After shopping, I would check out my savings and be thrilled when I would save $10-$15 each trip. Our weekly grocery budget was $100, and that was being frugal and optimistic. It was a part of our budget I had worked on shrinking but knew that it was a long shot having a 1 year old and growing famiy. That was 2007..

What I quickly realized, though, was that with the amount of samples available out there today you can practically eliminate having to purchase items completely, and you can certainly avoid wasting money on a product that turns out to not work or not be what you expected.

The architecture was ancient, with one house in the Gothic style next door to the soft rounded arches of a house from the Victorian era. The food was also good, true Italian food, like seafood spaghetti or fresh bass, which they bone for you at the table, and fresh if purchased in the right places. But don’t expect to get anything for free.

For me, buying Tupperware just meant having containers with matching lids every time for all the sizes and things I needed them for. The containers were durable and looked beautiful when shelved neatly for all miscellaneous things.

When you move in with someone, or get married, you’re in such a blissful state of romantic suspension that few people stop to consider the fact that you when you choose to mix your life so closely with someone else’s, you could be asking for trouble.

Here’s the deal, and we all know it: people always give clothes to new parents. So why are we still giving clothes to new parents? Why don’t we face the reality and get them some things that they really need? And hell, some of these things really aren’t that expensive, so here’s my list of things I wish people had given me at the baby shower!

Today’s a big day for me. First big party at the new place, and I don’t know yet how many people are coming. You’re more than welcome to come, but I thought I’d put together a list of some pretty nifty gadgets to make your next party a huge success!

It’s now been a month since my first move. Having gone through the pain of seeing rent disappear from my account for the first time, I’ve taken a step back from my new condo and finally gotten a chance to reminisce of all the things I’d wished I’d known about my first move. Here’s a little list of things I know I regretfully first forgot in my move that I wish I hadn’t!

This chapter in our cheapskate travels takes place in Barcelona, and my sister joined me on this trip. Instead of taking the train, as I did to get to Paris, we flew to Barcelona on Ryan Air. If it weren’t for the volcanic eruption in Iceland, our trip likely would have gone off without a hitch. Natural disasters, however, tend to disrupt travel plans. Fortunately, my sister is a wonderful and entertaining traveling companion, and that’s something you can’t put a price on.

This is the first installment of a European city travel series. By the end of the summer I will have visited a number of different cities all over the continent. For each new urban experience, I will break down the basic costs, examine where I could have saved money, and how. Writing these will not only help me plan better, it will also give you a realistic idea of the cost of traveling Europe on a budget in today’s world. Our first stop is Paris.