Author Archives: thefrugalfight

Ever heard of a reframe? Well, it sort of saved my life. In 2018, I was clinically diagnosed with a severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). My particular brand of OCD centered on checking rituals to mitigate or outright eliminate risk and uncertainty. (This is, of course, impossible.) I entered a behavioral health hospital afterContinue reading “Just Me, Clinical OCD, and Frugality”

You have a hobby, right? Well, my hobby is seeing how low I can get my monthly grocery bill. (I live a wild life.) We’re more than a third of the way through September. I’ve yet to spend anything at a restaurant, and my grocery bill thus far for a family of three is $21.Continue reading “20 Tips to Slash Your Grocery Bill”

Our household spent a grand total of $4.54 across the three-day weekend. It was the best Labor Day weekend of my life. How and why? Our only expenditure was a grocery shopping trip. I walked to and from the store. For $4.54, I got the following: A Kind bar Two boxes of brand-name cereal FourContinue reading “Celebrating Labor Day Weekend the Frugal Way”

Do you have a middle-finger fund? This is a reserve fund you can fall back on when your work environment is so toxic and unsustainable that you feel like your soul is being crushed in a vise. Maybe you call it by a different name? Maybe you call it your I-don’t-need-to-put-up-with-this-shit fund? Maybe you’re plainContinue reading “My Middle-Finger Fund”

Let’s look at some numbers. Yawn, right? But bear with me. This isn’t number crunching for the sake of number crunching. You’re a salaried office worker making $40,000 per year. In blue-collar speak, this equates to about $19.23 per hour. You decide to spend $12 going out to lunch one day. Given the above salary,Continue reading “How Much Do You Actually Make Per Hour?”

You’re a millennial. You just landed a new job, and it actually comes with benefits. (A quick primer, millennials: benefits are things like medical insurance and paid time off. I know this is foreign to you. You did not receive said benefits when you were a DoorDash driver trying desperately to break into your chosenContinue reading “Nudge It Up”

Seeing as this is my tenth post, I thought it might be helpful to quickly review the nine core, actionable takeaways discussed thus far. 1. Change your default setting from “spend” to “not spend.” Shelling out your hard-earned dough becomes the exception as opposed to the rule. 2. Implement a three-day spending freeze to “clearContinue reading “Dancing My Way Free”

In the summer of 2017, I was at the height of my white-collar career. I was bringing in about $82,000 a year (not astronomical but not terrible either). More raises and promotions were imminent. It all looked great on paper. But here’s what was happening behind the scenes. My stress level was sky-high, and IContinue reading “The Glorious Trifecta”

I have a challenge for you. It’s going to be equal parts revealing and dismaying. But you’ve got this. I want you to pull out (or pull up) your bank statements for the past year. It’s time to dissect your spending! It’s time to see where all your hard-earned money is actually going. If you’reContinue reading “Initiate Facepalm”

Your days of being a spendthrift are over! You’re ready to leave the dark side and join the frugal rebel resistance. Fantastic! But like all worthwhile change, this isn’t going to be easy. A helpful first step is identifying what truly matters to you in life. To this end, I drew up a seven-part lifeContinue reading “Suck It, Macy’s”