When I started getting serious about frugal living, my husband dredged up one piece of juicy financial advice he recalled from his grad school days: Use half of what you normally would. He was talking about consumable goods like shampoo and dish soap. The idea is to reduce by half the amount of these things you use by doling out smaller portions. Normally use a quarter-size dollop of shampoo? Try cutting back to a dime.

There's no need to stop at half, actually. You can keep scaling back your usage gradually until you hit a point where you actually don't have enough, and then creep back up to the last place it felt good. Maybe that dime-size drop of shampoo isn't enough for your hair, but a nickel-size portion gets the job done nicely.

This approach works. I bought a large container of dish soap at Costco in March of 2009 and have not run out yet. This is not for lack of doing dishes: There are five people in my household, and we do all of our cooking from scratch. We make a lot of dirty dishes, and we wash a few sinkfuls a day.

When I struggled with money during the 1990s, I had no clue what I was spending each month. I made my financial decisions based on my checkbook balance: If there were a few bucks left, I'd find ways to spend the money; if my balance was close to zero (as in $10 or $20), I'd turn to my credit cards. Where did this money go? If you'd have asked me, I wouldn't have known.

As part of my financial turnaround, I learned to track my spending. In fact, this was one of the most effective tools in getting me to change my spending habits. Every week, I'd sit down at the computer to enter my receipts into Quicken. Once or twice a month, I'd play with the graphs and reports, keeping an eye on the problem spots. By tracking every penny that I earned and spent, I became more aware of my habits.

But something's happened lately.

Having flexible spending can help reduce your stress because you never know when you're going to get hit by flexible expenses.

A few months ago, my local bank and I had a falling out and my husband and I were suddenly very motivated to switch banks. We'd narrowed it down to two choices:

I've decided to develop a budget.

This probably sounds strange coming from a guy who has been anti-budget all his life. Besides, haven't I paid off all my debt? Don't I have a positive cash-flow of over $1,000 per month? Yes, these things are true. But I've noticed something troubling: I've begun to experience that lifestyle inflation I'm always warning others about.

Lifestyle inflation is the natural tendency to increase our spending as our incomes increase. When we get a raise at work, we're likely to spend more at home. A little lifestyle inflation is fine. But there's a real danger of becoming too comfortable with increased spending. Once we become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, it's difficult to cut back.

I must confess to a new habit: I collect discarded ATM receipts. It all started when I walked by the bank in the building next to Motley Fool Intergalactic Headquarters, and found one such receipt blowing in the wind. I was shocked by how little the person had in her/his bank account, and how much she/he paid to get what cash was available.

To see what I mean, check out the stats on seven receipts I've recently picked up:

What comes to your mind when you look at those numbers? Here's what comes to my mind:

Right before our Thanksgiving trip, the AC went out on our vehicle. $600 later, we had a functioning AC. What a way to start a camping trip.

The good news was that we had the funds set aside for that specific reason—auto repairs. We've never used one of our targeted accounts before, and now that we have, I can attest that they are a fantastic idea.

Obviously the repair would cost the same whether it came from a big account labeled “emergency fund” or a targeted one called “auto repair.” We're out $600 either way, so why bother with separate, targeted accounts?

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It's a big day at Get Rich Slowly HQ. Later this morning, I'll speak with my book editor for the first time. This project is about to devour large chunks of my life. Fortunately, the new Staff Writers will pick up the slack. (Actually, to be fair, I think they'll more than pull their own weight.) Here, then, is the first contribution from Adam Baker, Get Rich Slowly's first-ever Staff Writer!

Receiving a "mini-windfall" of unexpected income is an awesome feeling! However, I have a confession to make. Courtney and I are terrible at handling how we spend these pleasant surprises. More times than not, we find it insanely easy to justify squandering this unexpected money on impulse purchases, even when the rest of our budget is working well.

For the most part, we've slain the "justification" monster in our budgeting life. We've desperately attempted to eliminate the "I deserve this..." mentality. However, when it comes to "mini-windfalls", somehow we seem to always break down.

I've been a full-time professional blogger for more than a year now. It has been a fantastic experience, a sort of dream come true. But blogging for dollars is not without its drawbacks. As I've shared before, I feel socially isolated. I spend most of my time in this office, writing about money.

Also, the income can be irregular. For some bloggers, it is very irregular. One month you might have record earnings — and the next you might experience your own personal financial crisis. Bloggers aren't the only folks who struggle with the fluctuating incomes, of course. Many self-employed people face the same issue, as do those whose pay is tied to commission.

Creating a budget when your income fluctuates can be a frustrating experience. I am sure that each of us finds our own ways to cope. Today, I want to share the method that I've developed. Continue reading...

This article was written by Steve Martile, a life coach and the author of the personal-growth blog Freedom Education. Here he describes a money jar system for budgeting that actually reminds me of Elizabeth Warren's balanced money formula, but with a little more detail.

Managing money doesn't restrict freedom — it creates freedom. Continue reading...

Microsoft Money is no longer available for purchase. Microsoft has essentially conceded that there's no demand for the personal finance software product. From the website:

With banks, brokerage firms and websites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed. After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft is announcing today that we will no longer offer Microsoft Money Plus for purchase after June 30, 2009.

Now that Microsoft has thrown in the towel, where does that leave existing users of Money and Money Plus? Some of them are worried. I've received several e-mails about this recently, including this one from Lee G.: "Microsoft just left us in a lurch by killing Money. Any suggestions on finance software? I'm not really a fan of Quicken, but would entertain it."