This post may seem silly, but in these hard economic times this is a very real thing happening in our little casa! After all, I always say Los Angeles is Spanish for "expensive." That and one of the goals of this blog from the very beginning was getting healthy without breaking the bank.
We aren't really poor and we certainly aren't wealthy, but we are really good at budgeting and are trying to be better at saving. All this adds up to times where we are trying to build our savings and not spend frivolously. Right now we are saving every penny in hopes of going on a big trip to the Philippines in the Spring.
The real tragedy of saving is not being able to just buy something unnecessary without thinking about it first. To me, that feeling of indiscriminate shopping is what makes me feel very, very rich. (Imagine I said that in Nene Leakes voice)
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| Gift Cards = Magic Currency |
When those budget crunching times come along, as they often do, and we are in a funk we just pull out those gift cards and go wild. Almost literally.
I know it seems silly but it actually helps a lot. Using gift cards during budget crunches is a lot more satisfying than using them in times when we have the extra cash to burn. If you can hold on to them long enough the reward is awesome.
Example: last week we were in a mega crunch. We had just received our first electricity bill after living here for 3 months because of a glitch and it was a lot higher than we planned for. How can you guesstimate a 3 month bill you've never seen? We could have broken it into installments but we decided to tough it out and pay it off all at once. Once that happened all of our "fun money" was gone. After about a week we were getting cabin fever. We took our gift cards out and bought a much needed wifi signal extender at Target and both got shoes on sale at Macy's.
It was a little trip that felt fantastic. Shopping really is a therapeutic experience.
So that's my money tip. Do you do anything kind of strange like this?
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