June was a difficult month for me. I was busy in Real Life, distracted by home remodeling and by physical fitness. Things are settling, which will allow me to spend more time on the site. On top of that, I now have actual help around here!

My wife, Kris, is processing the backlog of e-mail.
My friend, Winston, who is one of the inspirations behind GRS, is doing research and handling publicity.
Another friend, Lisa, will help copy-edit guest posts. (You may remember Lisa from “Saving with Albert” and other guest posts.)
Meanwhile, JerichoHill continues to keep an eye on the discussion forums.

Thanks to everyone who is lending a hand. I appreciate it. And thank you for your comments, links, and tips. The readers are the heart of Get Rich Slowly. You keep the site a vibrant place for exchanging money-saving (and money-making) ideas.
Here’s a brief overview of some of June’s top stories on the blog:

June 3rd: How to [...]

Kris and I went grocery shopping this weekend. We stopped at Bob’s Red Mill — a local health-food store — to use some “buy one, get one free” coupons. “You can get anything you want,” Kris told me, “except hot cereal.”
“Why can’t I get hot cereal?” I asked. “I love hot cereal.”
“I know,” Kris said. “But you buy it all the time. You buy it faster than you eat it. Just last week, you bought another box of that blueberry oatmeal from Trader Joe’s. You never remember what we have at home. You need to shop with a list.”
She has a point.
A shopping list is a useful way to remind yourself what you do and do not need to purchase. But most frugality experts emphasize shopping with a list because it prevents impulse purchases. Impulse purchases wreck grocery budgets. In Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Paco Underhill writes:
Supermarkets are places of high impulse [...]

This is a guest post from my wife, and features a story I’ve come to look forward to updating every summer: the tale of two entrepreneurial girls.
Last weekend I explored Portland’s beautiful Eastmoreland neighborhood during its annual 140-family garage sale. In the past, I’ve come away with major bargains, but this year I had to be content with enjoying the first day of summer with a couple of friends. We admired the homes, gardens, and assorted cast-offs of the well-to-do.
Many of the adult garage-salers were raising funds for charities. Sidewalks and curbs were also strewn with young entrepreneurs selling their wares: homemade cookies (still warm from the oven), beaded jewelry, rice-krispie treats, iced bottled water, and grilled hotdogs.
Over the past two years, J.D. and I have had fun meeting one pair of entrepreneurial sisters who rise above the run-of-the-mill baked goods and soda. I was pleased to see them once again. In 2006 they [...]

The Motley Fool is a web site devoted to helping average people make better investment and financial decisions. Recently, GRS forum administrator (and resident economist) Jericho Hill got a chance to visit The Motley Fool headquarters. This is part two of a report on his experience. (Here’s part one.)
When I was in high school, I participated in my state’s stock market game. It was designed to introduce our economics class to the world of investing. That’s where I first heard of The Motley Fool, an upstart website for financial investors that went against the grain of having advisors manage your money. Their newsletter analyzed the advantages of managing your investments yourself, and advocated indexed mutual funds over managed funds.
So, when I received an invitation recently to visit the Fool Headquarters in Alexandria, VA for a focus group, I jumped at the chance. The purpose of the focus group [...]

During 2008, my wife and I are tracking how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for June.
It was a miserable June for gardeners in northwest Oregon. The first two weeks weren’t just wet — we’re used to that — they were cold, too. The local media dubbed the month “June-uary”. Residents were quick to embrace the term. The cool weather pushed back a number of crops. Strawberry farmers groused. Blueberries and raspberries are three weeks late.
But now the sun has arrived. We’ve been harvesting strawberries and peas all month, and I picked the first blueberry this morning. (Not very good — it wasn’t quite ripe.) Raspberries should be on in a week or so, I think, and judging from the copious blossoms, we’re going to have a bumper crop. Meanwhile, the pear, plum, and apple trees have set loads of fruit. By the end of the July [...]

Allen recently attended a family wedding that put a hole in his budget. He wonders how to cope with societal pressure to spend:

How do you deal with social situations where you have to spend? I just had to spend $300 to go to a cousin’s wedding. I couldn’t not go — it’s family. But I couldn’t get in wearing what I own, because it wasn’t “good enough” and I couldn’t just go rent something because:

It wasn’t that much cheaper, really.
I only found out the day of the wedding that my clothes were not “good enough” to even get in to where the wedding was held.

These sorts of situations are awkward. What’s the best way to handle them?

This question goes beyond the common problem where you feel pressured to have a drink after work, which we’ve covered before. Allen’s question is more about deeply-ingrained societal obligations to spend, like weddings, graduations, birthdays, and anniversaries.
His specific [...]