Bank of America recently announced they plan to stop charging customers overdraft fees for exceeding their checking account balance with debit cards. They go on to say they will no longer allow charges to go through if the amount exceeds the available funds in customers’ checking accounts. I say, it’s about time!

I’ve never liked the idea of a bank allowing a charge to go through for more than is available, and then tacking on a $30+ fee for the privilege. I’d much rather know at the checkout that I don’t have the $6.87 for a fast food meal, rather than discovering it cost me another $35 when I get my statement.

I hope credit cards will follow the lead, because overdraft fees are another ridiculous bank fee. Sure, the onus is really on cardholders to keep up with their available credit, but a $35 fee for going a few dollars over doesn’t add up – the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

The Frugal Roundup

Lessons in Frugality From a Lady Named Grace. Here is a great story about a woman who lived below her means and gave away about $7 million on a secretary’s salary. (@The Money Jar)

How to Make Money On Facebook. Next time, don’t rave about a house you want to buy until you close the deal. (@brip blap)

Unautomate Your Finances. Our good friend Baker just released a new eBook. He was gracious enough to send me a copy and I can easily say that it is a great read. Check it out as there are plenty bonus items that come with it. (@Man vs Debt)

10 Benefits of Raised Garden Beds. I’ve talked about square foot gardening before and Lynnae gives some great tips on the benefits. (@Being Frugal)

Best of the Rest

• Preparing for the Canadian Income Tax Deadline
• The Pain of Ordering Online
• 28 Tips to Save Money on Car Expenses
• Why Our Search for Perfection Fails Us
• Should You Automate Your Finances?
• How to Save Money on a Wedding
• Know When to Shop to Save Money
• Simply Being Nice Will Help You With Your Business
• Parenting Teens = STRESSFUL!
• Financial Planning to Age 100

Wrap Up

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Don’t forget to spring forward an hour Saturday night/Sunday morning. I use the occasion as an opportunity to test our home smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector, something that should be done at least a couple times a year.

The last three nights I’ve found myself in the grocery store after work. Three trips in as many days is highly uncharacteristic for us, but I forgot something after my first trip, and a menu plan change sent me back last night. Naturally, I was guilty of picking up a couple things that caught my eye (that weren’t on my short list).

Normally, we shop for groceries once a week. With the exception of things like bread, milk, and produce we could probably stretch that to two weeks. I’m told you can freeze milk and bread, but I’ve never had much luck with it.

How often do you shop for groceries? Do you find you spend more money if you shop more frequently?

The Frugal Roundup

Debt Update: February 2010. Adam and his wife managed to pay off over $2,500 in debt last month. Head over and check out their progress. (@Money Relationship)

To Succeed Financially, You Must Know Yourself. Here are some great questions to sit and ponder about. (@Million Dollar Journey)

8 Effective Ways to Raise Frugal Kids. A great guest post over at Man vs Debt about raising frugal kids – a subject near and dear to my heart. (@Man vs Debt)

How We Manage Our Money. Patrick Ryan from Cash Money Life recently came out from behind the anonymous curtain. One of his new goals in transparency and this post is a great first step. Congrats on the change Ryan! (@Cash Money Life)

Where Do All Our Taxes Go? As a follow up to the guest post earlier in the week on this very topic, TurboTax has published an interesting infographic at their blog. (@TuboTax.com)

Best of the Rest

• The Key To Living Frugally
• Workplace Violence
• How Cash Only Living Can Work
• My Grocery and Dining Out Budget Compared to My Neighbors
• 5 More Ways to Earn Some Extra Cash
• Know Your Financial Self

Last week our family took our first trip to Disney World. It was a great time, and while I’d like to tell you about all the frugal lessons we learned, honestly, there is little frugal about Disney. We did learn a few tricks that could help shave money off our next trip (and I’ll share a few of those in a later post). My only complaint about vacationing at Disney is that I now need a vacation to recover from vacation! Lots of walking, not much relaxing.

The Frugal Roundup

Small Human Regrets. Here is a great piece on how to raise your children without regrets. (@Brip Blap)

Can America Learn to Save From a Dog? Just click the link. I don’t want to spoil it. (@Lazy Man and Money)

How To Handle Requests For Financial Advice. Flexo shares some insight into how he handles dishing out financial advice to friends. (@Consumerism Commentary)

Manage Your Money Challenge. Brad is running a new feature over at Enemy of Debt. Head over there and check it out and learn how to win some great prizes while you are at it. (@Enemy of Debt)

Best of the Rest

• Sometimes, The Best Lessons Learned In Life Are Learned the Hard Way
• 10 Ways to Save Money on a New Car
• Social Lending Arbitrage Steals My Attention
• Using the Library for Frugal Fun

I am what you call a late adopter. New things come out, I see them advertised, I yawn and go about my business. Then months later (sometimes years) I eventually get around to rediscovering those items and finding that I actually find them useful and kick myself for not joining earlier. This sums up my experience with social media.

I avoided the whole MySpace/Facebook scene for a long time and saw little value in things like Twitter and the like. However, I now understand the value in connecting with people in a more informal online setting than blog comments.

So, over the last few months, I’ve been trying to reach out to more readers in an effort to share things not really meant for a personal finance blog. I’d love to connect with you, and if you are a slow adopter, I’d encourage you to sign up and give it a shot.

Become a Frugal Dad Fan on Facebook

Follow Me On Twitter

The Frugal Roundup

29 Semi-Productive Things to Do Online When Trying to Avoid Real Work. Have you ever hopped online to do something and then come to find you got absolutely nothing done in an hour? Happens to me all the time. At least next time I can say I did something at least semi-productive! (@Marc and Angel)

How to Show Someone You Love Them Every Day. Although Valentine’s Day is this weekend, you should always tell that special someone that you love them. Get this free eBook to learn how. (@My Super-Charged Life)

Do Kids Inherit Frugality? Yes, to a degree. Kids model the behavior from examples they see most often, and parents have the best opportunity to model frugal spending decisions. (@Money Smart Life)

11 Ways We Dove Into Debt and How We’re Digging Out. Matt shares some all too common factors on how he and his wife accumulated their debt. (@Debt Free Adventure)

Best of the Rest

• Improve Your Diet Without Dieting
• How to Use Electronic Coupons With Your Grocery Card
• 5 Financial Mistakes That Can Cost You Significantly
• A Frugal Valentines Day
• Credit Terrorist or Twisted Genius?
• Become Master of Your Financial Domain
• Is It The Right Time to Buy a New Car?
• The One Thing You Can Do To Make Your Resume Stand Out
• Our Debt to The Future and Past

The January unemployment report is due out this Friday, and some are predicting negative news, mostly because of an annual adjustment for jobs “miscounted” last year. I heard the figure 824,000 being tossed about today, as in we really lost 824,000 more jobs last year than reported. My favorite term in these reports has become “unexpectedly,” as in, “the numbers increased unexpectedly.” Or, “the numbers were higher than experts expected.”

After a while, you have to wonder who in the heck these so-called experts are, and why are they always surprised by the results? As for the miscounted jobs, well, personally I don’t think this is a real surprise to anyone. I think these numbers were intentionally suppressed to keep unemployment hovering around 10%. I doubt that would be unexpected.

The Frugal Roundup

The Farmers Daughter. Here is a great story about how sometimes being the toughest or most driven may not be the best approach. (@Brip Blap)

Debt Update: January 2010. Adam updated his debt totals for the end of January. (@Money Relationship)

How to Identify a Shopping Addiction. Think you are in control of your spending? Take this quick test to make sure your shopping hobby isn’t hurting you. (@The Digerati Life)

Beware of the Upsell. I’ve been noticing this more and more lately. You can’t even order a basic coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts anymore without being offered something else. Some of these businesses better slow down their up selling or they might start to alienate their most loyal customers. (@Million Dollar Journey)

Fiscal Haiku. This is a neat find. A website where folks across the country are using haiku to express themselves in financial matters such as personal credit card bills, retirement, government debt, and more.

Best of the Rest

• Seven Reasons Why Working From Home May Be Ideal For You
• How My Family and I Paid Off $90,415 In Consumer Debt In Two Years
• Public Storage: Problem Ignored
• 10 Money Tips for Couples Before Marriage
• Do You Have a Worst Case Scenario Plan?
• 4 Ways to Soften the Sting of Unemployment
• The 5 Worst US State Quarters
• How to Smell a Money Scam From Miles Away

With the Superbowl teams set, how many of you are rushing out to pick up a big screen television for Superbowl Sunday? I suspect not many of you will actually do this, but judging from the number of ads I’ve seen in the last week or two, I’d bet this is a popular thing to do.

Sure, prices of plasmas and LCD televisions have come down a bit, but at the upper end of the market they still cost as much as a small, used car. Is it really worth laying out a few thousand bucks just to see four hours of football in higher resolution? What’s worse is the rent-to-own shops that will really be pushing the big screens over the next couple weeks. If you are in the market for a high-def television, at least considering paying cash, else you may be still making payments when next year’s Superbowl rolls around!

The Frugal Roundup

Don’t Fall Into the Minimum Payment Trap. Stop paying only the minimum payments on your credit card. With the high rates that credit cards are charging these days, most of your minimum payment is going towards interest charges. Paying only the minimum means you may be paying for that pizza for years to come! (@ Gen X Finance)

7 Ways to Control Spending When You Have Out-of-town Guests. This happens to all of us. You let people stay at your place and end up heading out on the town with them. You feel almost obligated to spend time (and money) with them. Use these great tips to break the habit. (@ The Sun’s Financial Diary)

How Conan O’Brien Wants You to Succeed. Flexo has another great guest post which talks about what Conan O’Brien’s ouster from The Tonight Show can teach you about life. (@ Budgets Are Sexy)

7 Money Lessons From Monopoly. Here is a cool list on lessons that the game of monopoly can teach you. I think some of my favorites are that you can’t avoid taxes and cash is king. (@ Financial Highway)

Best of the Rest

• 5 Creative Ways to Upsize Your Life By Downsizing
• Money In Our Life: 5 Personal Finance Basics to Work On
• Going Three Rounds With the Credit Bureaus
• How to Chose a Retirement Strategy – Or Not
• 10 Biggest Credit Mistakes to Avoid
• Saving for College – An Exercise In Depression
• Common Myths About Stock Market Risk
• How To Donate Your Used Car

In case you missed the Twitter/Facebook notes, I’m in a blogger showdown with Clever Dude over at Budgets Are Sexy. Check out the interview responses if you’d like to learn a little more about either of us, and of course, vote for your favorite.

Hope everyone is enjoying the current series running here at FD – Saving With Purpose: How To Live a More Intentional Financial Life. I’ve enjoyed sitting down, crunching the numbers and sharing some specific goals. I thought the discussion in the comments has been particularly good on these posts, and I thank you for participating. I always learn a few tips, or look at things from a different angle, when readers share their comments.

The Frugal Roundup

Mammoth 2009 Tax Credit and Deduction List. Quite possibly the best compilation of tax resources put together at any personal finance site…ever! Definitely want to give this a look before running through your taxes in the coming weeks. (@Finance for a Freelance Life)

Great Depression Cooking With Clara. I couldn’t remember if I shared this with readers or not, but it’s worth another mention if I already did. Clara is 94 years-old, a great grandmother and YouTube sensation!

Where Americans Pay The Most To Live And Why. A thought-provoking post which asks why we live where do. For many of us, family ties cause us to plant roots. For others it may be our careers. But for many I suspect it is the fear of moving to an unknown city. (@Financial Samurai)

Simplifying Simplicity With Five Simple Questions. Flexo provides an excellent guest post which shares five questions to ask yourself when trying to determine what is really necessary in your life, and what is just clutter. (@Man vs Debt)

Maximize Your Membership: 16 Tips to Shopping Warehouse Stores. My wife and I have been considering cancelling our Sam’s Club membership because we don’t think we go often enough to justify the membership fee. Notice I said “think” because we aren’t really sure without tracking receipts and doing more comparative shopping for prices at other stores. My gut tells me we’re breaking even, at best. (@Wisebread)

Do Expiration Dates on Drugs or Vitamins Matter? Considering I don’t like to keep left overs in the fridge longer than 3 or 4 days, I subscribe to the “when in doubt, toss them out” method of managing vitamins and drugs. Then again, those pills can be quite expensive! Check out the article for guidance. (@Bargaineering)

Best of the Rest

• Haiti Relief Efforts and How To Help
• Introducing Bundle: The Number One Source for How People Spend and Save Money
• Capital Gains Tax Q&A
• Seven Things You Must Do to Prepare for an Emergency
• The Two-Income Myth
• How to Donate Your Used Cars
• Six Steps To a Great Retirement
  
• Where and How to Stash a Stockpile
• 3 Ways Being Organized Can Save You Money

That’s all for this week’s roundup. I plan to resume the Saving With Purpose series next Monday, but have a few posts on other topics lined up between now and then.