Category: spending

October 28, 2024

Today’s Comfort Is Going To Be Tomorrow’s Discomfort

I was listening to an older episode of the Rich Roll podcast recently with Michael Easter, author of the excellent bestselling book The Comfort Crisis (<–affiliate link). Early in the podcast Easter said something that resonated with me in many...

spending

January 16, 2024

What I Spent In 2023

Happy New Year – 2023 is in the books and it’s time for my annual spending post. I did my first spending post for the year 2020 and it was almost entirely done out of curiosity due to covid. I...

finances / spending

August 15, 2023

One Trillion Dollars Of Credit Card Debt, No Biggie

If you missed the news Americans just passed a milestone. In the second quarter of 2023 Americans have $1.03 trillion in credit card debt, the first time this number has been passed. Credit card debt now joins student loan debt...

spending

January 3, 2023

What I Spent In 2022

Happy New Year – 2022 is in the books and it’s time for my annual spending post. I’ve never budgeted in my life, so when I did my first spending post for the year 2020 it was almost entirely done...

spending

December 13, 2022

Price Changes Over Time, Some Things Have Become Ridiculously Cheap

I’m going to be taking it a bit easy on the blog this holiday season but I still plan to post most weeks. Today I wanted to do a short post on an interesting graphic I stumbled across. I found...

spending / work

October 25, 2022

No Time To Ride Your Bike Because You’re Too Busy Working To Pay It Off

In 2020 when covid took off it launched an unprecedented bike boom. Millions of people who hadn’t ridden a bike since they were a kid looked to get one, or pulled their long forgotten old clunker out of the garage...

life experience / spending

September 6, 2022

My Values Are Probably Different Than Yours

We’ve all heard the axiom that you should spend money based on your values in life, and not so much on the rest. I was reminded of this the other day while putting my mountain bike in the back of...

spending

July 5, 2022

I’m The Customer And I’m Always Right

When it comes to being a consumer of goods and services, I’m not a very demanding person. I won’t allow a company to take advantage of me, but I’m also not the person sending back my entrée at a restaurant...

spending

May 31, 2022

Consumers Are Lying

Two articles came to my attention recently about consumer spending and sentiment. Both articles paint a picture of tightening and changing consumer behaviors due to inflation and other economic factors. Call me a skeptic. And it doesn’t take much searching...

geography and geoarbitrage / spending

April 19, 2022

The Big Three Expenses And How Much They Cost In Each State, Updated

Back in the summer of 2018 I did a mapping post showing the costs of the big three expenses by state in America. It was one of my most popular posts for a good year or two until it started...

spending

March 15, 2022

Oil Prices And Your Money

Oil prices have soared in recent weeks putting gas prices at near record highs in the U.S. America is a very car-obsessed and car-dependent country so gas prices are what’s in the news. But don’t think that rising oil prices...

spending

January 4, 2022

What I Spent In 2021

Another year done and dusted, and that means another spending report. Although I’ve been blogging for over 4 years now, this is only my second annual spending report. I did one for 2020 because I was curious about my lower...