I didn’t have time to get a link post put together last week, and this week wound up being a bit of a train wreck – honestly, there are just not enough hours in a day! So even though I’m posting on Saturday rather than Friday, I didn’t want to let another week go by without sharing some good reads from around the web. Enjoy!

I know it’s almost two weeks since Daisy posted this post about transportation costs, but I was astounded at how high her costs are… then I started looking at ours. We’re fortunate, our insurance is much lower (about $1200-$1500 per year per vehicle), and we don’t have to pay much parking for work (Bruce pays $20/month, mine is free for now). But holy, $1,000 a month in transportation costs? Ouch. I feel for you Daisy!

Andrea at So Over This has been dealing with her son starting high school in the fall, and has been trying to find ways to help him fit in. One is to buy him some trendy, name brand clothes. I’m fortunate, my oldest son is a game geek who wears black t-shirts and cheap jeans; my youngest is still too young to care. My middle child? Is somewhat like Andrea’s, with socialization issues and difficulty fitting in making friends. If I thought name brand clothing would help, I’d find a way to buy it for him.

At Always the Planner, asgreen writes about Choosing Money over Love. I’m not sure I agree with her, in that the job she turned down wasn’t her dream job, but I understand what she’s getting at. I’m walking that line right now – I’m not happy, but I’m well paid. The job I’m considering pays much less (at least at first). What to do, what to do….

I either love Leo’s posts at Zen Habits, or they make me crazy (maybe because they make me examine things I don’t want to look at?), but this post about inspiration was spot on. I’m guilty of having too many distractions in my life, cluttering my life with trivial business, making it hard to find inspiration to write, to create, to produce. And inspiration really is everywhere.

Crystal had an adult sleepover this week – one good friend, four cheesy movies, and multiple bottles of wine = a terrific frugal night!

I couldn’t leave out Jana’s series on The Oregon Trail. I remember playing this game growing up, and I loved it (I was also a big fan of the Little House books… somehow, I wanted to live back then). Does TOT teach personal finance? Absolutely!

I’m still missing a lot of great posts, but after not posting any links last week, and a crazy week at work, I figured some were better than none!