My monthly health insurance payment has risen by $40, starting now. The increase was anticipated, or at least announced. I’d managed to block the amount, though, so I was still surprised.
My bimonthly electric bill was $22 higher than the previous one, thanks to a Seattle City Light rate increase. An extra $11 per month won’t kill me. But it got my attention.
Want to drop a bad habit or develop a good one? You need a plan. Or, rather, you need a list.
We Americans love our lists. We especially love short lists. Just check the headlines on magazines, features sites or blogs. You’ll almost certainly see ones like “Three easy steps to lose weight/stop smoking/become a millionaire.”
Having a list makes us feel we’re already halfway to achieving our goals. Lists make us feel confident and in charge: I’ve got it all figured out! Now I just have to implement it!
It’s never really that simple, of course. If three steps were all it took, we’d be surrounded by thin, rich people whose fingers were unstained.
Not a counselor — a coach. That’s the subject of my latest “Living With Less” personal finance column, now up over at MSN Money. “Find a personal money coach, free” explains how you can work to make your finances match your dreams. Generally speaking, counseling is about an issue and coaching is about an individual. … Read more
Discovering that your paycheck won’t cover even minimum debt payments. Buying a house, or being unable to buy a house. Feeling suffocated by the (costly) clutter in your life. Wanting to stay home with the kids but fearing you can’t afford it.
All these defining moments turned spendthrifts into thrift-thrifts.
A couple of years ago I wrote a Smart Spending blog piece about what a reader called “a-ha!” moments. The reader, posting as “Bigdreams,” solicited such stories in a Smart Spending message board thread.
Some “moments” are epiphanies. Some are slowly dawning realizations. Readers variously described the experience as a slap in the face, a kick in the butt, a good hard look at oneself, a God-given wakeup call, the sudden glimpse of a bleak future.
However they arrive, a-ha! moments carry the same basic message: Something has to change.
Every so often I stop by the Jimmy John’s sandwich shop near my apartment. Not to buy a sandwich, though: To spend 50 cents on one of yesterday’s baguettes, which I call “calypso bread.”
That’s because it’s day-old.
Daaaaaay-old.
Daaaaaaa-aaaay old.
Any of you who aren’t laughing yet, follow this link. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Want to be considered weird, embarrassing or just plain cheap? Be frugal among people who aren’t. Even the folks who say they love you may criticize your 10-year-old car or your thrift store habit.
And if you want to send strangers over the edge, just flash a manufacturer’s coupon in the checkout line. It’s like waving a red cape in front of a rabid bull. Indeed, the noise that some shoppers make is positively bovine: Mooaawwwww…another one of those coupon queens! Groan, sigh, mumble, JEEEZZZZ….
(Wonder if any of them have ever held up a line an extra 30 seconds while searching pockets or purses for debit cards or exact change?)
I had three massages in eight days. The circumstances were unusual and will likely never be repeated. But for a while I knew how the super-rich must feel: Really relaxed.
One of the three was my first-ever hot stone massage. I’d told my daughter that there should be Cold Stone massage, i.e., being rubbed with ice cream. She suggested that eating ice cream during a massage would combine the best of two very nice worlds.
The 60-minute sessions at Dynamic Chiropractic and The Vital Energy Center cost $35 apiece thanks to the magic of social buying. The other was slightly discounted ($97 for 90 minutes) because I bought a five-session package at New Seattle Massage.
Usually I try for an appointment every four weeks or so, but sometimes go for months without being rubbed the right way. However, the two social-buy deals were due to expire in early summer and I have to leave in a few weeks for a housesitting job in Alaska. And like my mom, I believe that waste is a sin.