A retired teacher from New England, I moved west for the sunshine, interesting people and lower cost of living. I have a nice house instead of a co-op apartment and enjoy the Southwest. My health insurance premiums are very high, though, and I have expensive dental care, so I wanted to improve my spending habits. The Double Latte factor gave me some encouragement.

An area I identified immediately: watching shop TV programs and ordering stuff I don’t need. Even returning it is expensive, with UPS rates soaring. I’m especially hooked kitchen gadgets. Not only are most of them unnecessary, they actually amount to clutter.

Solution: instead of watching shop TV programs I now watch The Food Network. From Paula Deen and Rachael Ray, I’m learning a lot about cooking, and now I even use those kitchen gadgets!

Experimenting with new recipes has made me more outgoing and hospitable to friends and neighbors. After all, I can’t eat all this food by myself!
This is just a little thing, but it is typical of the win/win approach that you suggest. You don’t have to give up good things to save money, in fact you can have more fun than ever!

Thanks.