Sometimes my credit card bill makes me want to bury my head in the sand. So many things happen at once and the next thing I know I’m staring down the barrel of a few grand on my card and BAM. I can understand how people want to curl up and give up.

On the plus side, I’m clearly financially stable enough these days to sigh and pay off that balance. And a little empathy for those who can’t never hurts, but I have noticed that the series of baby-steps I’ve taken over the last five years actually do still help minimize the damage, even when I’m over spending.

I Still Look for the Best Deals

I’m super excited to knock traveling with the best friends off my 2018 goal list. We definitely picked an expensive place to go though – Iceland. While it hasn’t been a 100% budget friendly trip (because yay for making money in your 30s), we did do some price shopping to find the best deal for what we wanted to do in the sphere of convenience we wanted.

This meant price comparing several tours, looking for alternative housing options like AirBnBs and opting to fly a budget airline. It meant using super easy things like eBates and Honey when checking out to make sure we got any rebates and coupons without any extra fuss.

I Concentrate on Frugal, But Not Cheap

Iceland has some weird weather and if you ever check out a summer packing list, it pretty much says to bring everything you’ve ever owned and you’re probably still going to be wet and cold.

Well, being wet and cold was also a problem I had at work last year and a good pair of warm, waterproof boots, a better rain jacket, thermal leggings and some rain pants were all on my to-buy list for this summer.

Part of the reason why my credit card statement really made me want to wince was buying those three items, but they’re all from highly reviewed companies and I know I’ll pretty much live in them this winter at work.

There were definitely cheaper options for each of those things online. I know, I bought quite a few of them over the last year – a Columbia rain coat that does absolutely nothing to keep the rain out, cheap warm leggings that are wildly uncomfortable, cheap leggings that looked like they were warm but weren’t, two different pairs of boots that weren’t warm or waterproof enough. All of these were definitely d’oh money moments.

I Don’t Spend More Than Is In My Checking Account

I very rarely budget anymore. My primary financial technique is to set savings and investing goals for the year and then just don’t spend more than is in my checking account.

I don’t highly recommend this method to start out with. I did have a budget for a while. When I’m paying things like rent and utilities and other monthly bills, I usually have something like a budget.

So even when I sigh looking at a credit card statement and I know I’m not going to get any further ahead on my savings and investing goals this month, I can still pay it off with one click.

How have you noticed “going overboard” has changed along your financial journey?