The Frugal Living Meme

NIUicepricess from Life and Debt in Chicago has just tagged me for the Frugal Living Meme. My first tag ever! This gal is moving up in the PF blogging world! :)

The meme is to write a post about one thing you do well, and one thing you do poorly with respect to saving and spending money.

What I do well: I’m super organized when it comes to managing my money, and making sure everything gets paid on time. Quicken has become my best friend for the past year, and I’ve also developed Excel spreadsheets to track my daily mutual fund growth, grocery expenses, and gas consumption. I basically know where every single penny of my money goes.

What I don’t do so well: I like high quality things. When I buy something, I end up buying the more expensive one, or the trusted name brand item, because I feel like it’ll last longer. It’ll be like an investment. That goes for everything – clothes, shoes, appliances, make-up, dishes, food, flowers, electronics, etc. Everything. I got this habit from my mom, and I’m trying to control it. Sometimes it’s good to buy the more expensive item if the quality is there, but I need to learn how to scrimp, and buy the less expensive thing more often than not.

So now I’m going to tag:
Matt’s Money Blog
Well-Heeled: twentysomething life & money
(although I don’t know if either of those two read my blog on a regular basis … the only 2 that are regular visitors here have already been tagged!)

Meme Rules:

• Write a blog post based on this meme’s theme. See above.
• At the top of your post please link to this post and mention that you are participating in the Frugal Living meme.
• Feel free to add a comment.
• Also, please link back to the person that tagged you for this meme, if anyone did, in order to return the favor of their tag link to you. It’s not necessary to be tagged in order to participate.
• Tag some other bloggers to get them to write about their own spending habits. It’s certainly okay to participate even if you are new at blogging and are not yet comfortable tagging anyone. I think just about everyone has good and bad monetary habits, so this meme should not be limited to only frugality bloggers.