Reading while lurgy-ed

Gah, I hate limbo illness – when you’re not ill enough to completely take to your bed and be waited on hand & foot, but when you’re not well either so end up padding around in a daze and have to slump in an exhausted heap after walking up stairs with a basket of washing or down to the chickens with some seeds. I have done a lot of slumping in the last few days, a lot of ‘what?’ing because my slow brain hasn’t processed what’s been asked of it and some napping (only some because naps leave me mega-disorientated). I’ve also done a lot of reading – fluff when my brain’s not been engaged but other stuff too. Here are some of my favourite bits of the good stuff:

Rachel‘s year without ‘poo – great to hear about her experience and the tricks she’s picked up/developed. Her water-only hair looks fab too.

Ilona the MeanQueen got me thinking about money cushions/long-term savings. Every personal finance blog/book I read insists on people building up long term savings. But Ilona has no intention of leaving a nest egg behind. As I say in her comment section, we try for a balance – in our early 30s, we’re less likely to have a state pension waiting for us or, at this rate, a NHS to look after us, so long term savings will be important. But at the same time, I’ve now essentially downshifted twice – halving my income each time so vastly reducing the amount I can put into savings – because no amount of long-term savings are worth being that miserable over. Anyway, thought provoking/different angle post.

I got a lot of my fluff reading from Cracked.com – an often geeky, even more often rude humour site – but they do have some more poignant articles too — albeit ones still littered with swears and poo jokes. If that sort of thing doesn’t offend you, then I’d recommend reading this recent one on bad lifelong habits from living in poverty.

The Steel Kitten is on a mission – and put together a very thought provoking blog post on realising your dream — both in the sense of accomplishing it but more importantly figuring out what it is in the first place!

Jono of Real Men Sow has written a great summary post about the things to consider when buying seeds for this growing season – things he learnt from tracking the money savings from his growing last year.

UPDATE: I meant to include this on my list too: Paved with Good Intentions. It is a brief article but touching on the idea that when people reduce the energy consumption of their homes, they may be tempted to take the money they save on their energy bills and use it in another way that actually uses more energy over all – possibly good for the economy but probably bad for the environment. I’ve been thinking about this regarding frugal living too but haven’t finalised my thoughts on it yet. Interesting idea though.

Have you read any interesting blog posts/articles online recently? If so, do share – I’m not up to full fighting strength yet so need more input :)

Other posts you might like:

Making frugality & saving into a game? I’m not self-sufficient so what am I? Will we regret our frugalness? Some recent treats from blogland