That’s a great system. I wish we could use it! My hub has a weird system of putting all sorts of junk in the cars. I once found 5 boxes of old food containers for when we brought food with us. Then there’s the recycling we have to bring to a center to get our money back that is hardly ever open and so it piles up in…

I think I need this for myself. I try to implement it but it usually gets junked up with stuff that it wasn't supposed to hold to begin with. I hope with our move we get rid of junk and with the better will power I have now I won't let it come back.

And btw I have to be the a hole in the relationship. My hub isn't a yes man at work but at home he sure is. I've seen him say yes to sometbing ridiculous that I asked if we should get it. I don't say this to be mean but it does matter if the other person in your life isn't going to offer you the same help in saying…

I know how hard it is for me to purge certain types of items and others the difficulty isn't in letting go, it's in actually getting it out of the apartment. For example, I have a box that hasn't even made it to the car let alone the goodwill that I've emotionally let go of months ago. And then there's the emotional…

And online banking is more of an option these days with no monthly fees or minimum daily amounts.

I have no place for optimism in my life but I do try to be logical when despair starts to form. If I don’t know something will happen, worrying that it will (or in some cases won’t) doesn’t help. Work on making the best outcome for me a reality is the best use of energy.

I agree with others who point out to be mindful about how useful the item will be in your life, in addition to your budget and what you want. I’d add how long it will last. A shirt is great but eventually will be too worn to keep. When I went to Hawaii as a reward for sprint customer service the company gave us all…

That’d be great but I have no more room on my walls even for small art. Though I may grab that for friend gifts if I decide to do that. If I know my hub like I think I do I bet we’ll be buying local sweets to take back with us. :/

Whatever works for you. I’ve tried couponing and the time vs savings wasn’t worth it for me. We spend enough money at Costco to pay for our membership and now with getting an extra 2% from our visa rewards card it’s even better. Plus I prefer their gas. But I get that depending on where you are and your needs that…

And it’s super important to avoid despair since it doesn’t help us get to our goals and only allows us to make bad choices that keep us further from that goal than to begin with.

Costco is great for meats and other stuff like cleaning and one off items. But I learned that the ethnic grocery stores and discount grocery stores have the best prices on fresh produce. I try to skip as much as possible on heavily proceeded foods and make sure ingredients work for several dishes if possible. Seems to…

It’s still stuff that may slip your mind when you’re budgeting for the total of the trip and it should be included when you’re making decisions in which package or hotel you’re going to spring for. Even if you know about these things they need to be part of your travel plan estimates.

I've learned to expect that with bigger cities but I trust as long as they own the parking that it is something you can negotiate as well as the wifi. But if they don't own it you're sol on that.

Same here (also have progressive) though I’ve been looking at switching to AAA when we move.

Fast food isn’t so cheap when you consider what you get nutritionally and financially for it. If you save $100 a month that’s $1200 annually which is over time a lot of green and that’s not including the health benefits for decades to come which are hard to put a savings number on now. Though you still do have to…

There’s a slight chance I’ll be moving across the country soon so I need to brainstorm how I can incorporate this and the past challenges to save money. :) If this happens it will be scary and a lot of hard work but I’m going to be so happy to move on with my life.

While being smart about big items is important, many times you cannot make quick changes in those areas but you can make quick changes on your small leaks in your budget. I was able to chart a year to no credit card debt based solely on small changes. It was even less than a year due to medium sized changes that I…

I got tired about halfway through porting things over and was just being lazy. And I think that for some reason I wanted some things to still hit my account, but that was silly. Why not get rewards when I can?

401k? Probably not. But index funds or mutual funds not part of a 401k sure! You won’t get the pre tax benefit and you may have to go through a company in your country but you should be able to buy funds from other countries since we can buy funds from other countries.

Oh I did get a free month of cbs all access after trying to cancel the free week of access so that was fun. Caught up on some shows and then realized that it wasn’t worth $6 again even though I gave it more of a chance and cancelled it. Oh well! Caught up on person of interest without having to wait for Netflix or…