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While putzing around online this evening, I came across this article from the AP newswire. This is yet another article detailing a shift in the spending habits of “The Jones’s”. The article mentions nothing ground-breaking, but it did get me thinking once again about the potential effects of a large societal shift to frugality.

For those of us who are already quite frugal, what does this change in the average American mean for us? Surely it will have an impact on retailers and how they gear their offerings to their believed client base, but will it be all good? I tend to think it will have a variety of impacts on our lives, both positive and negative. Right now, I’m thinking about grocery stores, since I just finished perusing our weekly store ads for sales…

For one, I anticipate a rise in the number of sales and depth of product stock on lower priced or generic items. As people become more price concious, stores will no longer be able to bank on providing small quanities of “loss leaders” to get people in the door, because those people very well may end up just leaving because the items they wanted are sold out. It also brings up the potential increase in rainchecks.

Do you get rainchecks when a sale item is out of stock? I do and I love them. Sometimes I look for things that are currently on sale for a great price, even though we don’t them need right then, in the hope they will be out of stock so we can get a raincheck. A good use of rainchecks can keep you from the dreaded “poop, that’s a great price, but we don’t need any right now” scenario. Note: You’re normally more likely to find the sale items out of stock in the end of a sale, so I try to plan accordingly.

I would also expect us to see a rise in manufacturer coupon disbursements. Stores will only discount their prices so much and if manufacturers start seeing too much of a hit to their top line sales, they will more than likely being to push their ad/coupon campaigns harder. Stores should see an increase in coupon redemptions, which will in turn slow down checkout times at the register.

Have you ever been behind someone with 20 coupons to redeem? It doesn’t bother me, because I applaud the use of coupons, but how will I feel when every person in line is holding $5.00 of savings split up into 20 scannable chunks? I don’t know… We may also see an increase in people scrutinizing the “ring up” process to ensure they are being charged the right amount. That would be another contributing factor to a slow-down in the check out process.

Now it is more important than ever that we step up and take notice of the pricing on the items we buy. I’ve discussed this in part 1 of my series on stretching out your food budget and Passive over at PFI recently saw just how important it is to know what really is a good deal when you see one.

I anticipate that grocery stores will really focus on finding new ways of enticing us to spend more than we should by making prices appear to be a good discount when they really are not. They’ve been doing it for years and I only expect it to get more creative as food prices continue to rise.

It’s hard to resist prepared foods. The pizza is already made and frozen. The chicken is already “rotisseried” and ready to serve. The fish filets are already breaded and frozen. The additional preparation and handling costs that come with foods that are already partially or even fully prepared may spike an uptrend in buying non-prepared foods. Finding good prices on raw meats may get more difficult and in turn, the use of freezers for stockpiling becomes all that more rewarding.

Wow, I am one opinionated guy. I guess that’s why I enjoy making momentum plays in the market. At any rate, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out. We can’t control the prices, but we can control what we buy and how we spend our money. We’ll definitely see changes in more arenas than grocery and I’m interested to see what you think about this.

If you have a blog and decide to post your opinions on upcoming changes that we may see in grocery stores or any retail avenue, please let me know and I will add a link to your post here. It’d be neat to have a compiled list of the similar discussions.

We all do it in one way or another. For some it just pays the bills, for others it keeps them motivated, but regardless of the reason, we all work. My last work week involved devoting countless hours to debugging and fixing a problem that should never have happened if my former colleague hadn’t been so worthless, but I digress…

This is the first time since starting the blog that I have gone this long without posting. Granted “this long” is only 4 days, but it feels like a long time considering I usually write a post about every day. Unfortunately, I was just too tired in the evenings to post and what little free time I did have was spent reading. This series of events leads me to why I’m writing tonight. When confronted with a shortened free timespan decision of whether to read other blogs and financial related sites or post to my blog, I chose to read.

I can’t tell you why I made that decision with any real certainty, but I tend to hope it is because I feel the need to quench my own thirst for knowledge before devoting time to talking about it. On the contrary, every night I felt an urge to post. I also felt a little guilty for not posting. I imagine that these feelings came from instinct. Once something becomes a habit, we are compelled to continue even when we have no pressure to do so.

So, I’d like to pose these questions to all of you…

1. Do you feel compelled to post to your blog even when you feel like there is something else that you would enjoy doing more?
2. Do you treat your blog like a job that comes with its’ own set of responsibilities?
3. Do you ever feel guilty for not posting every day? If so, do you worry that your posts will become “watered down” as you will inevitably end up struggling to find compelling things to discuss?

As a full time web developer and part time, hobby, blogger it interests me that I feel the urge to treat the blog as another responsibility. I don’t know why this is, but I look forward to hearing about your thoughts and experiences on the topic if you don’t mind commenting on it.

OK, so I admit it. I didn’t like the Commission Junction hosting company ads. Yes, I have used each of the companies before and yes they were worthwhile, but I just didn’t care for the flashy animated images. It distracted me, so maybe it distracted you as well.

Anyway, I got to thinking about what to put in that sidebar spot and I decided to start linking the top referring blogs for the previous month. They are the blogs that sent the most traffic this way during the month. Since the blogs that link here will almost always be of a similar topic to mine, I think it’s a good fit. I also like the fact that I can thank those bloggers by letting others know about their blogs like they have done for me.

With that in mind, here are the few guidelines that I have chosen for the Top Referrer linkage:

1. The blog must be in the Top (currently 3, maybe more later) referrers for the previous month.
2. The referrals can not come from a carnival listing. I decided this because if I’m submitting my own article to a carnival, it’s not the same as a blog owner choosing to call out my blog on their own.

   Reader Update: Ken emailed about this post to let me know that it would probably be worthwhile to actually explain what a blog carnival is, so there would be no confusion here. I think it’s a good example of how easy it is to forget that not everyone is a blogger who is going to understand the “lingo”. So, for anyone who hasn’t heard of a blog carnival before or don’t know what it is, please check out the Wikipedia information about them.

3. The blog does not have to be in my blogroll or have me in theirs. However, blogs that link to mine in their blogroll are, of course, more likely to be in the top referrer list.

That’s really the only guidelines I can think of right now that I think would be worthwhile. I’m hoping this turns out to be a win/win all the way around.

Do you have any other suggestions for Top Referrer guidelines?

I just ran across this article over at CNN Money. The article highlights 10 families that have chosen to quit using their credit cards in an effort to get out of debt. Each of the families has a similar, yet different story, but simply no longer use their cards. Overall the article isn’t as much of an interesting read because of the validity of cutting out credit cards, it’s worth reading the “Methods” and the “Glitches“…

• Article Link: CNNMoney.com - They cut out their credit cards

The Glitches: When Matt tried to buy a $5,700 PC online with a debit card, he ran into his $2,000-a-day spending limit. Because he has good credit, his bank lifted it.

Uhm…. OMG?!?!?! He’s got me speaking in internet chat-acronyms. Why in the sam hellmans mayonnaise did he need a $5,700 pc?

The Method: They closed their accounts, drew up their first budget and spent the next four years erasing the debt. “If we want something, we pay for it in cash,” says Suzi. “If we can’t afford it, we do without or wait.”

I would be leary of this. Even if you aren’t planning to use the cards, keeping them helps you keep a longer credit history. A shorter age will hurt your FICO score which will still have a negative effect on your finances even if you don’t want to use credit cards. Higher mortgage rates, car insurance rates, etc…

I guess I’ve always considered having credit cards a blessing because of the rewards. I’ve never even considered carrying a balance and I don’t have a spending “problem”. So, for me to say that these people’s decisions are wrong, just isn’t fair. However, I just hope that they are able to fix the root of the problem and not the byproduct, which is the overspending.

What do you think? Is it the ease of using a credit card that gives people trouble or some other issue surfacing in the form of overspending?