spending Archives - Our Bill Pickle

Three benefits of practicing delayed gratification

March 9, 2021

Practicing delayed gratification is not always easy but it can be worth it. Here are three benefits to practicing delayed gratification.

I wish I could say delayed gratification comes naturally to me but it doesn’t.

I say this as a self-identified saver — someone who likes to stash away my cash, watch my account grow and ponder all the options before making purchases, big or small.

While I can’t say I’ve never made an impulse purchase, generally speaking, I’m mindful about how I spend my money.

Even so, waiting to make purchases, especially ones I’m excited for, is challenging.

However, I have learned over the years delayed gratification, while not always enjoyable, has its benefits.

The super simple way I track our spending

February 16, 2021

Our spending tracker is so simple I hesitate to call it a spending tracker. Here's how I'm tracking our spending using Google Sheets.

Our spending tracker is so simple I hesitate to even call it a spending tracker.

There’s nothing fancy about it. In fact, I went out of my way to make sure it was the opposite of fancy.

What can I say? I like my budgeting tools to be functional above all else.

And this spending tracker is definitely functional.

Here’s why I decided to start tracking our spending, what our spending tracker looks like (and why we went with Google Sheets) and how it’s been working for us over the last few months.

5 things I don’t spend money on (and 5 things I splurge for)

November 12, 2020

Part of controlling your finances is knowing how you spend your money. Here are 5 things I don't spend money on (and 5 things I splurge on).

It’s safe to say the way I spend my money has changed a lot over the years.

Working at the grocery store in high school, I didn’t think too much about how I spent my pay cheque. I saved some money, sure, but for the most part, I purchased whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.

Thankfully, as an adult, I am a lot more conscious about what I purchase — and, perhaps just as significantly, what I don’t spend money on.

In this post, I’m sharing five of the things I don’t spend money on — and five things I splurge for.

My favourite affordable curly hair products

June 16, 2020

Finding affordable curly hair products in Atlantic Canada has not always been an easy task.

In June 2018, I shared this post about my hair routine and the cost of embracing my natural hair.

At that time, I had been working on my curls for about a year after a lifetime of struggling against them. What worked for me: DevaCurl. For the first time in my life, my hair was, for the most part, behaving.

Fast-forward to 2019-2020. There has been a great deal of controversy about DevaCurl. While I have not been affected, the whole situation did get me thinking: what would I do if I started having trouble with DevaCurl? Or if the products disappeared from the shelves?

That started me on the path of doing something scary: trying new products.

That might sound silly but after years of searching for products that work, the idea of messing up a good thing didn’t sound appealing. Still, I knew I wanted to have more options.

More specifically, I wanted more affordable options.

So I set out to try some new products. Here’s a look at some of the products I’ve tried.

Why we went back to credit cards (without adding more debt)

February 12, 2019

(Editor’s Note: This post is part one of a three-part series about credit cards. Given the topic of these posts, I want to offer a disclaimer: I am not a financial expert. I am simply sharing what has worked with us. If you’re looking for actual advice on credit cards – or anything financial – I recommend speaking to an expert. Personal finance is personal, meaning what works for us might not work for you. Now, on to the post)

We use credit cards all the time.

There. Now you know.

Not that it was a secret. If you’ve been following along for a while, you know I don’t think credit cards are evil.

On the contrary: I have had a credit card for 10 years now and I have used it, regularly, for all of those years (I wrote about it here).

I have never accumulated large balances due to reckless spending. And I have never paid a cent of interest on a credit card.

Still, when we started our debt-free journey, one of the first changes I made was to shift to a cash budget. This is a popular piece of advice for those beginning the journey and there’s a reason for it: it’s a good idea! It’s especially good if you are struggling with credit card debt – ditching the cards means you don’t add any more to your outstanding balance. A cash budget is a great idea for most people working to pay off their debt.

But while we certainly saw some benefits, a year later, we’re back to swiping cards.

Here’s why.