The Sept. 22 edition of the Festival of Frugality was hosted by Green Panda Treehouse. This is one of the many blog carnivals on the web that feature submissions from dozens of bloggers on the designated topic.

This week’s entries include:

• Dough Roller presents Money Saving Tips – 75 Painless Money-Saving Tips: “Buy a refurbished Mac: I’ve written about this before because it is a great way to buy not only computers, but iPods and iPhones as well.” The first iPods my husband and daughter owned were refurbished. And my laptop is my dad’s old laptop.
• Man Vs. Debt presents Cost of Living Abroad – International Bloggers Share Expenses. “I’ve decided to do some digging and networking and bring together a one-time resource of expenses from around the world.” What a fun topic!
• Suburban Wife Life presents Coupon scams cramming your phone bill. “Recently I visited a site while looking for fast food coupons.  I found a good and went to print it out.  It wouldn’t print.  The page acted like it was loading. Then suddenly a pop up appeared telling me that if I entered my cell phone number they would send me a text to verify I was human and then the coupon would become printable. …” Be sure to read the rest of her story. Yes, I know there are many coupon information sites around the Internet. When I was attending a frugal living program last night in Toledo, one of the visitors realized I was a “guest blogger” (two of my friends hosted the program) and she asked me later how would she know what coupon sites to trust? My answer: look for the original source. Go to the grocery store’s or drugstore’s site, go to the food company’s site, … but I do not use printable coupons or coupon codes that are posted on second-hand sources. Your mileage may vary, but I don’t do it.
• Monroe on a Budget presents How to carry the Halloween loot. “When your kids go around the neighborhood for trick-or-treat, or to the church parking lots for the Trunk-or-Treat parties, … what will they carry their candy in?” This is one of the posts I’ve got in my holiday archives about Halloween expenses. I’m hosting a Halloween Fun on a Budget chat 8 p.m. Wednesday Sept. 30 at www.monroenews.com.