From BundleHQ: Lending to friends, the evils of personal inflation, and Mark, with Sun Smarties

It's snowing big fat flakes outside, so yes, we're jealous that Mark has left us for a long birthday weekend in Puerto Rico with his wife and 1-year-old daughter Juliet. He came back from lunch with a Sun Smarties — some kind of grammatically challenged beach tent, from what I understand — for Miss J. It's not having kids that kills your cool, it's shlepping their silly stuff around. But it works for Mark, no?

A year or two after college, you're not making much, and you think: oh, if I just made a little more, I could start saving. But then you get that raise or promotion, and the extra money just seems to evaporate. The spending data in Everybody's Money makes this trend of "personal inflation" pretty explicit — just filter by income and watch those spending numbers rise — and its universal nature is one of the reasons Jaidev started Bundle. So how do we stop this train? Sean told his story, and Tracy, Mike and Kate responded with great advice.

So, about that $15 . The strategies suggested in this week's Awkward Dollar for the retrieval of a small loan had some readers cringing in their non-confrontational shoes. In the comments, Monica says she emailed a friend once with a money pet peeve. She thought she was being straightforward. The friend thought otherwise.

It's Thursday! You've got a few more hours to sign up to get the Weekly Bundle. Sneak preview: a free movie, plus three things you didn't know about the very cuddly economist Paul Krugman. Put your email address in that box over there --> and you're all set.

Did you love civics? You should be over the moon about government 2.0. Recovery.gov is a paradise for data, economics and policy nerds; the Fed's new credit card education website is pretty hot too, and just in time for those new credit card rules.

Talk to us! Mark's on vacation and I'm lonely. What can Bundle do for you? Post in the comments, or send me an email. Now's as good a time as any.