The Festival of Frugality July 30 edition is hosted by Student Scrooge. This week’s theme is “summer school” because many of the bloggers (including me!) had a back-to-school spin.

Here are some of the more than 60 posts you’ll find from across the Internet about frugal living:

• Almost Frugal presents an Honor Roll pick with The ABCs of Frugality: “Why are you frugal? What do you have or hope to gain? Is it paying off past debt, avoiding new debt, saving for a specific goal or for ethical and philosophical reasons? Knowing your goals will better help you to achieve them.” This is a really great post with tips you might not have considered.
• Monroe on a Budget presents an Honor Roll pick with Back-to-school peer pressure: “If you have household budget issues, this is not the year to fight the battle over back-to-school peer pressure on expenses.” There’s no sense trying to keep up with the Joneses this year, when, in southeast Michigan, other families at your school probably can’t afford what they normally do either. This year, families on a budget should make very deliberate decisions as to what they will spend money on.
  
• Mrs. Nespy’s Frugal World presents How to get more done: “I know that you want your child to be the next baseball star, football star, soccer star, piano virtuoso, Einstein, prima ballerina, AND martial arts fighting champion of the world, but give the kid a break. They may enjoy all of these activities, but they need to pick one activity per season.” Add up those “pay to participate” sports fees, after-school lessons, carpool expenses, uniform fees, out-of-state travels and you’ll see the sense in this approach. When my daughter was in school, we followed up with anything she wanted to do with Girl Scouts because that was her favorite activity. We did not, therefore, get invested financially beyond minimum requirements for her other clubs and activities.
• Simply Saving presents 50 tips for frugal living: “Go with one car. Many families have two or more cars. Besides your house, your car is probably your most expensive item. If you can do with one, you should.” My husband and I can’t limit our fleet to one car because of conflicting work schedules, but we have lived for many years with just one good car and one “go-to-work” car. Yes, that means the teenager daughter and I shared a car after she got her driver’s license. It worked out.