Save Money. Buy Assets.

Quite often, my posts are about pointing out ridiculous things we waste money on when we could simply substitute for something of equal or better quality at home. But this is not one of those posts. No, this is actually a recommendation for those who are wanting to find long term success in moving to a frugal life. So, let's talk happy hour savings and why I believe it's a critical part of your frugal future. The Happy Hour Savings Are Real Happy Hour is a beautiful thing. Now, historically, I always thought that anyone who was crazy about happy hour must be an overworked alcoholic…

The lunch topic could easily be thrown into the 'Eating Out' post. But I have reason to believe that 'Lunch' warrants it's own post. The truth is, the cost of eating lunch out is a sneaky one. It's one that's easily justified. And one that keeps you in the workforce for much longer than you need to be. In the course of my adult life to date, I knew very few people who packed their lunch. In high school, my parents packed my lunch for me every day. But when I went to college, I didn't grocery shop much. I sure didn't take the time to…

The topic of saving money on haircuts is a deep one for me. You see, I started my 'no paid haircuts' journey long before I ever cared about financial independence or frugality. It all started with a conversation between my best friend Jordan Evans and I. We were living together during our Junior year of college and asked each other, "Why are we paying for crappy haircuts when we could just cut each other's hair? How hard could it be?" Personally, I get so much anxiety when getting my haircut at Supercuts. It's always someone different and they always seem to mess it up somehow. On…

Growing up, I always thought people that shopped at Costco bought convenience, not savings. It was only after I started taking my financial independence seriously that I started to realize the potential for savings at Costco. And let me tell you, Costco is a great place to save money. I think the rub for a lot of us is paying a membership fee to 'Save money'. For some of us, we just can't quite see how paying out of pocket to go buy in bulk is going to be something a frugal person would do. But the truth is, a big part of embracing frugality is…

There are many expenses in our life that are actually icebergs. They appear to represent $X of cost in our monthly budget, but in reality there is sometimes a lot more underneath the ocean than there is above the surface. This is without question the case when it comes to looking at the real cost of gym membership. This is very much the case with gym memberships. When we think of a gym membership, we really only think of the cost of the gym membership. We typically don't think about the commute costs, time costs, or social costs of this way of staying in shape. How…

If you are like me, coffee is the very first thing you think about in the morning. But the cost of coffee is probably the last. I know for many, morning coffee is their one and only ritual. Something about our coffee is just… perfect. Warm, strong, energetic. I can’t think of a better pick me up to get me started with my day. Is it the fact that caffeine is really just a legal drug? Yes, probably. But I won’t get into that in this post. In this post, we are talking the dollars and cents of your coffee habit and how coffee can help…