Comparing Diet Program Costs: Which Program is Most and Least Expensive?

It’s the beginning of a new year and the television waves are gluttonous with meal-delivery diet commercials. Each company is trying to outdo the competition by showing slim, smiling models eating calorie and fat-laden foods like pizza, cheese curls, pasta, muffins, French fries and even burgers (probably sprayed with a zero-calorie lube to make them [...]

Text Spamming: Does it Cost You Money?

I’ve been ignoring text spams on my phone for too long. It started out with just one text spam out of the blue that I quickly erased. Then I began seeing them every other month. Now I am receiving text spams about once a week. The most recent one was from Sender 42227 and read, [...]

What Will $5 Buy You on a Flight?

Ever since I boarded a plane for the first time as a sixteen year old foreign exchange student headed to Burgos, Spain I have been in love with flying. Perhaps it is because there is nothing else to do once you board the cabin but to sleep, read, write, or relax. I get to turn [...]

My List of Stupid Money Spent: 2010

Have you ever made a purchase that was either useless, something you could have gotten for a lot cheaper and perhaps didn’t know it at the time, or deemed worthless some other way and your window of opportunity for a refund had passed? This list encompasses those purchases where, if you had been around me, [...]

Surprising Fees While Traveling Abroad

In a nutshell, Austria was expensive. We truly enjoyed our time there (photos are up on my Frugal Confessions blog), and most importantly, our time together, but some of the costs incurred were quite surprising. I’d like to share them with you here in case you are planning a trip abroad. Luggage Fees: Perhaps I [...]

Our $300+ Pile of Laundry

Featured as a Carnival of Money Story. We don’t own many clothes. While this may be clear to others upon first entering our sparse walk-in closets, I only recently realized this while packing for our 12 day trip abroad. Turns out that I don’t just enjoy doing laundry like clockwork on Friday mornings, but I [...]

Forced Donations: A Nuisance or a Necessity

Charities have taken quite a hit in the last few years. As American’s wallets became more and more pinched, donating to the Salvation Army at Christmas time or to the food bank became a luxury item. What is the result? While alcohol consumption remained largely unchanged throughout the recession, charitable donations decreased by 3.6%. On [...]

Did I Tip Too Much?

I am a pretty decent tipper at restaurants. When I do go out (admittedly not often) I tip 20% so long as the service is decent. If the service is subpar—really subpart—I might go 10-15%. But the other night I walked away from a transaction with a slightly sour taste in my mouth, and I’d [...]

I Shopped Around for a Hernia Operation

Amanda’s Note: Do not shop around if you have an emergency. Shopping around is a luxury for procedures where you have a few days to a week at least to do some investigative work. Your health is your number one asset in life, so please be responsible with it.                 In the beginning of August [...]

We Are Not Going to Help Them Make Vegetable Soup out of a Stone and Water

Read the original Timeshare Story, as well as Timeshare Part 1 posted earlier this week. Talking with the agent from Casablanca Express was a little like the folk story of Stone Soup. Here’s the synopsis: a hungry foreigner comes upon a village with only a pot and no one will share their food with him. [...]

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