You’ll pick up a lot of frugal lessons in this week’s Festival of Frugality, which is a collection of articles submitted by bloggers from across the Internet. This week’s host is Your Money Relationship.

Monroe on a Budget was named an editor’s pick for Do not buy these school supplies unless required.

And here are some of the other blog posts:

• The Greenest Dollar presents How Costco Primes Us To Spend More Money: “… knowing that stores are deliberately priming you to buy a reward for yourself, even if it’s just a little one, can help you stick to your list and walk away with a bit more money in your pocket.” What trick will help you stick to your shopping list or your designated budget? Shopping on line? Shopping during off-peak hours? Carrying cash only? Declaring “no spend” days or weeks? Leaving the kids – or the spouse – at home?
• Associate Money presents Learn to survive on a $100 grocery budget. “My neighbors buy a lot of food during his grocery shopping and stuff his fridge choke-full but the problem is they don’t know what they have after a while. They end up cleaning out the fridge and dumping food which have gone bad every week. This is a pure waste of money.” If you bring home or cook more than food you can eat in the next two days, get out those freezer tubs and sort, label and freeze food in meal-size portions. Example: I put leftover cupcakes two by two into plastic tubs after a recent picnic, rather than watch the goodies go stale before we could eat them all. The last two thawed-out cupcakes tasted as good as the first ones did on the day of the picnic.
• Saving Cents with Sense presents Frugality is Not a Competitive Sport: “The truth is that no one is perfect when it comes to finances (or anything else). We all miss a great deal, forget that coupon, or just feel like splurging every once in a while. And there is always room for improvement.” We all have different strengths and weaknesses on the popular frugal living techniques. Don’t fret too much over the “I don’t get it” situations. You really don’t have to do everything that seems to work for everyone else. Do what works for you in the long run.