Monday, April 7, 2008

Favorite frugal blogs: What are yours?

One of the wonderful things about the frugal blogosphere is that there is just so much incredible knowledge and inspiration to be gleaned. No matter what your interest or situation, you can likely find a blog or two or ten which you can relate to and be continually spurred on to greater frugality by.

With the goal of helping others save more, I thought it would be fun to introduce everyone else to our top two or five favorite frugal blogs. These would be the ones which you find the most inspiration, motivation, savings ideas, and encouragement from time and time again.

There are hundreds of great blogs out there, but here are a few of the blogs I've been reading for months and found to be an invaluable resource when it comes to thrift, frugality, and wise management of money:

Get Rich Slowly: If you've not been reading J.D., you need to go add his blog to your feed reader right now. I believe his blog is the highest-trafficked finance blog out there and it's no wonder--J.D. serves up a smorgasboard of common sense savings advice every single day. You probably won't agree with every article or every conclusion found on his blog, but you can't help but be challenged.

Like Merchant Ships: Meredith has been a longtime blogging friend of mine and is a source of tremendous inspiration to me. Her beautiful pictures, cheerful frugality, and kind-hearted ways forever leave me motivated to do the best I can with the resources I have. Again, if Meredith is not on your list of daily reads, go add her. You can thank me later. :)

Edit: I just remembered I totally forgot to mention one of my very favorite blogs of all--Tammy's Recipes. While Tammy's blog is not a frugal blog, per se, she has incredible wisdom to share in the area of saving money. Plus, her recipes are so good and inexpensive, too. Tammy is a longtime friend of mine--we go way back before blogs even existed!

A few other favorites on my Bloglines:

The Sparrow's Nest (not exclusively frugal, but includes some excellent frugal content!)
iMommies
Freebies 4 Mom
The Mother Load
Centsible Shopper (By the way, Bethany and I are friends in real-life and go back many years to when we were pen-pals as young girls!)

I rotate my blog reader every few months to keep things fresh, but the above blogs have consistently stayed on my feed reader as I've found them to be packed with helpful ideas, tips, and inspiration.

What about you? I'd love to hear what your top two or top five favorite frugal blogs are! (And by the way, since the purpose of this discussion is to introduce people to new blogs, there's no need to mention MoneySavingMom.com--though I'm honored if it happens to be a favorite of yours!)

59 comments:

Jenny M said...

My top three (at the moment):
MSM (of course!)
The Centsible Sawyer (http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/)
More Than Enough (http://www.itsmorethanenough.blogspot.com/)

aka "THE WARDEN" said...

This is one of my favs, a little overlap from some others but I always find something different on it.
http://itsmorethanenough.blogspot.com/

Samantha said...

I love Baby Cheapskate. http://babycheapskate.blogspot.com/

S.B. said...

These would be my top five blogs:

Sense To Save
http://sensetosave.com/

Paid Twice
http://www.paidtwice.com/

Frugal Dad
http://frugaldad.com/

Garden of Blessings
http://agardenofblessings.blogspot.com/

Stretching A Buck
http://stretchingabuck.blogspot.com/

MRS MJW said...

I really dig your blog. You sound very much like me....except I don't watch my pennies as well. I'd love to learn some of your habits.

Cat said...

I'm not sure I have a "top 5", but aside from your blog, this one is probably the best I've been reading lately, as far as practical advice goes. Her menus seem pretty healthy, and I'm impressed how she makes her budget stretch to feed her large family: http://alifeathome.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Wilt said...

Crystal,
Thank you so much for the mention- I always know when I see my hit counter jump, it's because you've linked to me somehow! ;o)

I just want to take a moment and tell you what a blessing your ministry through this blog is to me and to my family. We have been so abundantly blessed through applying the wisdom you share here. May God be glorified and your family blessed! :o)

Jan said...

This may be a dumb question but what is a feed or a feed reader?

Finally Frugal said...

Thanks, Money Saving Mom! I've been reading Get Rich Slowly for months and am always looking for other sites that can help keep me motivated and on track. Since my friends and family don't (yet!) subscribe to the idea of frugal-living/financial-independence, I need my online 'community' to keep me inspired and keep me honest!

Jill W said...

The ones I read every day:
car-seat.org, babycheapskate, moneysavingmom (of course), centsibleshopper, mamaspeaks (great giveaways!), goodyblog, freebies4mom, imommies, and centsablebaby. I have a one year old DD, so babycheapskate is my favorite! Car-seat.org is my next favorite (even though it's not a blog, i learn something new there every single day) Can't wait to rad everyone else's lists!

Niki said...

Here's a few of my faves (besides the ones you listed, Crystal:

http://www.handprintsonthewall.org/

http://www.itsmorethanenough.blogspot.com/

http://bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com/

http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/

Sarah said...

Crystal, Thanks for the blog recommendations. I'll definitely check them out! I wanted to mention that I just started a

"Gluten Free on a budget" blog.

I've really been enjoying blogging; I was motivated by your Money-Making Mondays series. I know it's hard to eat Gluten Free without spending a fortune, so I hope I can be an encouragement to some. Here's my address:

EverydayGF.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Erin said...

Here is one I enjoy:
http://themoneymuse.blogspot.com/

boogiemum said...

I think www.home-ec101.com has some great frugal tips, as well as an all around superb balance of all things to do with saving money. I like how they approach all aspects of homemaking from a frugal standpoint.

I especially appreciate their aggregator on their sidebar because that is where I discovered you! If it weren't for them I wouldn't know about this or a lot of other frugal sites.

Marcus and Bum said...

My favorite site is http://itsmorethanenough.blogspot.com

Thanks everyone for posting and blogging!

Kathy T. said...

How can you have missed the BEST SITE out there? I'm talking about the faboo Home Ec 101. They're funny, smart, and usually dead on with their hilarious and helpful advice. http://www.home-ec101.com.

I'm REALLY surprised it wasn't listed!

Maria said...

I read several daily
www.moneysavingmom.com
www.momadvice.com
www.freebies4mom.com
and I have just recently started my own blog at thriftywaysandideas.blogspot.com.

aysha said...

i like mimis jewel box of tips and tricks. mimi posts a lot of freebies. i also enjoy babycheapskate, thebargainshopperlady, your site, and the centsiblesawyer.

Melissa A said...

My faves are:
BeCentsAble,
Be Thrifty Like Us and
Passionate Homemaking!

FYI to Jill W - centsablebaby combined with BeCentsable...guess they were getting too busy to keep two separate ones!

Heather at Freebies 4 Mom said...

Thanks for the link to Freebies 4 Mom!

I see a lot of my favorites in the comments already, but here is one more to add:

April said...

I'm a big fan of your blog, of course, and Like Merchant Ships. I also really like Frugal Hacks, which you mentioned.

Another new fave is The Centsible Sawyer.

One of my recent finds is Morning Ramble . It is not about frugality per se, but is certainly about satisfaction, which, for me, goes hand in hand with frugality.

Pieces said...

Great idea for a post! Thanks for the links--I'm off to check them all out right now.

Beth said...

I like:
mygoodcents.net
becentsable.blogspot.com
http://jane4girls800dollarannualbudget.blogspot.com

Jamie Kaufmann said...

you

bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com

becentsable.blogspot.com

babycheapskate.blogspot.com

freebies4mom

imommies.com

Meredith said...

Thank you--I'm honored to be part of your list!

When I returned from vacation I realized I hadn't had a MSM post on my feed reader--must have been some kind of glitch, 'cause I'm still catching up!

Denise Sawyer said...

WOWEEEE!!
Thanks to all you guys who gave me a plug! :)

I enjoy reading several of the ones listed here.
One I don't see mentioned that I enjoy is
www.agardenofblessings.blogspot.com

I also see some I haven't heard of before, so I will enjoy lookin' 'em up!

To see all the blogs I read (on a daily basis - at least a quick glance) look at my side bar at my blog - way too many to list here!! :)

Denise
The "Cent"sible Sawyer

Anonymous said...

http://haveagood.blogspot.com/

April said...

MSM
http://agardenofblessings.blogspot.com/
http://www.thriftyfloridamama.net/
http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/
http://becentsable.blogspot.com/
http://bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com/
http://www.itsmorethanenough.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I also like:

http://www.thriftyfloridamama.net/
http://comicalcouponcents.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Hillbilly Housewife

Anonymous said...

My current favorite is

Savingyouung.com

Carrie said...

Your blog and Wisebread.com are my faves.

I also started my own frugal living blog recently:
shopliftingwithpermission.typepad.com.

Anonymous said...

I have over 30 personal finance blogs on my reader and Trent at www.thesimpledollar.com is my hands down favorite.

Anonymous said...

I love:

http://sensetosave.com/

http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/

http://handprintsonthewall.org/

Meredith said...

It is hard to list all of the blogs that I frequent because there are so many, but here are a few of my daily must reads:

http://bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com/

http://getting-ahead.blogspot.com/

http://sensetosave.com/

The Bargain Shopper Lady said...

I am a fan of,
Dave Ramsey's blog, http://www.daveramsey.com/tdrs/
www.imommies.com
www.sensetosave.com
www.babycheapskate.blogspot.com
http://www.couponmom.com/blog/serendipity/
Thanks for mentioning my site Aysha!

~The Bargain Shopper Lady

Sheila Hill said...

I really enjoy ThriftyFloridaMom
as well as BeCentsable.
I also have a blog at frugalgeorgiamom.blogspot.com

Damsel said...

I love Mir @ WantNot She posts TONS of great coupons and deals.

And I think we crashed Tammy's server... I got an error message that read "too many connections"! LOL!

I'm also a huge fan of JD at GRS, and also of NCN at No Credit Needed.

Sarah Halter said...

Man! One more thing to add to my list of things I can do once my thesis is submitted: check out new frugal blogs!

One of the few pleasures I've allowed myself in the last few weeks is CVSing, but I dare not click any of those links if I want any hope of finishing! Okay, back to work!

Niki said...

Geez Louise!

I forgot to add one site to my list...

http://minimalistmommy.blogspot.com/


:)

topaztook said...

I just wrote about this very thing, a list of my favorite frugal blog sites, in my Frugal Friday entry. (And yes, Money Saving Mom is on there!) http://topaztook.livejournal.com/125017.html

Anonymous said...

I really love:

http://mytwocentsforyou.blogspot.com/

Tammy L said...

Wow, thanks for the link!

Did you crash my site?! ;) Actually, I have no idea... I went to put up my kitchen tips and it was down... and my tech support is not available right now ;) But I think this has happened before... :)

Jennie said...

Definitely your site!

My other absolute favorite is www.momadvice.com
Amy is amazing at her knowledge and even gets featured once a week on her local tv station for her frugal "tips" for saving money. She provides a link so that you can watch those episodes (5min). She does freebie fridays and also free redbox codes on Mondays. You HAVE to check her out.

I too love Meredith at likemerchantships. She's wonderful and inspiring.

Claire said...

The link for Tammy's recipes doesn't work! Can you fix it, pretty please?! :-)

I have so many blogs I visit daily, that I'm not even going to list them. I'd be too embarrassed.

Linda said...

A lot of my favorites are already listed but one I didnt see and I really enjoy is http://getting-ahead.blogspot.com/

Jennifer writes about her family, homeschooling, cooking and the economy. She has a very sensible approach and I find her dead on most of the times.

Anonymous said...

what does feedreader mean?

Nikki said...

The Bargain Shopper Lady -- of course! She's the best. I especially love her Target Coupon Generator.
http://www.bargainshopperlady.com

Cassie - Homeschooling Four said...

I love
Thrifty Florida Mama
(www.thriftyfloridamama.net)
Be Thrifty Like Us
(www.bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com)

Rob and Erin said...

There are so many that I read on a daily basis while the littles are napping. I love MSM, christianpf, sense to save, and so many more. Check out the sidebar on my blog to see them all. There is so much great info out there...and now I have some other great blogs to check out.

Erin
http://frugalhomestory.blogspot.com/

The Powers Family said...

One of my very favorites is www.vaughnshire.com,
and
www.urbanhomestead.org/journal is encouraging everyone to start a "Victory Garden" which I think is an excellent way to remember the frugality and self-reliance of our fathers when being frugal was a national virtue as opposed to spending every dime you have and then borrowing more.

Anonymous said...

http://homeliving.blogspot.com/

I am really loving this one..lots here to read and digest!

Jennifer @ iMommies said...

Wow - thanks, Crystal! I'm honored - and you KNOW you're in my top 5!

Mimi said...

My favorites are http://blessedfrugalness.blogspot.com/,http://www.nicostuff.com/,and
http://www.momadvice.com/
They rock!

Andrea said...

There are several of mine already listed as well, but I'd add:
http://moneysavingmethods.blogspot.com/

Jill W said...

melissa a:

thanks, i was wondering why centsablebaby hadn't had an update in so long! :)

Anonymous said...

Love

1. Mommysnacks.blogspot.com
2. Carriescooking.com (uses my grocery game food )
3. Freebates.blogspot.com

Kacie said...

Thanks to everyone who mentioned my blog (Sense to Save)! I was really touched.

I agree with the ones that a lot of folks have already listed, and I've discovered a few new ones, thanks to this list.

Here's two that I think everyone should be reading, as well:

Beingfrugal.net

GatherLittleByLittle.com

Both are fantastic bloggers who dabble in the personal finance/frugal sector, and both are lovely people. Plus, Gather Little By Little might be the only male blogger on this list so far (as far as I know).

They're both Christians, as well. Check 'em out!

Anonymous said...

Oops! looks like a typo above, it's http://www.nicostuff.com/.
Thanks!
mimi