Hope you’re having a great weekend so far! It’s beautiful in my neck of the woods so I’m planning on spending a lot of it outdoors.

By the way, I’m working on a site update. It should look much better and cleaner by the end of the week. Just wanted to give a shout out to my friend Dan for making that possible. Be on the lookout for a much better looking SOTB very soon.  But without further adieu, here are the most fascinating financial reads from this past week.

The Economics of Bananas via Freakonomics – This article is actually from 2008 but it still rings true. With Honeycrisp apples hitting $4 a pound, how in the world are bananas still so cheap!? This article answers that and it’s fantastically interesting – at least to a money saving oddball like me. I’ve always wondered why bananas are so inexpensive. Now I know.

5 Ways to Save Big on Spring Break via CouponsDaily – If you’re planning on travelling for spring break, beware, it can be mighty expensive. I wrote this piece for CouponsDaily in order to hopefully make that less financially painful for some folks. I even get into why souvenirs are a bad buy.

Lessons of Thrift from 1875 via Budgets Are Sexy – My dad got me a book on penny pinching from the 80’s for Christmas. J Money got one from freaking 1875. It’s really cool to know that certain principles of thrift stand the test of time. My favorite quote from the book he got at a local antique bookstore was “Thrift does not require superior courage, nor superior intellect, nor any superhero virtue. It merely requires common sense, and the power of resisting selfish enjoyments.”

How Many Credit Cards Do You Really Need via DealNews – That’s a toughie. Some folks have too many. Some have not enough. But there is an answer to this question. I wrote a piece for DealNews this week and got to the bottom of this formidable question. Now you know exactly how much plastic to carry in your wallet!

19 Things Your Suburban Millionaire Friend Won’t Tell You via Len Penzo – Len Penzo dot Com is one of my all time favorite financial blogs. Len breaks down some of the habits of the wealthy that you might not suspect. Becoming a millionaire often means not looking like one.

Enjoy your reading. And enjoy your weekend!