Aah. What a week. I’ve been looking forward to writing this roundup all day. Although not totally related to personal finance, I recently discovered two great resources. They’ve made it so much easier for me to consume all the interesting information I come across.

First up is Snackr. It’s completely revolutionized how I organize my RSS subscriptions. There’s no point in trying to explain what it does when I can just copy and paste a blurb from their website.

It’s an RSS ticker that pulls random items from your feeds and scrolls them across your desktop. When you see a title that looks interesting, you can click on it to pop up the item in a window.

See. Easy peasy. If you choose to use it, I hope it’s as good to you as it is to me.

Next up is Instapaper. Like you, I can’t always immediately drop what I’m doing to read a blog post or article that interests me. Instapaper has proven to be an extremely simple and useful tool for bookmarking the stuff I want to read later.

What’s most appealing is that Instapaper allows you to install a bookmarklet at the top of your web browser. You see something you like. One click on the Read Later bookmarklet and all that nerdilicious goodness is saved for future reading. You can do the same with Delicious, but I find Instapaper’s site is a bit cleaner.

Now that that’s out the way, let’s get to the meat of what’s truly important.

After reading Why the hell do guys have to pay for everything? by Fabulously Broke, I wanted to puke. The post tells of a chick who sought alimony from her ex-husband after 25 years of divorce. And the judge granted it to her. To the tune of $1,600 per month. Come on!

I don’t buy Christmas gifts. I don’t believe in it. Gift giving that is. Christmas is cool. But if I change my position between now and the actual holiday, I’m referencing Money Funk’s Christmas Gifts Under $10.

Some gentle urging from Whitney at Thanks for the Food led me to a decision to acquire a slow cooker. If I can’t find a free one on Freecycle, borrow one from a friend, or practically steal one on Craigslist, then I’ll buy a new one. I’m looking forward to Black Friday. It’s a glorious day to pick up deeply discounted toys for yourself. Squawkfox’s How to Buy a Slow Cooker or Crock Pot is right on time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to read as many non-You Have More Than You Think blogs as I would’ve liked. I was too busy writing five posts a week and wasting time on Twitter.

Now, it’s time to relax.

Have a wonderful weekend.

In May 2009, I was in the market for a mattress. I’d slept on an air mattress for about a month before it began to deflate for no apparent reason. Once the air mattress gave up on me, I decided there was no point in buying another. It was time to look for a more long-term solution.

Selecting the right mattress is a very important decision. Supposedly, we spend a third of our lives in bed. I probably spend about a quarter of my life in bed, but nevertheless, a comfortable mattress is essential. If you’ve been reading my blog, then you should already know I had to do my research and find a good deal. Temporary aches and pains from sleeping on hardwood floors are a small price to pay for savings. It wasn’t so bad. I’d keep the air pump next to the mattress so that I could easily inflate it when my aching bones woke me up in the middle of the night.

Once I actually had a need for Consumer Reports, I reinstated my online subscription. At the time, I didn’t know Consumer Reports doesn’t rate mattresses. However, all was not lost. After reading the message boards on their website, I found out that the price matching policy offered by many mattress retailers is practically impossible to enforce. Primarily because mattress names vary among retailers making it difficult to comparison shop.

Slight variations in different retailers’ similar mattresses are large enough to render a price matching policy unenforceable. For instance, a mattress manufacturer like Serta may sell nearly identical mattresses to Macy’s and Sears. According to one Consumer Reports subscriber, even if everything else about the two mattresses are the same, a small difference in coil count could permit either retailer to deny you a price matching discount on the basis that the lower priced mattress isn’t comparable.

Armed with this information, I set out to visit Sleepy’s. They have a price matching policy of course. Once I thought I found the mattress that was right for me, I proceeded to ask the salesman detailed questions about the mattress. He was very knowledgeable.

After the salesman answered my questions, I laid on the bed again and researched the mattress on my iPhone. That’s when I realized US-Mattress.com had what seemed to be the same mattress for $400 less than what Sleepy’s was asking. Before presenting the salesman with my finding, I asked him yet another question: “What’s the coil count?” He replied, “800.” My next question: “Can you tell me the difference between this mattress and the one at US-Mattress.com?”

The salesman had previously informed me that he didn’t have internet access in the store. That meant it was up to me to provide him with proof that his company’s price was beaten by a competitor. After admitting Sleepy’s was on the hook for providing me a $400 discount, I convinced the salesman to throw in the bed frame and mattress pad for no additional cost. He had to do something to convince me to seal the deal with him instead of taking my business elsewhere. Even after all that, I told him I’d get back with him if I didn’t find a better deal. I didn’t.

Would I have been able to save $400 on a mattress without an iPhone? Who knows? But, I definitely believe using the technology available to me let the salesman know he was working with a knowledgeable consumer who’s not afraid to negotiate a good deal.