Welcome to Wise Bread's Best of Personal Finance roundup!

Rules to live by when the economy heads south. Boston.com and FIRE Finance

Smarter than the average bear market. "Yet with these terrifying headlines every day, it’s like people have become blind, yet highly literate zombies who wander aimlessly from one newspaper to another. Being dumb is not just focusing on the wrong things, it’s making poor financial decisions and then throwing up your hands and wondering why you don’t have enough money a few years later. If you own only one stock — especially if it’s your employer’s stock — then you are a fool." I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Avoiding bankrupcty when you're sick. Queercents

Comfort foods are all the rage during economic hard times. A grilled cheese sandwich is the height of frugality. Here's a recipe. Cheap Eats

Tips for jet-setting, worldly types. "Most tickets are changeable, no matter what is written on them. If you run into trouble, don’t give up – the airlines can make exceptions under the right circumstances. It doesn’t always work, but good things often come to those who are persistent." Zen Habits

Throw the bums out. AIG is rightly still getting hammered by the government for acting like a bunch of jerkwads. NY Times

What if there were no Joneses to keep up with? The Simple Dollar

Free grub in your birthday suit! Lots of restaurants give you free food on your birthday. Dean provides a list for all of you who love a free-ish lunch. Mr. Cheap Stuff

Less time, less spendy. Reducing your time at the supermarket will help you spend less. "[L]ast weekend at the grocery store I was unnerved by displays of snack foods, ice cream, Halloween candy, and ready-made items like deli entrees and rotisserie chickens. Seeing them was like hearing fragments of a language I used to speak. What was all this stuff?" MSN Smart Spending

Giving when you're not really getting? Is your charitable giving going to change as the economy worsens? Free Money Finance  

And it begins. Credit card companies are cracking down on consumers because they are panicking as much as everyone else. Walletpop

When time IS money. Small ways to work smarter on your PC. Dumb Little Man

Why total meltdown is unlikely. "I continue to think that global governments will get this figured out and credit markets will start to ease before truly awful consequences take hold. We're in for a recession, not anarchy." Motley Fool

Richy McRichpants. What does it really mean to be "rich"? Can you be rich without realizing it? Get Rich Slowly

Why your credit card debt is partly to blame for this financial mess. "By 2006, though, consumers were not only spending more on everyday goods -- remember, spending 89% of income -- but also spending more to pay debt. They were spending 13% of their incomes to cover debt, Church notes. So households were spending everything they made -- and borrowing some more money on top of that -- just to get through the average year." Freep

When being cool as a cucumber matters. Why staying calm in an economic crisis is better for everyone involved. Five Cent Nickel

Goodbye, schadenfreude. "Until last week, Europe had witnessed the type of anti-American gloating usually seen only during the soccer World Cup, the quadrennial event in which the American team is routed in the early rounds." Slate

Tips and tricks for budgeting. Some of the best (free) tools you can use to save money and reduce debt. No Credit Needed

Iceland almost goes bankrupt. Who knew that countries could even do that? "Iceland's dramatically transformed stock exchange offers a clear indication of the massive blow dealt to the country's economy, recently based almost entirely on a financial sector that represented between eight and 10 times its gross domestic product." AFP

Hard times call for simple soutions. Why simplicity offers a fairly easy path to saving money. Mighty Bargain Hunter

HAHA! It can be fun to see what people wrote about a few months ago, when the economic collapse was becoming a reality and lots of people said it wouldn't happen anyway. Reuters

Is tax season here already? Oh, it never ended. If you filed for an extension, you have to actually file your taxes by today. Consumerism Commentary

California is selling itself to the American consumer. Want a piece of the action? Bloomberg

Talk about lemons into lemonade. So what if your 401K is down 40%? Stocks are going to be cheap. All Financial Matters

Oooh la la. Does this mean that sales of cheese and cigarettes will decrease? Europeans react to the economic crisis. Xinhua News 

Slippery slope. If the cost of oil keeps falling, will we keep pushing to drill? CNN

Safe bet. Everyone is buying safes for their home because it's frowned upon to keep your money under your mattress. LA Times

It's the little things that count. There are plenty of ways to pinch pennies - here are 101 pinching techniques. Our Four Pence Worth

Discount on discount chain membership. Sam's Club memberships can be had for $10 for the rest of the year. Bargain Hunter

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