personal finance in a coupon blog

I'm not sure how, but the themes of our picks this week turned out to be food, crime, and how they sometimes intertwine. If you want to be Orwellian you could call that "FOODCRIME."

Sounds sinister. I don't want any part of it.

Behold our favorite finance stories for this week:

Disney has been in the news lately what with their Fantasyland expansion at Disney World and their recent (and first ever!) fan convention. It got me to thinking about the many Disney movies I've watched over the years.

The Disney name has long been associated with groundbreaking animation and wholesome family fare--but beyond the pure entertainment there are also great educational opportunities.

Here are ten money lessons I've gleaned from watching Disney classics:

There are inventions that are life transforming: the wheel, the electric light, the telephone, the airplane, the internet. There are inventions that make life easier and better: iPods, laptops, microwave popcorn. And then there are inventions that are not so much proof of human ingenuity as they are evidence that given time, access to power tools and a dream, man can indeed build a better mousetrap.

Powered by batteries.

The following are a few products that might not be life transforming, but are certainly good for a chuckle or two:

It's football season and women across America not only have to contend with their significant others turning into slack-jawed zombies in front of the TV, but they have to deal with them being glued to the computer as well as the Bill Belichick wannabes pore over their "rosters," making trades and benching players.

Fantasy football has become one of the biggest crazes in football over the last decade, extending the pigskin obsession well beyond Sundays and Monday nights. WalletPop's Aaron Crowe recently posted about how to play without leaving a fantasy football widow.

For those of you unfamiliar with how fantasy football works, you draft whichever players you want and depending on how they perform during the actual game, your fantasy team accumulates points. If you score more points than your opponent(s) that week, you win. If you've never tried playing, you're probably wondering how people become so caught up given some leagues cost as much as $10,000 to join.

Here are some of the top reasons why fantasy football is such a huge craze:

At first glance, "Cleansing Oil" sounds like an oxymoron. How can an oil clean your skin? Won't it leave it greasier than when you started?

Not so with DHC Deep Cleansing Oil, which melted my makeup and left my skin baby soft and super fresh.

While some travelers simply can't live without their yearly beach vacation, others can't wait for an autumn getaway to the mountains or ski chalet rental in winter! As summer winds down, travel discounts are just getting started. Individuals or families looking to travel this fall have a great array of choice destinations to choose from.

Below are five of the most popular adventures for autumn travelers.

In honor of Sara's post on school bands, I decided to post a collection of blog posts that dealt with the topic of school or...uh, bands. Or music. How does this have anything to do with finance? Patience, grasshopper, patience!

We may be stretching it a bit here, but here's this week's round-up of band geek inspired finance stories:

Band geeks. Every high school has them. You all know who they were in your school, and there's a pretty good chance a lot of you were band geeks yourselves. And if you were, I'm sure you've got a story or two that begins, "One time at band camp..."

When we told Woodwind & Brasswind (one of the stores on Savings.com) about this post, they decided to ask their Facebook fans to share their band camp stories with us.

Here are a couple of snippets:

I recently came across this list of free things to do in Las Vegas. While it's a good primer for a first-timer, I found it to be full of the obvious: the lions at MGM, the dancing waters at the Bellagio, the Sirens show at Treasure Island. Ho hum. I can only stare at a couple of bored felines for so long and don't get me started on those fountains-- am I the only one in the world who hates those things?

You Savings.com readers deserve more imaginative lists. With that in mind, I present Heather's Lucky 7 List of the Best Cheap/Free Things in Vegas!

On Monday you heard from Loren, our CEO, about how you can help take the wind out of the sails of scammy advertisers. He offered this basic guideline for weeding through the multitude of messages that bombard us everyday:

Question: Which companies are spending the most on advertising?

Answer: The ones that are making the most money off of you.

This week's roundup is in the same vein, and should give you some more useful knowledge of how to avoid getting had:

Last week I wrote about the fabulous style of TV's best married couple, Don and Betty Draper of AMC's Mad Men. But many ladies out there don't identify with tortured housewife, Betty; it's office vamp (now office vamp/tortured housewife) Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) who's inspired Holloway blogs, retro fashion trends, new-found confidence and many a dye job, no doubt, with her fierce signature style.

Even if you don't have Ms. Holloway's--I mean Mrs. Greg Harris'--dangerous curves, you can still steal her style and attitude--for less.

Here are a few style and beauty tips inspired by Joan's best quotes on the show.

As a kid I never thought I'd be jealous of everyone who got to go back to school at the end of August. Granted, it isn't the academic aspects I miss, but more so the free beer during Pre-Rush and the sight of shapely USC co-eds around campus. Alas! I'm now an "adult," and my attention has turned to adult concerns: in this case, earning my keep here at Savings.com by compiling your weekly round-up of Savings Stories, the "Dollar and Zens" edition: