Weekend Update and Roundup

Update 

• My Virtual Stock Market Game is getting really boring.  Every time I look at it, I'm down roughly 10% from where I started.  I'm pretty much just waiting for the end of the game to put me out of my misery.  Part of my plan was to just let the stocks sit there until they made some money, and then consider selling some and buying others, but since I never broke even I didn't make it that far.  I'm not sure I'll start a new one when this game ends.
• I'm slowly starting up on the Declutter Challenge.  I have found 8 things to get rid of.  7 have gone out in the trash.  They were all shoes or clothing items that I have been holding onto, telling myself that I will wear them again despite the fact that that just isn't going to happen.  None of them were in good enough shape to sell or donate, though.  (I wear things well beyond the point at which they should have been trashed.)  I also pulled one pair of shoes that has barely been worn, so those are in a donation pile.  They don't count until they're out the door, so I'm currently at 7/366 items decluttered.
• Exercise will be starting this week since I was sick all of last week.  (I did walk a few miles a day on January 1-3 despite being sick, and I normally don't walk much at all, so the week wasn't a complete loss.  I just don't think it really counts because it wasn't fast enough to get my heart rate up.)

Blog Roundup 
So, I had a roundup prepared for today, and then my computer caught a virus.  (Can anything around me not be sick right now?  Please?)  I had recently created a full backup of my computer so when my anti-virus software couldn't find the problem I just went ahead and reinstalled Windows and restored from the back-up.  After a day and a half of fiddling around with settings, I finally have just about everything back where it should be.  Unfortunately, my Microsoft Office disks are not with the rest of my software and I haven't been able to find them yet.  The roundup was in an excel file and I can't open it without Office.


Long story short:  Thank goodness for Google Docs and its ability to convert excel spreadsheets to GD spreadsheets.

• Aaron Hung tells us how you can change your car and save money.
• Cents to Save presents Work For Me Wednesday: Seasoning a Cast Iron Skillet.  (I recently got my first piece of cast iron, and I'm loving it!)
• Girls Just Wanna Have Funds shows us how to create a one year financial plan, the first in her new series 212 Days to Rock Your Finances.
• Money Trail gives us Teaching Your Kids about Money: January Edition.
• My Multiple Streams deals with a tough situation that he relates to us in Helping with College: How Far Do You Go?
• Net Worth Protect gives us some side-by-side comparisons in Roth IRA & Roth 401k: Another Sham Designed to Tax the Middle Class.  (I'm not sure I agree, but I need to crunch some numbers of my own.)
• Newlyweds on a Budget gives us a teaser of what's ahead with Something Big is Coming....
• The Single Saver offers some practical advice in Save Your Money -- Don't Buy These Kitchen Gadgets.
• Thirty-Six Months tells us a whole bunch of ways to save money on energy bills.
• Money Cactus has ten things to live by for 2012.
• Your Finances Simplified has seven resume tips that will get you a job.  (It's a little bit of a different take than what I'll be presenting in an upcoming mini-series on resumes, but it's good advice.)

Carnivals and Mentions 
I've been mentioned by the following blogs since my last recap: 
Help Me To Save included me in last week's Totally Money Carnival: First Foot into 2012
Aaron Hung mentioned me in his post Hung Articles of the Week #8 Happy 2012!
Funny about Money included me in this week's Festival of Frugality: The New Year 2012 Edition