Julie Phillips was planning to move into a new apartment when a massive flood in Alberta damaged her would-be building. Suddenly, she found herself displaced.

"The reason I wanted to move is I wanted to save on rent," Julie says. "I wanted to save more, I wanted to live with another person. I wanted that camaraderie."

After searching extensively, Julie grew discouraged.

Kim and I first connected on a wine tour 18 months ago. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that we've continued to build our relationship over glasses of chardonnay and (especially) Champagne. We enjoy wine, and we've had a lot of fun creating a shared wine library.

At the same time, we're frugal people. We're not willing to spend $50 on a bottle of wine. Heck, it hurts to spend $20 on a bottle of wine! No, we'd prefer to spend less than $10 per bottle, if possible — but we still want to drink the good stuff.

A highlight from our European vacation: Tasting wine and cheese in Paris!

It's been three years since I shared strategies for wine-buying. With the holidays approaching, I thought now would be a good time to review my techniques, and to share the things I've learned since I last wrote about the subject. Continue reading...

I wanted to title this post, "Can you be friends with people in decidedly different financial situations than you?" but that wasn't very catchy. (And I know: some of you ARE rich!)

But I was reading the acclaimed recent novel, "The Interestings," with my writer's craft book group (we discuss books based on writing analytics rather than whether characters and stories are likable). The book's main character is just ordinary, with an ordinary job and ordinary talents. But Jules has some extraordinary ("interesting") friends, friends that she met long ago at a summer camp for the arts.

Because Jules hasn't pursued her art as a career, and she probably wouldn't have made a ton of money at it in any case, she often finds herself terribly envious of her friends that have; notably, her friends whose talents have made them a huge financial success. (The male half of the couple seems to be loosely modeled off Matt Groening; his animated series quickly becomes huge and he's rich within months of winning a network deal.)

Are you tired of being broke? It's been a long time since I've been broke, but I can still remember exactly what it felt like. I can picture all the ugly details of the way I used to struggle; the empty bank account, the awkward moments, the feelings of despair.... And honestly, one particularly awkward conversation with my sister still plays clearly in my mind to this day:

"Hey sis, I'm coming into town this weekend," she said innocently. "Maybe we could go grab dinner."

Last year, I was talking with a friend right after she had returned from a relaxing week in the Caribbean. "We did an all-inclusive," she said to me with a glimmer in her eyes. "A what?" I had no idea what she was talking about. After chatting about it for a quite a while, she clued me in on how an all-inclusive vacation works and what some of the perks were. To say I was intrigued would be an epic understatement. According to my friend, she could travel to any all-inclusive vacation spot in the Caribbean or Mexico and have almost everything included in one low price. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; my friend and her husband had paid only $700 per person for an entire week at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun. Not only were their flights and lodging included in her cost, but all of their food and drinks (even alcohol) were included as well. She seemed downright enthusiastic about their experience and went on and on about how amazing the whole thing was. I had to find out more.

To satisfy my curiosity, I started playing around with dates and locations on travel sites like Expedia and Travelocity. What I found out was a complete jolt to my system: all-inclusive vacations were cheap. Dirt cheap. Since I love to travel and hate to spend money, I started to wonder if I should go on an all-inclusive vacation myself. My husband and I had been putting off a honeymoon for nearly seven years at that point, mostly due to being stingy with our cash. Could an all-inclusive vacation provide the answer?

Our First All-Inclusive

Once I showed my husband my research, he quickly got on board. Of course. Why wouldn't he want to travel to a tropical beach and enjoy unlimited food and drinks all day and night? We bounced back and forth between several locations. I initially had my heart set on going to Aruba. However, my enthusiasm waned as the price crept slowly upward with each passing week. Then it was Club Med in Turks and Caicos. Then Jamaica. Then Mexico. We ultimately chose to do our first all-inclusive vacation in the Dominican Republic. When all was said and done, we paid less than $1000 per person including airfare to spend 7 days and 6 nights at an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana.

I tried for years to be a coupon clipper.

Every now and then, I'd decide I was going to save as much money as possible on my groceries, or at least on stuff like toothbrushes and razor blades. I'd gather all the coupon circulars that normally went straight in the garbage, and I'd review the ads and clip the coupons that spoke to me. Sometimes, I'd even organize them into categories or put them in a special envelope marked -- wait for it -- "coupons." Feeling super responsible, I put the envelope in my purse, where I was sure to see it next time I went to the store.

I'm pretty sure I never redeemed a single one. Months after the last one had expired, I'd find my coupon envelope at the bottom of my purse, along with some long-forgotten receipts and a stray Altoid.

I barely brushed the surface of combating food waste in a recent article, but the comments added so much to the article that I thought I could stop at just one. And then I found some more statistics.

In the U.S.:

• We waste 40 percent of edible food
• It costs $750 million just to dispose of the food we waste
• And when you consider the extra costs of packaging, transporting, and storing wasted food, the overall cost of wasting food goes up to $165 billion.

But there's more -- 33 percent of purchased meat is wasted, followed by 25 percent of seafood. Even 15 percent of purchased fruit is wasted. That's not good, especially when you consider that meat is so expensive, not to mention all food. Continue reading...

On April 1st, I got an unpleasant surprise, and it wasn't an April Fools joke or gag. I found out that one of our renters didn't have enough money to pay all of his rent.

Since nothing like this has ever happened before, I was definitely caught off guard. Still, it wasn't the end of the world. Since I pay all of our mortgages ahead of schedule, waiting a few weeks for payment wasn't going to affect my bottom line. And after talking with my tenant, I agreed to accept partial rent on the 1st and the rest of the money on the 17th of April.

I usually wouldn't make such a big exception. However, this particular tenant is a responsible man who treats our property with incredible respect and care, even going as far as fertilizing and edging the lawn. Since he and his wife have lived in my property for four years and never paid late, I was more than willing to break the rules just this once without giving them any grief. No big deal.

This post comes from Lynn Svenson, who blogs at The Photographer's Wife. 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.

One of the biggest impacts to my wallet (and heart) this past year was having a baby. Of course, there are plenty of expenses that go along with being pregnant and having a baby, like numerous visits to the doctor and the enormous amount of diapers. But in particular, I want to share how making the decision to have a stay-at-home parent has affected our wallets and our way of thinking.

We were overjoyed when we found out I was pregnant in the fall of 2011. However, along with that joy came some sadness. After taking a look at our finances, we realized we wouldn't be able to achieve one of our long-time goals of my husband staying home to raise our children. We do have debt, and my salary alone just wouldn't cut it. We ultimately took a big risk when we decided that my husband would stay home and I would bust my butt to get a new, higher-paying job after the baby was born.

A few years ago, a little orange cat showed up on my front porch, and I fed him.

You can probably guess what happened next. Yep, he never left.

But as with any "free" pet, Hans cost a lot of money. This was especially true in the beginning when we had to have him neutered and vaccinated. We also paid for a six-month supply of flea treatment.