Random Thoughts, Round Up and Carnivals #12

Housekeeping

Congrats to Trish for winning my first ever giveaway of Crystal’s How I Make Money Blogging eBook! I hope you enjoy it. If didn’t win and you want to pick up a copy of the eBook for $17 just click here purchase it or read my review.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Random Thoughts

I’ve heard it a million times that there is no such thing as a free lunch but yesterday something odd happened that made me reconsider. I headed to Wal-Mart on my lunch break to pick up a couple snacks and a drink. On my way out of the store the weirdest thing happened. There were Dairy Queen employees out front just handing out boxes of Dairy Queen food. They asked me if I wanted one as they put a box in my hand and then quickly left as I was the last box they handed out.

I was dumbfounded and complete confused. I remembered as I was headed to Wal-Mart that it looked like the new Dairy Queen across the street was almost done but not open yet. I also remembered that my mom told me to never eat food from strangers. I then realized that Dairy Queen wasn’t open yet and was probably training their new employees how to make the food and giving it away to make the public aware of the new store so I got a free lunch.

I had never had anything besides dairy products at Dairy Queen so I was surprised that their fries were really good and their Crispy Chicken Sandwich was pretty good as well. The only problem was one half had no mayonnaise and the other half had enough for about five sandwiches. I couldn’t complain though so I wiped it off and finished my free lunch. Well, I guess there is no true such thing as a free lunch because I just gave Dairy Queen some advertising. There goes that idea…

Round Up

On to this week’s picks for some good weekend reading…

Mr Money Mustache wrote that Early Retirement Can’t Work or I’d Have Heard of it Before. Contrary to popular belief it can work though! Definitely an awesome post worth checking out.

Financial Samurai actually proves that early retirement can work! This past week he informed us he is Taking a Leap of Faith and Retiring on His Own Terms! Congrats Sam and best wishes! He isn’t completely retiring though as he is now focusing on his internet adventures. Will be nice to see more of you around the interwebs.

Wealth Pilgrim wrote to tell us How To Make Smarter Financial Decisions. He breaks items up into short and long term decisions as well as emotional and financial decisions. A great way to think about how emotions and time affect us.

Retire by 40 listed the Pros and Cons of Costco. Unfortunately Costco has more cons than pros for me but it can be a big savings for larger families with space to store extra groceries and supplies.

Last but not least Krant Cents wrote an interesting post telling us to Forget Everything Else, Marry for Money. I would never marry for money. If I had fallen in love with someone with money I wouldn’t have complained though. Luckily I have my girlfriend though even though she has some debt I still love her .

Carnivals

Below are all of the carnivals that I was put in this week that I could find or got ping backs on. If you hosted a carnival that I was included in this week and I missed it please let me know and I’ll add it below!

The Festival of Frugality and Carnival of Wealth included my post Break It Down – Daily Income and Expenses.

The Carnival of Personal Finance included my post 5 Tips for Your Financial Independence Day.

Enjoy your weekend!

What’ve you been up to lately? Anything noteworthy to share?