Hi, everybody. It’s one o’clock Saturday morning and, after leaving the party I was at early because I was so tired, I am having a little too-exhausted-to-sleep insomnia. It was the busiest week ever at work, and I feel sort of dazed, like I’ve washed up on the shore after a shipwreck. If there was some sort of recurring theme in the personal finance blogosphere this week, I sure missed it–so I’ve selected a few articles that I noticed generated great discussions in the comments, either because they posed questions to the readers or just touched on a scandalous subject. Blogging is, after all, about community participation.

  • Paul is mad as hell about grocery store price gouging–his commenters have some tips and tricks and a lot of venting. (Read it at Wise Bread)
  • Trent lays out some solid personal finance principles to handle some of the particular problems of the probably-maybe-not-or-definitely-happening economic downturn. The discussion about job security is particularly interesting. (Read it at The Simple Dollar)
  • GolbGuru thinks the credit crunch has warped all our thinking, and asserts there’s no such thing as bad debt. Even outside the discussion in the comments, I think this post has come up in a few different blogs this week. Personal Finance bloggers are not, generally, people who are all about awesome debt. (Read it at Money, Matter and More Musings)
  • Free Money Finance asks whether telecommuters should get paid less. People fight. (Read it at Free Money Finance)
  • JD asks what personal finance books make good gifts. Every personal finance book ever written gets mentioned, reviewed, recommended or discarded in the comments. (Read it at Get Rich Slowly)
  • Dawn’s commenters advise a reader with a friend in a mess. (Read it at Frugal for Life)

Queercents Rehash: Sleeping With Money: How Much Should You Invest on a First Date? I think literally everyone who commented on this post is smarter than me on this topic, so I will refer you to them.