Save on Gas

For those who shop at Krogers and have a Kroger card, it is a good way to save on gas. Anytime you enter your phone number at the pump, it will recognize you as a Kroger card customer and will give you three cents off the price of gas. If you spend $100 in groceries during a particular month, you get ten cents off instead! I have spent over $100 at Kroger's this month, and just filled up my tank. I got $3.05 cents a gallon rather than the $3.15 posted price. Nice!

Change Jar

One more small step to better money management--I am starting a change jar! I have had one before and did quite well, but had to cash it in. Of course I needed the money, and that was OK. But I didn't start up another one until now. I can use the extra savings. I will "cash in" the change every so often and deposit the money into my credit union savings account. Hopefully I won't need to withdraw it for quite a while and can let it grow. But I might need to tap into while I am studying for the bar exam, and that will be OK. I just don't want to wait another couple of years to save my change again.

Financial Mistakes Pass in Front of My Eyes

There is nothing like having to stare down your mistakes. Seeing them in black and white. Your financial mistakes laid out in a row for you to see how you messed up year after year. And all the money you wasted. That is what happened to me tonight. I have to fill out a bar application, which includes filling out financial information from the beginning of time. I haven't pulled a credit report yet (shudder). I am sure it is slow. But going through some old papers, I found some old credit reports that will help me reconstruct my past. Looking at them made me just shake my head.

I am really dreading filling this out. My one saving grace is that I have never declared bankruptcy, and I have always paid off my bills. Even if it has been slow. I always make payment arrangements. I am not worried about my dedication to paying off my bills. I am worried about how bad this looks to someone else. One good thing is that by seeing this right in front of my eyes, it reinforces that enough is enough.