This is my first post. I've been lurking for about a month reading blog and forum entries, and I've been taking lots of frugality steps lately. I know it's really worth the effort because I managed to save up enough for this laptop computer. Keeping track of every cent I spent made me realize how much room I had for improvement. I started scouring the store ads and collecting coupons, including the club-card coupons from the checkout line. It's gotten to the point where I park at the first meter I find with time remaining on it, rather than spending money to feed the meter at a spot right in front of the store! 
Unfortunately, after the victory of acquiring the laptop, I slipped back into bad habits over the past two weeks after some friends visited from back east and I had to entertain them while we were out on the town. Dinner here, drinks there, etc. I decided that in order to get back into good patterns, I needed to start my own blog here so that I could get the positive reinforcement of sharing my successes with everyone (well, everyone who cares to read this Reading about everyone's successes was what inspired me to get with the program in the first place, so thank you very much to all of you!
Today was good, the only purchase I made was the Sunday paper so I could do the crosswords and clip the coupons. I decided to walk instead of riding my motorcycle, for a savings of $.10 on gas (even at 40-50MPG, every bit counts.) I was surprised to find that with my Cala card the Sunday Chronicle is only $.99 plus tax ($1.07) rather than the $1.50 I was expecting, so there's another $.43 to put in savings. Finally, I collected all the beer bottles from around the house (I live with 5 other single guys aged 25 to 30 so there are a LOT of beer bottles.) I can't redeem them until the recycling center opens tomorrow but they ought to be good for $.52, so I'm adding that to my total for the day, which if you're keeping track is at $1.05.
I felt that I needed to take an extra step to make up for my slacking lately so I put a jar on the desk in front of my computer, now it contains that $1.05.
savings jar
August 21st, 2006 at 06:38 am
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And don't worry how little that $1.05 looks right now. Believe me, adding your coupon money, rounding every expense up to the next dollar and adding that change to the jar, etc. and you'll have it filled in no time.
Post often and let us know how you are.
August 21st, 2006 at 08:47 am 1156150022
I think you'd be surprised by the number of men that are here in the blogs and the forums. While women are the majority, it's not as lopsided as you might think. User names can be deceiving
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August 23rd, 2006 at 10:50 am 1156330211
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