I cringe when I remember learning to drive. At fifteen-years-old, I was impatient, full of nervous energy, and so short that I could barely reach the steering wheel. (Which is still kind of a problem, but I digress.)

My parents were backseat driving, of course, instructing me on how to drive the rural, dirt road just outside our neighborhood. “Let off the brake,” they said, and the car began to coast, slowly. Cool, I can handle this, I thought. “Hit the gas,” they said. Chaos ensued.

I swerved into the other lane, and when I yanked the steering wheel to straighten out, the car jerked in the other direction and I almost hit a fence post. My parents shouted. I screamed. All of us were terrified. I felt completely frazzled and out of control. It was like the car had a mind of its own.

There's something to be said for spending more on a quality item. If frugality is about getting the most value out of something, spending more on quality can actually be thrifty. In a recent post, I admitted that I once splurged on a $200 coat. A couple of readers rightfully pointed out that an expensive purchase isn't always a waste of money. If it is a high-quality coat that lasts years, it may be a better purchase than a cheap $50 coat you replace every season.
Still, there is a fine line between buying quality and using quality as a justification to spend more. Here are a few things I consider before I plop down a bunch of money on a so-called quality item.

Can I find it cheaper?

Apologies for sounding like an infomercial, but quality doesn't have to be expensive. Ever found a big discount on something you know you will use often and that will last years? It's a great feeling! Here are a few ways to spend less on quality:

• Look for sales: As Warren Buffett said, "Whether socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down." I agree, and that's why I waited years to buy a Kitchenaid mixer until I found it on sale -- for $160! These days, there are so many browser extensions, tools and apps that let you price-check items and buy when the cost is low.
• Shop secondhand: We have talked about this before, but it can pay to shop used. Thrift stores, yard sales, consignment shops -- I have found some really quality items at places like these. I recently bought a used Armani jacket. It is the warmest and most comfortable thing I own and it goes with everything. I've worn it almost every day since purchasing it. Would I have paid full price for it? No way. But for $20, it was a steal.
• Be patient: Sometimes you have to wait for those markdowns. But holding out for a better price can be worth the wait.

Whenever I have decided to buy a quality, lasting item, I try to see if there is a way to find it cheaper. Usually, there is.<

For the past two years, the topic of women and money has come up in my life quite a bit. I'm guessing it has something to do with the fact that I'm a woman who writes about money.
But as a woman who writes about personal finance, I feel have given the topic less attention than it deserves -- not just in my writing, but in my own thoughts too. I suppose I figured personal finance is something that we all struggle with, not just women. But the more I learn, the more it hits home, and the more I realize we should embrace the topic so we can do something about it.

The Confidence Gap

Last year, when I read Barbara Stanny's "Secrets of Six-Figure Women," I found myself nodding in agreement to just about everything she'd written. Some of her points were an unsettling confirmation of my own career shortcomings -- particularly, her chapter on the "traits of underearners." A few of these traits: We have a high tolerance for low pay; we underestimate our worth; we're terrible negotiators. Check, check and check.

At another site, I recently wrote about a tool that shows you online prices in terms of hours worked. I used a random item -- a fancy coffee maker that costs $116 -- as an example. It would take someone who earned $38 an hour approximately three hours of work to pay for that item. A reader replied that, if they made $38 an hour, they wouldn't waste their time thinking about whether or not the purchase was worth it.

To me, this was a spot-on definition of lifestyle inflation, summed up perfectly in one simple comment.

I get frustrated when people don't understand what it means to be frugal. A few criticisms of frugality I've come across:

• Frugality is a waste of time.
• Frugality distracts you from earning more money.
• Frugal people deny themselves of any enjoyment.

I've already written in detail about how these arguments are silly. They might apply to being cheap, but they don't apply to being frugal.

The Point of Being Frugal

My two favorite splurges are dining out and travel. Over the past few months, I've splurged quite a bit. One night, driving home from dinner with a friend, a little voice in my head said:

Every now and then, I get an email from a fellow writer who's just starting out and wondering where to begin. "How did you do it?" they ask. "How did you make freelance writing your career?"
It's flattering, but what do I say? First of all, I'm still working to reach my own writing goals, so I'm not even sure I'd be the best person to ask. But also, any success that I may have had as a freelancer has at least a little to do with luck. True, it's mostly hard work, but auspicious timing and lucky breaks have also helped my career along the way.

For example, when I started writing for MSN, it wasn't because I worked hard to get their attention and relentlessly pursued their editors. It was also because I had an enormously talented and kind friend who landed a job there, and she happened to be hiring freelancers right as I decided to leave my job to become a freelance writer.
I'm not saying I wouldn't have gotten that gig had I not worked hard. But it also helped that I knew someone whose department was hiring at the right time. As important a role as hard work plays in success, it's also important to acknowledge good fortune. Here's why.

Self-attribution Bias

Disregarding the role of coincidence can make you believe a certain behavior is effective when it really isn't -- or worse, that behavior can actually work against you. Carl Richards of The Behavior Gap called it "lucky fool syndrome."

Despite that I don't own it, I like my apartment. It's got a mountainous view, it's comfortable, and my neighbors are few but friendly. Sure, I'd like to own a home someday. But, unless I move to another city, that probably isn't going to happen in the next few years. I'm fine with that. Like my neighbor said, I'd rather live here than anywhere else, at least for now.

If you sense a wee bit of defensiveness in my tone, you're not imagining it. Part of me is trying to justify something.

After my upstairs neighbor moved out a few months ago, our management company began gutting their apartment. We found out they were completely updating it and tearing down walls to put in central air, a dishwasher and an entirely different floor plan.

A few months before I decided to quit my job and move, I'd made a whole timeline of accomplishments I hoped to reach within the next three to five years. It included a series of backup plans, too, should Plan A not work out (Plan A: become a hugely successful writer, make lots of money, buy a home in Malibu, take many naps). This timeline included mini-goals of what I hoped to accomplish within a month, year, three years, etc. It included a breakdown of expenses. It also included different scenarios. I asked myself: What would it take for me to give up and move back? In short, it was goal oriented and painstakingly meticulous.

Which was fine, but you could read my stress and neurosis all over it. I showed the timeline to a friend of mine, proudly.

It seems like everybody's goal lately is to leave their job and become a freelancer. And that's great! Freelancing gives you flexibility and control -- and, plus, you get to work from home in your yoga pants.

But as someone who has transitioned into that role full-time, there are certain things I do miss about having an employer:

• 401(k) match
• Insurance benefits
• Free coffee
• Office buddies
• Income stability

Last year, I freelanced, but my monthly income was more or less the same -- and, if not, it was easy to predict. This year, as a true freelancer with multiple clients, there are a lot of things that affect my budget (like how long it takes for a client to pay, for example) and they're mostly out of my control.
For the most part, my income doesn't vary too much from month to month. When I was in between work at the beginning of the year, however, it was a different story. Either way, here's how I budget with an irregular income.

It's both fascinating and useful to calculate the value of your time. Financial freedom gives you options and flexibility. But without time, that means nothing. Time is a precious resource that we should spend wisely.
Knowing the value of your time is helpful for a variety of reasons:

• If you're a freelancer, it can help you decide on gigs.
• It can help you decide whether a frugal habit is worth it.
• It might convince you to pay someone to help you with tasks.

There's a pretty standard method for calculating the value of your time. Simply figure out your hourly wage by dividing your income by the number of hours you work. That's easy enough, but there are a few problems with that approach:

• You don't get paid for your free time. You're only paid for the time you spend working. So the better question might be: What is your free time worth?
• You might not enjoy your job. I hated the low-paying job I had during my first year of college, and I didn't want to work any more than I had to. So while I wouldn't give up an hour of my free time to earn an extra $5.75 at that job, I would have spent an hour on some frugal task that saved me $5.75 -- maybe even less.
• It doesn't consider how busy you are. The value of your free time should also depend on how much of it you have available.
• Not all time is valued the same. As a freelancer, when I take a vacation, I lose money. So the value of my time is actually in the negative. And I'm okay with that because, dammit, sometimes you need a vacation. At the same time, I would not wait in line for an hour to save $30 on something because I hate to wait in line.

Because of these reasons, the idea that you're worth a certain amount per hour has always rubbed me the wrong way.
Ever heard that fun fact that Bill Gates is so rich, if he found a $100 bill in the street, it wouldn't be worth his time to pick it up? I've always thought that was silly. First, it takes a quarter of a second to bend over and pick up that bill. Even if he's "on the clock," he's not trading in that time for anything -- he'll be paid whether he picks it up or not. Plus, at this point Bill Gates' income is passive. He earns money in his sleep. So picking up that bill would still be an extra $100 on top of whatever he makes. It'd still be a drop in the bucket to him, but you get the idea.