The Carnival of Personal Finance for Sept. 29 was hosted by DebtKid. Keeping in mind the carnival deadline was before the financial markets went crazy on Monday Sept. 29, here are some posts you’ll find on all things financial:

• Money Beagle presents One Lender’s Take on the Bailout Proposal: “They kept with a conservative and safe loan structure, even as other banks were loosening credit and getting into trouble. But, as my friend pointed out, even their bank is getting affected negatively now, and banks like his could be at risk if the ‘troubled’ banks do not get help.” On a “Main Street” comparison, there are homeowners with conservative 30-year fixed mortgages whose property values are getting dragged down by the number of foreclosures in their communities.
• Frugal Dad presents Half of us are living paycheck to paycheck: “I can sum it up by the example of checking your balance the day before payday and breathing a sigh of relief that you are not overdrawn, even though the $1.81 left in your checking account doesn’t leave much breathing room.” If you can’t scrape any savings out of your predictable monthly income, then save the unbudgeted extra funds you get such as Christmas or birthday cash, overtime, bonus pay or vacation pay in lieu of time off.
• Our Fourpence Worth presents 101 ways to save money in your everyday life: “Work or read in the same room with family members or roommates to consolidate light usage.” There’s lots of great ideas here, some of which I haven’t seen on similar roundups. Go check it out.

The Festival of Frugality for Sept. 30 was hosted by Value for Your Life. Here are some of the posts you’ll find on frugal living concepts:

• Master Your Card presents A little something learned about apartment living: “But, I share this story with you because if you live in an apartment and believe your electric bill is far greater than it should be, you might want to check and see if your apartment complex has a role to play in that.” I know of a situation where a tenant in one apartment had electricity shut off for non-payment, but one outlet still worked because that wiring looped into another apartment. The shut-off tenants kept a refrigerator and who knows what else working for at least a couple of weeks on someone else’s dime. How did I hear about that? The woman who got ripped off was my friend’s sister.
• I’ve Paid Twice for this Already has What do you do about school fundraisers?: “I really dislike the fact that the school system is trying to turn our kids into little salespeople.” I remember fundraiser requests being a huge controversy as my high school struggled to find a solution to overlapping and competing appeals for student activity funds. However, there are some ways to handle fundraising without cash out of your pocket. The examples linked off my charity giving sidebar include saving specially marked food lablels, purchasing grocery and retail gift cards where the profits go to a school or church, and designating your points from customer loyalty card programs.
• Think Your Way to Wealth presents Ideas for cheap Halloween costumes, decorations and treats: “Planning ahead for costumes can let you get the costume you want at the best price available. Have you ever been to a costume shop a day or two before Halloween?” Now when the parties are done, save whatever can be used again for another year. I haven’t bought or sewn a new Halloween costume in 10 years because I keep re-using things that I keep in storage.

I haven’t been “carnival-ing” lately. Many of my posts in recent weeks have been too local / too short-term to be applicable to a national audience a week or so later.

But in the meantime, I like reading what other bloggers are writing about. One can never have too many crayons in a frugal living crayon box.