This post is from staff writer Kristin Wong.

When I think of lifestyle inflation, I think of going to my favorite sushi restaurant every weekend. I think of buying the pricey cashmere sweater I’ve been eyeing and then buying ten more expensive sweaters. I think of spending weekends on yachts and drinking champagne while a guy on a violin serenades me. Well, scratch that last one, because I get seasick, but yeah. I think of lifestyle inflation as being along those fancy lines.

But sometimes it isn’t fancy at all. Sometimes lifestyle inflation is just little things that add up. And sometimes, those little things aren’t even fun or enjoyable.

Here are some boring examples of my own lifestyle inflation.

Health insurance

If getting older isn’t depressing enough, when I turned 30 in April, my health insurance premium increased by $20 a month.

I’m joking about aging being depressing (bring it on), but the price hike was frustrating.

Rent

For Los Angeles, Brian and I pay a modest amount in rent, especially considering both our location and our view. So when the landlady told us our rent was increasing by three percent, I was disappointed, but I also knew it was still a good deal overall. Plus, the inflation was expected when our original lease expired.

But this three percent increase still equates to an extra $40 a month, or $20 each. Between this and my health insurance premium, my budget has now increased by $40 a month.

Business expenses

For my freelance work, I need to use a specific video-editing program, and that program costs $20 a month. Sure, I can write it off, but I’m still paying more than my budget has anticipated. And that budget is now at about $60 extra per month.

This expense was my light bulb moment.

Upon paying for it, I groaned, and then I thought, “Well, why else do I work hard for my money if not to be able to shrug off a measly twenty bucks a month?”

I stopped myself, realizing I’d used the same thought process about the health insurance and rent increase.

“Wait. That’s how lifestyle inflation creeps up on you!” I thought. “And it’s not even fun!”

Sure, I’m glad I have health insurance. But I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying it. I’m glad to have work that requires using that editing software. I wouldn’t say I use it for fun.

I guess sometimes an inflated lifestyle is simply accepting budget inflation without doing anything about it. And hey, that’s okay! Because it’s inevitable — prices go up, and there’s only so much we can do about that.

Also, lifestyle inflation gets a bad rap, but it’s why lots of us want to get rich in the first place. We want to be comfortable enough to not worry about a little inflation — things like a good insurance plan increasing by ten bucks a month. Lifestyle inflation isn’t just about having fun on yachts, it’s also about not fretting so much over inflation itself.

But I’m not quite there yet. I still have ambitious savings goals; I still have reasons for wanting to maintain my budget. And sure, I may not be able to help some areas of my life from getting more expensive, but I’ve been working on finding ways to maintain my overall budget. That means cutting back in other areas.

I haven’t been living like a pauper. Over the past year, I’ve deliberately given myself the financial elbowroom to enjoy some things, and that’s great. It falls in line with the Get Rich Slowly philosophy. But, for me, it’s time to bring it back a little bit. Simply put, I’m not ready for lifestyle inflation.

Earning more

Earning more is a necessary part of getting rich slowly; it’s not enough to just save. The formula works best when you earn more and maintain your same lifestyle. But earning more to catch up to a lifestyle that’s already increased feels like doing it backwards.

Just like it’s not enough to save without earning more, I don’t feel like it’s enough to just earn more and not save. Making more money is the obvious way to counteract my lifestyle inflation, but ideally, I’d like to deflate my lifestyle, too.

And there’s another hitch: I don’t have a lot of free time. I’m thankful that I have the option of taking on more work if I want it, but right now, my weekends are more precious, and I’d rather cut back on expenditures than cut back on that free time. So here are a couple of simple ways I’ve cut back to counteract that extra $60 a month.

Saving more

A couple of times now, I’ve started on a load of laundry only to realize I don’t have enough quarters to put them in the dryer. That means hang drying them on my deck. “What are you, a cavewoman?” a friend teased. But hang drying my laundry doesn’t take much more time and effort, and if I do it every time, it’s cheaper to the tune of about $10 a month. It’s a small amount, but it makes me feel a little bit better about that extra $60.

I’m sure at some point, I’ll go back to the luxurious convenience putting my clothes in the dryer. Probably in the wintertime, when it’s cold and I want a pile of something warm to jump into. And then, yes, my lifestyle will once again inflate by ten dollars a month. But at least that’ll be my own doing.

Lifestyle deflation

My main source of entertainment is going out to eat. I don’t know what it is; I just love it. I get more excited about the anticipation of restaurant food than most people do. When the waiter brings my plate, I literally applaud at the table. Yes, I realize dining out isn’t typically frugal, but this is my thing. I don’t go to concerts or the movies much. The large majority of my entertainment budget goes to sushi.

Brian and I typically go out to eat, just the two of us, on Friday nights, and it’s something I look forward to all week long. It celebrates our hard work during the week, and it’s also our date night. But if I want to deflate my lifestyle, this treat is going to have to be tweaked. If I stay home just one Friday night out of the month, I’ll save $30-$40.

Cutting back even just a little bit, I’m able to offset my lifestyle inflation by $50. Thus, my lifestyle has now only inflated by $10 a month. That’s $120 a year — still an increase, but better than $720.

I could probably cut back more, but at some point, it’s about balance. Yes, I want to save up, but I want to enjoy my financial freedom, too. Giving yourself some elbowroom often leads to lifestyle inflation, but I suppose that’s when you have to set a boundary and draw a line. Apparently, mine starts at $60 a month.

“So the point of this article is to air dry your laundry and not eat so much sushi?” Yep, pretty much. But the point is also that little things add up. And that can work just as well in your favor as it can against you.

A premium hike here and rent increase there can fatten your budget quite a bit without you even realizing it. But cutting back, even just a little bit, has the same effect.

GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals.Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate.Find the highest savings interest rate from Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Everbank, and more.

This post is from staff writer Sarah Gilbert.

I told the checker at the grocery co-op where I shop that I didn’t need a receipt. “I don’t want to keep track of how much I’m spending on my garden,” I told him. My modest cart had carrots and apples and popcorn — staples! — and tomato, lettuce, basil and lavender starts. The reason I don’t want to know: I’m worried it won’t pencil out.

If I had to guess, this year I’ve poured $500 in plants, seeds and compost-enriched dirt into my garden. Lots of it won’t yield much this year (every few years, when I have available money, I invest in perennial bushes and trees, like blueberries, apples and currants; this was one of those years), but then again I’ll probably get something like $200 or $300 worth of figs and raspberries alone. Those were planted years ago.

What I’m not so sure about is my vegetable garden. With several heirloom tomato plants producing 10 or 20 pounds of $4-per-pound tomatoes apiece and those very pricey herbs, I’m sure I’ll get a few hundred dollars’ worth of produce. I still am eating tomatoes I canned last year from my garden (and they’re absolutely amazing, very flavorful and pretty to boot). What’s more, I’m less likely to waste things like herbs and lettuce. Instead of buying a whole head or bunch from the farmer’s market, I can pick just what I need for dinner.

Note: I never count my “labor” as part of the cost of a garden. I enjoy working on the garden, even the weeding and the digging, and I think of it as a duty necessary for my health and well-being, like reading a book or taking a long shower or going on a run. If I make decisions which calculate the cost of my work into the equation, I feel like my life is right out of a science-fiction book: I’d be a perfectly efficient producer-consumer — and thoroughly dull.

Because I haven’t ever had the guts to keep track of my inputs — likely because so many of my inputs are wasted or get eaten by birds or transplanted badly and I end up feeling guilty — I don’t know for sure what my outlay is in a regular season, and how much I end up buying at the farmer’s market or the co-op.

Using a CSA

You know about CSAs, right? Community Supported Agriculture: pay up front at the beginning of the season and get a portion of the harvest each week, usually from June through October. They can be a fantastic way to get really high-quality produce that’s raised with organic principles by a local farmer (the holy grail for many of us) for a reasonable, and fixed, cost. Last year I used a CSA, and for about $550, I got everything from rosemary and thyme to tomatoes and plums. Our farmer had a big variety of harvest, so I might be using three pounds of potatoes one week, or a couple of small cantaloupes on another. I got a lot of lettuce.

I love lettuce and salads, but I have a confession to make: I’m terrible at using it. I almost always end up letting half of my planted lettuce go to seed. I get leaves for sandwiches and make about one or two salads per week, for myself; only two of my boys eat salad, and they don’t eat much. I loved getting herbs but I didn’t use them nearly at the rate I was getting them. Parsley was one of the CSA offerings almost every week; and parsley grows as-if-wild in my garden. I could open a parsley CSA all on my own. And I’m not a big tabbouleh-maker. I used it once or twice, as an afterthought.

There were plenty of other mishaps; I never ate any of the kohlrabi, because I was too busy to get creative and use it. One week my share got left in a cooler on my front porch (a borrowed cooler whose owner had forgotten to pick it up) and I didn’t realize until the gorgeous apples were the only thing not slimy and molded. I tried peeling and eating them, but the mold smell had soaked into the flesh.

I never got even half enough fruit; we eat a lot of fruit in my family, and I like to can and make fruit desserts like crumbles and pies. So many weeks I’d buy $30 or $40 in fruit in addition to the CSA delivery. (Our farmer would also let us purchase additional produce, like tomatoes or plums or walnuts, on some weeks, for a very good price, and I took advantage of this several times, too.)

In the end my great bargain, $40 or more of produce each week for about $25 per week cost, ended up not quite penciling out. I did eat a lot of great produce, and I loved my farmers so much I didn’t mind what ended up as a not-great financial arrangement for me.

Tracking my produce

Starting this year (this week!), about the same time most CSAs start doing drop offs, I’m going to track the produce I buy at the farmer’s market and the co-op. There are lots of things I don’t grow (or not very well, or not in sufficient quantity for my family). On Sunday, for instance, I bought:

• $4 in potatoes (I don’t want to dig potatoes until later)
• $3 in spring onions
• $3 in spinach (I forgot to plant any!)
• $2.50 in broccoli (my broccoli always ends up full of aphids)

With apples for my apple-crazed five-year-old, and some strawberries I plan to pick up Wednesday, I’ll probably spend about $25 in produce this week. My big goal this year is not to waste produce that I either buy or pick, and to do as good as job as I can of harvesting most of my ripe produce before the slugs get it.

Vegetable gardens have a variety of hard-to-quantify benefits

I also believe that productive and well-cared-for vegetable gardens have a lot of fringe benefits, from the global feel-good to the practical, like:

• Barter. My fig trees and raspberry trees, as I’ve mentioned, are prolific! I trade figs and raspberries for everything from use of friends’ cars to graphic design to bike maintenance.
• Home value. This is the most practical; especially here in Portland, the value of an established mix of perennials and cared-for vegetable garden space is pretty high. I am going to survey my real estate agent friends, but I’d guess $20,000 or more on the value of a home.
• Convenience. Going out to the garden to pick lettuce for salads or herbs for your marinade, well, that’s my definition of convenience food. Sometimes I am hungry for something sweet and I realize, oh yeah! and reach out and snack on raspberries. I make my own mint tea from the many descendants of the two plants I bought.
• Maintaining health of your ecosystem. My 10-year-old is sometimes a little afraid to walk through my garden because of the thousands of pollinators that are buzzing around. Lack of nutrition is a contributor most scientists who’ve studied bee colony collapse disorder agree upon; growing my variety of vegetables, fruits, herbs and beneficial weeds, like clover and borage and calendula, is a small measure to counter the disastrous trends.
• Well-being, environmental education, sense of self-worth. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: working in the garden feels good and keeps me emotionally and physically healthy. It gives me a literally hands-on method of teaching my kids about biology, the environment, the cycle of the seasons, and how to love good whole foods. It makes me feel that my work is having actual obvious benefits. It just makes me happy.

Do you think you spend too much on your vegetable garden, or do you think, like me, that there is no such thing?

GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals.Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate.Find the highest savings interest rate from Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Everbank, and more.

This reader story is by a longtime GRS reader Sumitha from afineparent.com, a blog founded on the simple belief that “Good Parents Are Made, Not Born.”

Some reader stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success or failure. These stories feature folks with all levels of financial maturity and income. Want to submit your own reader story? Here’s how.

How much would you think it would cost to treat an ant bite?

Yes, an ant bite.

Nope, its not $100. It’s not even $1,000. How about $2,356?

On Easter Sunday, my husband and I got together with a bunch of friends and took the kids for the annual egg hunt at the neighborhood park. As the little ones were scrambling around for the eggs, we parents stood on the sidelines discussing their antics, the weather and the latest gossip. My husband, who is extremely allergic to ant bites, happened to be standing at the edge of an ant hill.

Suddenly, he started to itch all over and then right before our eyes, he began to inflate like a big red balloon. Considering that it was the Easter Sunday, we thought nothing would be open and rushed him to the closest emergency room. After a shot and an hour of observation, they sent him home, hale and healthy, to enjoy the rest of the weekend with our friends.

We thought nothing about it for a few weeks, until the bill arrived. When I opened the bill, I just about needed an emergency room. Since we have a high-deductible insurance plan, the entire portion of the bill was our responsibility!

Once I regained my bearings, I huffed and puffed — railed and ranted. Normally, after letting out the steam, I would have grudgingly paid the bill. But this happened just the month after I’d quit my job, and I was not going to spend a chunk of my savings on an ant bite. I don’t mind paying a doctor for a complicated procedure – they sure do earn their fees. But, this wasn’t brain surgery; it was an ant bite!

I sat on that bill for a couple of days until I calmed down a bit. And then one day after my husband left for work and my daughter was in school, I settled down in a sofa with my phone and the bill.

First, I called the billing phone number. Unfortunately, I ended up talking to a very unsympathetic lady. When I failed miserably to appeal to her sympathy, in frustration, I asked her if she could provide me the hospital’s direct number. She suggested that I talk to someone in their business office instead.

I was feeling quite hopeless already by the time I called the business office. This time, however, I got lucky and ended up talking to an extremely kind and sympathetic lady.

Did you even know that you could bargain down a medical bill?

I didn’t either. Here’s how our conversation went.

Me: <explaining our woe at length>

She: <listening patiently>

Me: So, is there anything you can do to help me out? I just can’t bring myself to pay $2,356 for an ant bite.

She: Well, I have to offer you the same thing that I offer our other customers. Will you be able to pay the bill if I extended the due date on your bill by 30 days?

Me: No, you don’t understand. It’s not that I can’t pay the bill, I just don’t want to. It does not seem right to pay thousands for an ant bite

She: <Still very patient, and talking in a slow conspirator voice> I understand, but I have to offer you the same thing that I offer our other customers. Now, would you be interested in delaying your bill by 30 days?

Me: <Sighing deeply> No.

She: How about if I offered to split it into six equal payments?

Me: <Starting to feel hopeless again> Please try to understand. It’s not that I cannot afford it. On a principle, I cannot bring myself to pay thousands of dollars for an ant bite.

She: <In the same, slow conspirator voice as before> Ma’am, I understand. But, I have to offer you the same thing that I offer our other customers. Now, would it help if we split your bill into no equal payments?

Me: No, thanks.

She: OK. How about if I offered you a 10 percent discount? Would you be able to pay the bill today? That would come up to $2,120.

Me: <Slowly catching on> No, thanks.

She: How about if I took off 20 percent? That would come up to $1,884. Would you be able to pay the bill today?

Me: You are very kind, but no, I still cannot pay that.

She: That is the most I am authorized to offer.

Me: <Sigh. Silence>

She: Do you mind if I put you on hold for a minute? Let me talk to my supervisor and see if there is something more we can do.

Me: Thank you very much! I will hold.

She: <After a short silence> Ma’am, my supervisor said we can offer you a 30 percent discount. That will bring your bill to $1,649.20. Is that something you can pay today?

Me: <Feeling like I’m in an episode of “Deal or No Deal”> Thanks, but I will pass.

She: <It’s easier now. She knows I’m onto the game.> How about 40 percent? That will come to $1,413.60.

Me: No, thanks.

She: I can offer you 50 percent off to bring your balance to $1,178.00. Will you be able to pay that today?

Me: No, thanks.

She: <In a soft voice signaling that the game is over> Ma’am, this really is the best we can offer.

Me: Thanks, I appreciate that you have been so kind. But I really don’t want to pay more than a thousand for an ant bite. Is there anything you can do to bring it to triple digits? Can you speak with your supervisor again?

She: I wish I could, but this is the most our department is allowed to offer. I could offer you 30 days to pay it or let you pay it in six equal payments, but that is as far as we can go.

Me: <Still not ready to give up> No, I don’t need extra time, I just need some more reduction in the bill. Put yourself in my spot: Would you be willing to pay $1,000-plus for an ant bite?

She: <In a very kind and gentle voice> I completely understand. But please understand that this is really the best we can do. There may be other means you could pursue…

Me: <I suspect she meant that I let it go to collections. I let out a deep sigh.> OK, thanks. Let me go ahead and take care of it then.

So, I ended up paying $1,178. It’s a lot more than what I would have liked to pay, but also a lot less than what I would have paid had I not picked up the phone and negotiated!

The adjusted medical bill - click to enlarge

Lessons learned from this experience:

1. Don’t rush to the emergency room if you can avoid it. I learned later that going to an urgent care facility, which is usually open on weekends, might have resulted in a much lower bill.
2. Medical bills are negotiable. Don’t just pay the bill if you feel that the services rendered do not justify it. Call up the billing number and ask to be connected to the business office and see if they can help you reduce the bill.
3. Be kind to the representative on the phone. I’ve recently been reading a lot of Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill’s books and so, I decided to let myself calm down before making the phone call and venting out my frustration. I suspect this helped persuade the lady on the other end to show me (despite my slowness in catching on!) that it’s possible to negotiate a medical bill.

How about you? What’s the worst medical bill you’ve had to pay? Did you try negotiating it down?

Newish GRS reader Jennifer is beginning her financial journey, and she shared her strategy so far.

So here I am, mid-30s, buried in an obscene amount of credit card debt, and very little to show for it other than my piles and piles of STUFF. Man, I love me some stuff.

I’ve lived in denial for years… “Yes, I have a lot of credit card debt, but so long as I can pay my bills each month, I’m doing OK. I’ll just worry about paying off the debt later… when I’m making more money.”

Well, later is here, and I’ve finally faced the fact that my debt shackles are the only things keeping me from living the life I want… one where I can afford to take time off work to travel (without going further into debt), or perhaps taking a lower-paying job in a field that I’m truly passionate about, or opening that little cheese shop of my dreams. It’s time to get SERIOUS.

So I’ve done the usual things — consolidated my debt between one interest-free credit card and one low-interest loan, both with aggressive payoff schedules, and automatic payments coming out of my account each month — yadda yadda yadda. I hope to be out of debt in two years.

Now comes the hard part (the fun part?): the lifestyle changes. Like I said, I’ve got a lot of stuff. (I’m not talking “hoarder” levels of stuff, just more stuff than any one person reasonably needs to live a satisfying life). Here’s the thing about having a lot of stuff: you have to find places to put it. And as your collection of stuff grows, that gets harder and harder. And then stuff gets buried in closets and drawers – wherever you can find space. And then it’s out of sight, out of mind. So you forget you have it (or can’t find it), so you buy more stuff! It’s a vicious cycle.

Step 1 – Time to downsize.

I set a goal of reducing my stuff by a third. Now, I didn’t put all my stuff on a scale, so I can’t say for sure that I’ve actually accomplished this, but I did fill my living room with massive piles of stuff that all went the way of Goodwill, consignment, Craigslist, Freecycle, recycling, and trash. The clutter is gone, things are organized, and I can finally see what I’ve really got. (How did I end up with five nail clippers?)

Step 2 – Use the stuff I’ve got!

This is a fantastically easy way to cut back on spending. The downsizing effort led to a lot of “I totally forgot I had this! I can definitely make use of one of these!” type discoveries. I found a 2-quart pitcher buried in a box that probably hasn’t been unpacked in at least three moves. So now, instead of buying juice at $3.29 a pop, I buy a zero-calorie powdered lemonade mix for $2.39 and mix it up at home – 10-plus quarts for less than the price of one. I love collecting cloth napkins of all different prints and colors when I find them on sale… but then I never use them! That’s about to change. The last package of paper napkins I purchased is about to run out, and when it does, I’m switching to cloth napkins. (Added bonus – less waste!)

Step 3 – Consume the consumables.

This could really be a subset of Step 2, but in my case, it deserves to be called out in its own step. Seems like a no-brainer, but I’ve realized that I need to make a conscious effort in this area.

• Food.

I love buying food. In fact, grocery visits make up the bulk of my compulsive spending. I buy neat ingredients that I think might be fun to use, and then they languish on the shelf… or worse, they go bad before I get around to eating them and they get tossed. I’ve pulled everything out of the dark corners of my pantry and cabinets and set it all on the counter – and it’s going to stay there until it gets consumed. No buying anything outside of the meat-cheese-veggie basics until I get through what I’ve already got.

• Beauty products.

I’ve probably got six bottles of half-used lotions, and I’m not buying another bottle until they are all gone. I’ve got at least a dozen different hair products that I’ve used once or twice, and more make-up than I’ll ever get around to using… and here’s the kicker – I almost never wear makeup or put product in my hair! Which brings me to Step 4…

Step 4 – Be mindful of what I actually use.

Yes, my hair is often flat and listless, so when I come across some magical new product that’s going to fill my hair with body and bounce, I just have to have it. But then I try it out a few times, give up, and it sits on the shelf collecting dust. I don’t need to spend any more money on hair products. Sure that new lotion smells pretty, or promises to leave my skin looking young and fresh, but I know that I have one lotion that I love, and it’s really all I need. So now, when I’m in the store, considering buying some shiny new object of desire, I ask myself, “Do I need this? No. Will I wear/use/eat this? Probably not. Can I live without it? Most definitely.”

This effort is definitely a work in progress. I’m only about a month in on seriously adopting these lifestyle changes, but so far it’s been a pretty fun challenge! I’m definitely not missing anything, and it’s exciting when I come up with a new small change I can easily make that will save me money in the long run. I look forward to adding more steps.

So, Readers, what are your steps for simple lifestyle changes that save you money?