Last spring I did a no spend month. If you haven’t met the concept, the rules are simple. You pay your bills, you buy groceries and true essentials, and everything else is a no. No takeout, no little treats, no online carts. Thirty days. I expected a boring month and a fatter savings account. I … Read more
My grandmother washed and reused aluminum foil. She also paid cash for a house. For years I thought those two facts came from the same trait. They don’t. One was frugal. The other was just the Depression talking. I’ve been on both sides of this line myself. There was a year when I was so … Read more
Convenience is the only product everyone buys daily and nobody sees on a receipt. So for one week, I made it visible. Every time I paid extra for speed, delivery, or not-having-to, I wrote down the premium. Just the difference, not the whole price. The week’s convenience total: $67. Multiply by 52 and that’s roughly … Read more
Two years ago we adopted one shopping rule in our house. Before buying anything non-consumable new, we check secondhand first. Not “always buy used”. Just check first, every time, before the new version gets ordered. That single rule cut our shopping spending roughly in half. But the interesting part isn’t the savings. It’s what the … Read more
Somewhere along the way, hobbies got expensive. Not the hobbies themselves. The entering of them. Every interest now has a starter kit, a subscription, a specialized shoe. Curious about running? That’ll be $240 before your first jog, apparently. After my no spend month forced me to entertain myself with what I owned, I got interested … Read more