I feel a bit cheat-y today. I’ll be honest, I have read very few blogs this week. It just hasn’t been in the cards. However, we’re very close to the light at the end of the tunnel, and I expect to get back to reading and commenting on a regular basis soon.

Our living room is finally clean, having gone through all the boxes of paper to be shredded. The dining room table is clean (well, except for a game of Dominion that didn’t get put away last night), the ladder is out of the hallway. We’re at the point of putting the little plastic plugs in the unused outlets and rearranging the baby’s room. Once our background checks comes back, we’ll schedule the home inspection. I’m starting to be able to breathe easier again.

Plus we had a great group of people over for jambalaya and games last night. I’m feeling good.

So how does that make me “cheat-y”? Well, instead of reading my regular list of blogs to share things with you, today I went to the Yakezie challengers’ forum and grabbed the blogs of the three latest challengers. Then I went to the master list of members and challengers and picked out 3 blogs I’ve never read before. And now I’m going to share them with you.

First on the list is Zero Passive Income. They recently made their 6^th Kiva Loan. We all know I’m a fan of micro-lending and donating to charity, so I think this is absolutely fabulous. I’m a big fan of Kiva myself.

Next is Modern Tightwad. I’ve mentioned before (I think) that my mother is a garage sale queen. She can find amazing deals at them; she can hold one that sells out. If it involves garage sale-ing, you want my mother at your side. This post on Marketing Your Garage Sale is good advice- after all, no one can buy anything if no one shows up.

Then we move on to Add Vodka. I’d wonder why I hadn’t read this blog before, just based on the name, except that I’m a total teetotaler. Daisy is looking forward to Free Time after Graduation. I can’t blame her. And as someone who worked full time and went to school full time for my MBA, I get where she’s coming from about having “just” a job.

Now on to our three newest challengers.

Jennifer Lynn, the Broke-Ass Mommy, writes about Bitcoin, why they invested, and what’s happened with their investment in the past year. Will she and her family remain invested in Bitcoin? You’ll have to read to find out.

Financially Digital apparently watches reality cooking shows- which happen to be the reality shows C likes to watch most. (I like singing shows, but not Idol.) Anyway, Nunzio Bruno is able to watch the shows and take the lessons the chefs learn and turn them into financial lessons for the rest of us. So the question is, do you have too many cooks?

Mike at Live the New Economy is a career military officer looking to transition to civilian life sometime soon. Recently, he had a situation that required him to leave his iPhone at home while he took the family out to dinner. And he LIKED it. Is he doomed to live in a shack in the middle of Montana? (I would like to point out, having grown up in Montana, and still having family and friends there that I only communicate with via FaceBook, you can be completely wired there. Also, he recommends reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. C had to read that for class this year, and I read along. I think it’s an interesting book, but I don’t agree with his conclusions, and for the most part would argue that the research he’s presenting actually leads to conclusions that are quite the opposite of the ones he reaches.)