Kudos to you! Maybe I'm feeling weak-willed because our finances are pretty complicated right now.... One kid in a Catholic ($$) high school, another kid in college, me working part-time, husband out of work, upside-down mortgage, increasing copays for prescription meds that we can't do without, etc etc. I'm always handing the teenager (for example) a couple of bucks so he can grab a muffin in the school caf. in the morning when we've been too rushed to make breakfast at home, although we're working on better planning to avoid these kinds of ad-hoc expenses. Just one tiny example. But you're right. Surely I can make some minor modifications and see where my "petty cash" and Amex charge money is going. Thanks for the encouragement, and keep up the great work!

@ElizabethD: The penny-tracking was what eventually helped me get control of my spending (which wasn't outrageous, but could have gotten there). Luckily, I didn't do it every week (as the article suggests), but every month, which is more bearable. I might have changed my habits if I did it more frequently, but I wouldn't have been able to keep it up for years.

So if you give in to the laziness a bit, you can create a tailored system that works for you.

I gave up on trying to categorize my spending - instead of a million different categories, there's rent+food+utilities, cellphone, student loan payments, savings, and Everything Else. My goal is to get Everything Else as close to 0 as possible - but that's because I'm focusing on debt + savings. But I would have gone crazy if I was trying to keep track of spending on clothes, presents, dr. visits, movies, etc.... it's just Everything Else. So far it's working.

My first steps, I emptied my savings account to $1000 and paid off my car - my single debt.
I withdrew CASH at the beginning of the month and divvied it up into envelopes. Each envelope has a 3x5 card with the amount originally in the envelope on it for me to track my purchases on and balance it all out.

So far, I've figured out I spend WAAAAY too much on food.

The important thing for me and others to realize is that taking control of spending and saving entails work, no two ways about it. There is no passive route, aside from starving to death, to being thrifty. (On those grounds I might quibble with the "quick fix" description.)

@downwithmonstercable: did you know bringing your lunch to work can also save you money? every time is ee that suggested as a money-saving trick, it sounds so fresh and new.

@SwahaCrane: In college, I paid my tuition with my Amazon Visa and then used the student loan check to pay my credit card. I got tons of free amazon gift certificates that way. I really should start paying bills with it. I wonder if I can pay the mortgage with a credit card....

I really like get rich slowly. A lot of the stuff they write seems to be original and not just rehashed stuff we've all heard. If I see another blog entry or top 10 list of how to save money that has "stop going to starbucks" or "switch to generic brands" in it, I'm going to punch my computer screen.

my favorite is number 8: earn extra money.

that is genius!

Automated payment with a CC is cool, I guess, but that's not specified and I doubt any consumerist reader would say automated debit from your accounts is kosher.

Brilliant! ;-)