I went to Kohl's today because I realized I did not have a shirt for the suit I'm wearing to church tomorrow for Easter Sunday. I have come to like Kohl's quite a bit, because they always have stuff on clearance sales of 60-80% off and there's almost always a coupon or other %-off deal that you can take advantage of to make the clothes even less expensive.

I came across a Reuter's article today that explains what deflation is and why people fear it. Like most popular journalism, it's a little scant on some of the details (there's no single agreed-upon definition or indicator of deflation), and it beefs up the FUD.

I was catching up on some of my personal finance blog reading when I came across a post by Meg at All Financial Matters about whether and when spending money is good or bad (which itself is a reaction to this post at Living Almost Large). Meg's conclusion is basically that, of course spending itself is not wrong, but spending excessively is definitely wrong. In her words:

An article at Yahoo! Finance provides a list of 10 gifts that save money. Some of them are great ideas – like the electric oven (hint, hint, for anyone who is looking to donate to a worthy blogger) – but a few are stretches. Here's my take on the more sketchy "money saving" gifts.

I haven't looked at my car insurance policy in awhile, so when today I got my notice that my policy is being renewed, I took a few minutes to look over it. Glad I did, because I just decreased my insurance costs by 4%.

Basically, I eliminated two items:

This is more of a rant than anything, but I'm quite irritated with the whole topic.

As a libertarian, I have no great love for public schools, but my wife and I can't really afford to send our older daughter to a private school. (Our younger daughter goes to a private day care though.) Now, I have yet another reason to hate public school: It is teaching my daughter that going into debt is okay if you want something right now, and that everybody deserves a free lunch.

I'm not a greenie by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like to think of myself as somewhat practical when it comes to saving money. Therefore, even though I might not be inclined to recycle because people try to guilt me into, I do concede that recycling can be a smart financial move.

Here are a few examples of how I've saved money with recycling.

I glanced at a Yahoo! Finance article this morning that claimed you would save well over a million bucks by not watching TV – for the rest of your life. It's an interesting article, and I encourage everyone to read it for some insights about both the upfront and "hidden" costs of watching TV.

But it did raise my dander up a bit toward the end, especially in the sections related to commercials and "opportunity costs."

After our mortgage, day care is probably the single highest recurring expense we incur at the moment, and during the summer months when we have two kids in daycare instead of just one, our daycare expenses will actually surpass our monthly mortgage payment – principal, interest, escrow and PMI included.

So, I'm going to be in my good friend Speedo's wedding this weekend, and my wife and I haven't yet gotten a wedding gift for the lucky couple. While looking over the registry, I asked my wife how much she thought we should spend.