If you follow Lending Club, you probably pay attention to money and the markets. You probably have a better idea than the average consumer about how investments, interest rates, and the markets work. Still, though, the question remains: How do you use this knowledge? Have you built a personal finance plan? How have you used your knowledge of personal finance to really enhance your life?

I’ve noticed that many of my friends feel that passively reading about personal finance is enough. For years, I read financial blogs and articles without ever actually making the effort to design and implement a financial plan. However, it just took a single day to build it---I sat down, focused on what I wanted to accomplish, and built a plan that allowed me to achieve my goals without too many sacrifices. Thanks to this financial planning, I was able to achieve my goal of living in South America without incurring any debt.

Read Mike Smith’s recent article about three-year plans and make the decision. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Sit down, make a list of financial goals, and figure out a way to get there. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Have you already built a financial plan? Tell us about your financial goals in the comments. Are you on track to achieve them?

There are many different ways to save on food expenses, but one of the simplest is to plan your meals ahead of time. This straightforward process will save you both time and money.

Planning your meals saves you time in many ways. First, you reduce the overhead of deciding what to cook. Rather than having to think about what to make, checking for ingredients, and shopping on a daily basis, you can batch those tasks into a more efficient timeframe, such as a weekly basis. It’s a great feeling to simply look at your meal schedule in the morning, instantly know what will be for dinner, and be confident that the ingredients are already on hand.

On way meal that planning allows you to save money is that you can plan around the items that happen to be on sale that week. You can take advantage of the items with the largest discount. Browsing the store circular will also inspire menu ideas to help make the process of planning your meals quick and easy.

As an added benefit, meal planning lets you further employ one of the secrets of lower grocery bills: shopping to a list. Since you’ll know what you need to buy to make all of your planned meals, you can easily create an efficient shopping list. Sticking to that list allows you to buy what you need and nothing more.

If you like to eat out, meal planning can help you save there, too. By planning ahead of time, you can make your night out fall on the day that a particular deal or special promotion is offered at your favorite restaurant.

Having a plan always leaves you better prepared than if you have to make decisions as you go along. There’s nothing to say that you can’t deviate from your plan as circumstances evolve, but having an idea of what you’ll be eating and when forms a basis for an efficient and inexpensive allocation of your food budget.

Do you plan your meals ahead of time?

If you're looking for the perfect gift for a 2009 college graduate, you need look no further than... a time machine.

Time travel is really the most useful and, sad to say, practical gift on grads' wish lists this year. Graduating in 2009 just isn't what it used to be in the good old days of 2005. Grads who grab their diplomas this month won't have the world by the tail a month later, thanks to a bleak economy that doesn't much care for fancy book-learnin' at this point. Jobs are hard to find, companies are playing it safe, and college graduates might have more trouble than they think. Those persuasive college recruiters never told them about this.

In 2009, life for a college graduate is not at all how Boy Meets World made it seem.

"'The outlook for those of us graduating in May is pretty bad,' said Matt Ross, a Bryant University student. "Companies are hiring, but they might only be hiring one employee rather than five to 10 as they would have in the past."

Employers expect to hire 22 percent fewer new college graduates than they did a year ago, a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers finds.

More than 46 percent of employers surveyed were unsure about their hiring plans for fall and 17 percent said they expect to further reduce college hiring in the future."

Coincidentally, enrollment in the school of hard knocks is up.

So what do you get a grad that might very soon have nothing? Here are six out-of-the-box suggestions ... seven, if you count a time machine.

Something fancy to wear.

Clothes might be the ultimate downer of a gift, especially for a twenty-something expecting an iPhone. But if you've been reading the news, you'll know that downers are very "in" right now. And besides, your new grad is going to need to look his best when it comes to the job interview meat market.

Not only that, he or she is going to need to look better than the competition, relatively speaking. To do so, a new suit and tie or a stylish business dress will do the trick. Keep in mind: these are college graduates you're catering to, many of whom spent the past four years bumming around in statement t-shirts and faded blue jeans. Anything you can get your hands on at a reputable clothes shop will be an improvement. But do make sure they know what to do with the clothes once they have them.

An online Wall Street Journal subscription.

The WSJ most definitely fits into the classification of "newspaper," and it might seem especially cruel to give a worrisome grad a gift that reminds them of a dying industry. But the Wall Street Journal is different. Not only does it skirt the perimeter of true newspaper journalism by moonlighting as finance fishwrap, it is also ahead of the curve in the e-news game, having set up a profitable pay-to-read system online.

Plus, giving the gift of knowledge is never a bad idea, and the knowledge contained in the Wall Street Journal is exactly the type of stuff fresh-faced college grads will need. Financial facts and figures, Wall Street trends, and more business than you can shake a bailout at - this is the news that will help get your grad to the top of the unemployed barrel (or maybe even out of the barrel entirely). Subscriptions start as little as $1.99 per week.

A Snuggie.

Why? Because it's a blanket with sleeves! Obviously!

An all-expense-paid trip to a seminar, workshop, or convention.

With the economy failing all around them, new graduates are only going to be able to rely on the people they know. So why not help them get to know more people?

Networking is the new nepotism for the 21st century, as jobs are filled much more often on a who-you-know basis than on a what-your-diploma-says basis. One of the best places to build a circle of acquaintances is in a trade show environment. Call it a seminar, workshop, or convention; as long as there are bigwigs from your grad's industry in attendance, it will be a valuable gift with potentially employable results.

A small investment.

Rather than splurge on a grab bag of gift cards or a Hallmark card stuffed with cash, a more lucrative gift might be a small investment in a stock or bond. With prices at an all-time low (hopefully), the going is good to get big dividends from wise investments. If you can spare a few hundred dollars now, your grad will be thankful a few years down the road when the couple hundred turns into a couple thousand. Of course, this gift depends on the world not coming to an end before then.

More schooling.

Though you don't need to foot the bill for years' worth of Master's learning, you can at least offer up some seed money to send that graduate right back where he came from: school. Let them wait out the job market blahs by encouraging another go at a graduate program of his or her choice. That way, when the economy does finally turn around, they'll have a better degree, more job prospects, and they'll totally owe you big time.

Gift-giving for grads in 2009 might be the high point between the time they grab their diploma and the time that employment comes knocking. If so, you need to make their graduation gift count. And you only get one chance ... that is, unless you know where to buy a good time machine.

Today, we're honored to accept a Best in Peer-to-Peer Lending award from Wisebread, among the blogosphere's leading personal finance and frugality publications! Check it out, as along with announcing awards across a range of categories they've also released a new book, 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget wherein Lending Club and other winners are featured:

As families look to stretch fewer dollars further, the will – and perhaps the need – to get more out of things they already own rises as well. While it’s certainly noble to make some repairs yourself, or employ a professional, the repair versus replace debate actually becomes more difficult when you practice other frugal habits.

Repairing a worn out item that you bought new at full price might make sense if you would replace it with a similar purchase. If you were to find a significantly discounted replacement at a local thrift store or use a combination of sales and coupons, repair may not actually save you any money. Spending $25 to repair a $100 pair of shoes seems like a smart move unless you got those shoes for $5 second-hand. Should you base your decision to repair or replace based on the worth of the item or the price you paid? Is the repair cost versus replacement cost a better metric for making the decision?

Another factor is that repairing traditionally has the added benefit of not creating the waste of discarding your current item, but that too may be more complicated depending on your lifestyle. If you plan to donate your item, rather than discard it, you aren’t really wasting the current item. Also, replacing it with another used item (that’s either in better shape or a better fit for your needs) doesn’t require a new product to be produced.

With frugal and environment-friendly lifestyle choices, the debate between repairing and replacing items gets more complicated. Though it might be more difficult to make a decision, the good news is that both choices are probably good ones. Either choice has the potential to be cost-effective with limited waste, meaning that you really can’t go wrong.

How do you decide whether to repair or replace an item?