It’s been a great month for Get Rich Slowly: the site saw its 3,000,000th visitor, 5,000,000th pageview, 32,000th RSS subscriber, 3,000th e-mail subscriber, etc. These are big numbers.
Better yet, I finally found my writing groove again. That’s important. It helps me produce quality articles on a regular basis. It also helps that so many GRS readers are eager to share their own takes on personal finance. I now have about 25 guest posts waiting in the wings, with more coming in every week. If you’d like to submit a guest post, drop me a line so that we can discuss it.
If you’ve submitted a guest post, please be patient. Though it’s tempting to put up one guest article every day, I’d rather limit them to just one during the week with an occasional extra article on the weekends. (That is unless you folks want to see more guest articles — if that’s the case, I’ll [...]

I’ve been sick all weekend, so I haven’t felt much like writing. I have, however, found time to browse other personal finance web sites. Here are some of the best recent articles from around the Money Blog Network:

Many GRS readers have asked me what I think of Mint. To be honest, I haven’t had time to take a look at it. Sasha at Consumerism Commentary loves it, though, and recently posted an extensive review of the online money management tool.
No Credit Needed has a an illustrated look at the Debt Snowball. This is a great introduction to the technique I used to pay off my debt.
JLP at All Financial Matters shares a preview of the 2008 Federal Income Tax brackets.

Nickel recently picked up a smartphone, and this has prompted him to list five tips for managing your finances on the go.
At Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, Jim shares 8 personal finance lessons he learned from Monopoly. [...]

Most young couples must eventually decide whether to keep separate or joint financial accounts. We’ve discussed the pros and cons of each method, but we’ve never explored the practical considerations: how do you make each system work? More importantly, how do you make each system work well?
Recently, I’ve received a couple of questions about the details of combining finances. For example, Patrick writes:
I am getting married next year, and know that our W-4 forms should be adjusted affective January 1st.  However, I am getting mixed results from filling out a blank W-4 following the directions versus using the IRS calculator on their website.  What is the best way to account for the deduction change?  Also, what other things do we need to keep in mind when getting married?
Similarly, Lindsey is looking for advice on how to move from separate finances to a joint accounts. Her situation is complicated by her partner’s poor money habits:

What [...]

Would you scavenge your food from somebody else’s garbage? A group of people who call themselves freegans do this (and more) every day. This video describes their methods:

The current issue of Newsweek (dated 01 Oct 2007) features a story by Raina Kelley describing the month she spent living as a freegan:

I had nine rules: I would be a vegan who bought nothing but local and/or organic food. I would use only ecofriendly transportation, cut my electricity bill in half and erase my carbon footprint. My mantra would be “Recycle, reuse, renew,” while never forgetting to reflect on my impact on the Earth before acting. Any money I saved would go into a “Freedom Savings Account” and be used toward allowing me to quit my 9-to-5 as soon as possible.
That’s tough work for an eBay-loving, omnivorous, cigarette-smoking shopaholic. But I was determined to change my profligate ways. I would transform myself into an eco-princess — [...]

Comic books have always been one of my money demons. Geeky, but true. I used to buy the actual comic magazines: Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men. As an adult, however, I graduated from spending just a buck or two for a comic to buying hardbound compilations and trade paperbacks costing $20, $50, or more.
No matter how smart my money choices, I’ve made it a priority to keep detailed records of my finances. Tonight I dug through four years of Quicken data to see if my comic book spending habits have changed. (They feel like they have, but I wasn’t sure.) Here’s what I found:

In 2004, I spent $1640.10 on comic books. That fall, I decided I wanted to eliminate my debt.
Apparently my finances weren’t a big priority, though. In 2005, I spent $2810.52 on comics.
My spending peaked in 2006, during which I spent $3,202.91 on my beloved DC Archives and Marvel Masterworks.
This year, however, I’ve only [...]

Coupon codes are a great way to save money while shopping online. But how can you find the best deals for the sites you frequent? Googling isn’t reliable — search results yield too many spammy sites and too many outdated codes. Matt Haughey writes that there’s a better way:

[While searching for coupon codes,] I remembered the BugMeNot people did a coupon site last year, so I went to bugmenot to find it and found RetailMeNot… A quick search for the product I was buying turned up half a dozen coupons including the one I was trying. It also lets you quickly vote on which ones worked and didn’t work, and reported how successful each coupon was (they sorted by success rate, so the best stuff was at the top).

Thanks to the site, I got to help others and report that my coupon code didn’t work and I tried a similar one that did end [...]