The urban homesteading movement is a growth enterprise (sorry) in the United States. My current column at MSN Money shows why.

“A chicken in every condo?” details some of the ways that let people with small urban properties — or those who don’t own property — produce food.

Jane is the winner of “The 10 Commandments of Money: Survive and Thrive in the New Economy” by MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston. Thanks to all who entered.

Come back on Friday to find out about the next giveaway, which is…not a PF book. That’s all you need to know right now.

Funny About Money is the winner of this week’s giveaway, “Personal Finance: The Missing Manual.” If you’ve never checked out her blog please do so immediately, if not sooner.

I was pleased to have my work included in two PF blog carnivals this week:

The random number generator loved Sheryl the best this week. Sheryl: Please respond to my e-mail with your address and the book will wing its way to you.

In other news:

“Time to plan an egg-based meal,” my weekly post at MSN Money’s Smart Spending blog, was chosen for the Festival of Frugality at Stupid Cents.

“Emergency preparedness on a budget,” my latest work at Get Rich Slowly, is an Editor’s Pick in the Carnival of Personal Finance at Funny About Money (even though the post contains the word “poop”).

The article is about meeting basic needs in an emergency. Such as:

Now up at MSN Money is my latest column, “Useless Groupon? Cash it in.” It’s all about the secondary market for social commerce vouchers from places like Tippr, Buy With Me, Living Social and, of course, Groupon.

The advantage is twofold: You can unload deals you no longer want and, more to the point, you can look for deals you missed on the first go-round or that you didn’t know existed.

As one secondary-market host says, it’s “a catalog experience vs. an impulse buy.”