Some people have asked recently where I come up with the pictures on the site, so here’s a primer. The “art” is all public domain stuff, having been produced far prior to 1900. Many of the other images are from public domain image repositories. A small number were images that I was permitted to use, and some of the logos and such fall under clear fair use guidelines (like using a Caribou Coffee logo in an article about the coffee). The remainder are taken by me with my digital camera. I also like to touch things up (when allowed to) with Photoshop. Having said that, here are some personal finance articles you may enjoy.

The Average American’s Spending Breakdown This is a strange and quite interesting picture, because it feels as though this picture becomes the picture of no one. Certain groups spend more in certain categories than others. (@ my money blog)

A Governor Truly Tightens His Belt I actually made an off-hand mention of this yesterday, but I wanted to highlight it because it’s really interesting. The governor of Oregon is attempting to live on $21 a week for food in order to gain a greater understanding of the kind of penny-pinching that lower-income people have to do every week. (@ nytimes via boston gal)

No Gas Day: Good Intentions, Horrible Idea, Worse Follow-Through The idea of a “no gas day” to wake up the oil companies to excessive pricing is logically flawed; here’s why. (@ poorer than you)

The Simple Dollar Retro: 30 Essential Pieces of Free (and Open) Software for Windows I use most of this stuff on a daily basis.