PF Roll

Stocks are sucking right now. The New York Times reports that a “jittery” stock market keeps on dropping as the mortgage market finds out just how screwed it is. I don’t know a thing about the mortgage market, but I do know that I’m still missing $300 from my mutual fund investments. Apparently swinging stocks, seen most blatantly on the Dow Jones industrial average, which was both up 1% and down 1% in the same day, is pretty rare. The last time that has happened was in 2003!

Mint.com’s “Train Wreck Tuesday” features a blog by an anonymous Air Force officer who decided to fight for our nation in order to pay off his debt. Now he’s deployed in Iraq, and he’s blogging about his “Journey to Financial Freedom” while on duty. His latest post? “Aug 1: Finding a Good Bank,” which gives a rave review of USAA Federal Savings Bank. Won’t do me any good, since the bank is for military members and their families only.

Congrats to “An English Major’s Money” for getting through the GRE. Hopefully it was worth the $140 test-taking fee. Her latest full-length post--”Freelance Income Follow-Up,” discusses the outcome of an earlier post of figuring out how to withhold taxes on her freelance earnings.

StopBuyingCrap’s blogger “Cap” “lists 4 ways he lives frugally.What’s #1? "I look ugly,” he says. “Fugly.”

Over at Adventure’s in Money Making, a blogger discusses how a 30-something couple managed to be debt free, and wonders if being “debt-free,” without property or retirement savings, is worth it.

BostonGal’sOpenWallet picks up a CNN.com story about the growing trend in front-lawn gardening (pardon the pun). Apparently there are a bunch of people who are growing food in their front yards. Some are even saving up to $300 a year on groceries. But it’d be a shame to no longer have an excuse to visit the supermarket produce aisle, wouldn’t it?