. Of course, rent instead of buying, unless you can somehow split the costs of buying it with other people planning on walking this year or soon. The idea here would be to find people graduating on different days, or at least during different times on graduation day. Maybe skip the extra accessories that do not serve a function during the ceremony. In other words, use common sense: even though it’s a big day, the value of an extra thread or better quality gown probably isn’t worth the splurge.

5. No diploma frames. Honestly, a lot of people buy expensive diploma frames, yet don’t end up even displaying their diploma. I don’t even remember being asked to present the physical copy of my diploma when interviewing for jobs right out of college. Wait — if I were asked to present the diploma, it would be easier to grab and take to the interview if it were NOT glued down in a frame!

4. No rings. Ok, some students attend schools for which it is nothing short of an institution to get their class ring or the standard ring that every alum actually wears. I’m still going to suggest a break with the tradition, but leave it up to the individual to decide. However, my advice for the vast majority of students remains  the same: don’t buy it. A graduation ring is unlikely to be used once it’s purchased. Also, nowadays graduation supply companies will sell you a graduation ring long after you’ve left school, so you can buy one in the future once debt is a distant memory.

3. Graduation party obligations… A touchy situation can be when you have a social obligation to go out for a grad night or other trip since all of your friends are going. If it’s school-sponsored, consider offering to help plan it, staff during part of the event itself, set up, or clean up in lieu of paying to attend.

2. Avoid graduation vacations that require a flight. Since there’s a lot of variation on how people celebrate graduation, a good rule of thumb is that a trip out of town is excessive. If you do spring for anything more than a day of fun and/or drinks out, keep the costs to a minimum as much as possible. The DebtGoal general rule for vacations is also helpful: minimize the number of days on vacation, since the typical person can fully recharge in three days or less.

1. Don’t eat out! Eating out at a restaurant not only costs a lot per person, but with family-oriented events like graduation, the potential for a bill on the order of hundreds and maybe even thousands of dollars exists. Instead, hold a celebratory dinner at a friend or family member’s home. There are many variations on this theme to get even cheaper: hold a joint graduation dinner with another newly minted alum and split the bill, or do it potluck style.

Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.