September was a sort of unofficial “credit card education month” around here. I tried to share information about how to use credit responsibly. (Now maybe it’s time to move on to debt reduction themes!) Most of all, there were some great conversations at GRS in September. Here are a few of my favorites:

September 4th: Five essential skills for mastering plastic
September 5th: Ask the readers: How to cope with spending addiction?
September 9th: How to choose a credit card
September 12th: 13 tools for building a better budget
September 16th: How and when to cancel a credit card
September 18th: The never-ending war against advertising
September 22nd: Which personal-finance magazine is best?
September 26th: Ask the readers: Shopping for big-ticket items?
September 28th: Could tithing lead some Americans to lose their homes? (a fantastic discussion)

Best of the Forums
Though I didn’t have time to hang out there, the Get Rich Slowly discussion forums were active again this month, spawning several interesting conversations:

How to deal [...]

This is a guest post from Katrina Ramser, a freelance writer who contributes to various websites, newspapers and magazines. She also writes about swimming at SquidKid.
Did you know an average of six credit card offers are sent to each American household in typical month? That’s five billion advertisements a year. If you had a company where one-third of your profits came from penalty and non-penalty late fees alone, you too would be able to jam mailboxes full of rigmarole about your product, making sure yours was one of the 8.6 credit cards the average American has stuffed in her wallet.
It’s simply not enough to pay your balance in full and on time. Credit card companies are looking for ways to penalize you for paying your balance off. They can cancel a card if you are not using it, which can hurt your credit score. Did you know they can raise your APR on one card [...]

I spent a couple hours this morning performing what ought to have been a simple home-maintenance task. The light fixture on our front porch had gone faulty, and I needed to replace it. I’ve done enough wiring projects now that the electrical aspect of the job didn’t bother me. But the woodworking? That was frustrating.
As I fumbled with the jigsaw (”Drat! Another blade bent!”), I wished again that I practiced woodworking more often. I have several friends who do so, and the skills they’ve learned help them to save money around the house. My incompetence this morning gave me plenty of time to reflect on the value of productive hobbies.
Productive hobbies
When I was younger, I spent most of my spare time reading comic books and playing video games. There’s nothing wrong with a little self-indulgence, but the older I get, the more I appreciate hobbies that provide practical skills. Productive pastimes are not only fulfilling, [...]

Some GRS readers have noted that some of my tips are geared toward country folk, or at least those with a little bit of land. They’d like more information for urban dwellers. I’ll try to offer more such content in the future. For today, here are a couple of recent articles from around the web that touch upon these sorts of themes:
At Wise Bread, Myscha Theriault has a collection of thrifty tips for fast-moving city folks. This a strange hodge-podge of ideas about how to stretch your dollar with downtown living.
At Yahoo! Real Estate, Jack Hough makes the argument that renting makes more financial sense than homeownership. We’ve covered the rent vs. buy question at Get Rich Slowly before, and as the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble has demonstrated, concluded that buying a home makes sense not as an investment, but because you want a nice, permanent place to live where you are the [...]

Last week, USA Today featured an article on Christians who continue to tithe even as they face foreclosure.
Tithing is the practice of donating 10% of your gross income to your church. It’s not a common practice (only 5% of American adults tithe), but it’s important to those who choose to do so. It’s a component not just of Christianity, but other religions as well.
But what happens when tithing interferes with your ability to pay the mortgage? The USA Today article explores this conflict.

“I’ve had home owners who face foreclosure sitting in front of me saying, ‘I’ll do anything, anything to keep my home,” said Ozell Brooklin, director of Acorn Housing in Atlanta, a nonprofit which offers foreclosure counseling.
“But after we’ve gone through their monthly expenses and the only thing left to cut is their tithe, they say ‘I guess this home is not for me’ and they walk away,” he said.

The article discusses just how [...]

I was pleased recently to discover another handful of short films about financial topics from the 1940s and 1950s. I’ll share them over the next few months, starting with this timely piece from 1947. With the recent economic turmoil in the U.S., it’s worthwhile to answer the question: What is money?

This ten-minute film takes its structure by following a single $5 bill as it circulates from person to person, being used in a variety of ways: to buy goods, to pay for services, to save in the bank. These transactions allow for a discussion of the history and nature of money.
Before the advent of money, people bartered. People still barter to a degree. The film provides a simple example:
Not long ago, Tom Havens got a spotlight for his bike by trading a catcher’s mitt for it. Swapping like this works well between friends. But what would you trade in a hardware store for a gallon [...]