National Thrift Week – Are you observing it?

I had never heard of National Thrift Week until I read JD Roth’s post in Get Rich Slowly today (love that blog btw).

An excerpt from the history of National Thrift Week reads:

In 1916, with the First World War looming imminently on the horizon, the leaders of America’s major civic organizations launched an ambitious education campaign designed to ready the American public for a wartime economy…

The activities of National Thrift Week were guided by several specific principles and behaviors and each was given its own day. Hence, Americans joined together every January in celebrating:

• Have a Bank Account Day
• Invest Safely Day
• Carry Life Insurance Day
• Keep a Budget Day
• Pay Bills Promptly Day
• Own Your Home Day
• Share with Others Day

I love the no-nonsense names of each day. How do you think each day would be re-named to fit a 2009 audience?

(Posting a picture of my homemade bread, because that’s thrifty, right?)

Today was “have a bank account day” and I have to add to that… have a local bank account. The hubs and I went to 3 different banks with our savings bonds, trying to trade them in for a cashier’s check, and we were turned down each time because we didn’t have accounts with the banks. (We bank with USAA and they don’t have physical locations.)

So we ended up going to a Wachovia, where I have one account open for things like this. But there isn’t a Wachovia locally, so we went all the way to Birmingham, AL (we had other business there too, so it wasn’t just a bank trip).

I know most of you probably have bank accounts, but do you have local ones, just in case? Take a look at your accounts too, and make sure they don’t have annual fees or service charges… there are too many great free accounts out there to justify paying for one.

And, though we didn’t know it was National Thrift Week, we started it off with a bang, by paying off the last bit of our loan when we got home (using that cashier’s check as a big chunk of it). Now we are DEBT FREE. Zero debt. It feels so good, and now we can actually fill up a “real” emergency savings account, then start saving for more exciting things like a car with 4 doors.

Now I’m following The Debt Guy, a new internet friend via twitter, on his journey to debt-freedom. He’s definitely working at it with intensity, and is totally serious about his goal, so it’s very nice to read along and encourage him.

I found a great (and somewhat humorous in parts) list of “Wild Ways to Save for the Seriously Thrifty.” Do you do any of those things? Have your own thrifty tips to add to the list? Share them here!

There are plenty of thrifty ideas I just can’t get behind, like using one ply of toilet paper at a time to double the roll’s length (gross). But I love what the thrift expert –how awesome is that, by the way? to have a thrift expert — in the National Thrift Week website video said, that being thrifty is about thriving. He defines thrift as the ethics and practice of wise use, and THAT, I can get behind.

Anyway… what are your thrifty tips? Tell me about your bank accounts? Are they local? Free or do they have fees?

Tomorrow is invest safely day… start thinking about your investments and how you can make sure they’re balanced enough to get through a few tough years here and there.