splurge Archives - the frugal millionaire

Starbucks Hacks from a Starbucks Fanatic

Fall is in the air! You guys, I’m excited. I decorated for fall right after we moved into our new house last weekend. I plan on doing a post on our house soon, but for now, just know that we love love love it and it was a great decision!

The holiday season tends to be when I stray from my normal tendency of saving every dollar we make. I don’t know what it is about fall that gets me, but I always go overboard year after year. I love to cook and bake during this time, I want my house to be decked out in all the latest holiday decor, I burn pumpkin candles like they’re going out of style, and I even resort back to my almost-daily Starbucks habit.

(Did I just lose all of my personal finance readers who actually do follow a budget?)

A little backstory on my relationship with Starbucks…

Finding balance between spending and saving

I’m a saver by nature and I’ve mentioned that before on the blog multiple times. I’m rarely tempted by material items and love when I can put my entire check straight into savings. But lately, I’ve been wondering where to draw the line. The rental house we live in is still pretty unfurnished, we need patio furniture and I’m due for an upgrade on my computer. But…none of these are necessities which is why I have a hard time justifying the expense.

“Next month if we make XX dollars, then we’ll buy a patio set.” “Once we have XX in savings, I’ll feel more comfortable splurging on furniture.” But the problem for me is when we DO make good money one month or we DO hit our savings goals, I still don’t feel justified spending a lot of money.

Money versus quality of life (a rant)

I’ve put myself into quite the dilemma that has got me thinking about money versus quality of life. You see, we moved to NC blindly, including renting an apartment based on online photos alone. Probably not the best idea, but that’s what we did. The apartment is fine – it’s nothing special, but it’s totally livable. We signed a 10-month lease that will be up at the end of June. So what’s the dilemma, you ask?

7 Things I won’t give up to save more money

While I admitted that I’m more about earning more money than saving more money, I’m still pretty cheap by nature. I don’t enjoy spending money on shopping sprees, I get my hair cut at Great Clips about once a year, I can’t remember the last time I got a pedicure or manicure, I don’t go on lavish vacations (though I wouldn’t mind that one) and I don’t spoil my kids rotten (even though I may want to).

That being said, there are definitely still quite a few things I’m just not willing to give up in order to save more money.