I was asked to do the following interview by a frugal blogger hoping to compile a bunch of responses for an article on Time.com.  While Time picked up the original story where the interviewer talked to 19 frugal bloggers, the hope is to now expand that to 100 bloggers and get a little more press.  Here are my responses to a few questions about being frugal in everyday life.

1) What’s your “frugality story?” In other words, how and why did you become frugal?

I’m pretty sure I’ve always been frugal.  I always lived a frugal lifestyle growing up and don’t remember a time when my parents weren’t using coupons to shop at the grocery store or when we weren’t shopping off the sale racks.  Not because we had to, per say, but the thinking was more along the lines of “why pay full price when you can get the same item for less money?”  While that was really annoying as a kid, I have that same mentality now that I’m older.  It’s kind of a pain to clip coupons every week, but I enjoy the end result when I save 40% on my grocery bill.  I still don’t look at the full-price racks at the store.  On the rare occasion that something catches my eye I go home and search for ways to buy the same item using cash back shopping sites, internet discounts or eBay.

2) What, if anything, tempts you to overspend, and how do you resist?

Right now the one item tempting me to overspend is an iPad. Prior to the release of the iPad the item that successfully tempted me to overspend was a MacBook.  Clearly I am a Mac girl and go a little crazy when they release new products.  Luckily I was able to figure out a way to get my MacBook cheaper than full price and I’m going to wait a few months to splurge on an iPad and hopefully find similar ways to cut the costs a little bit.  Some of the best resources for “big” purchases like this are cash back shopping sites such as ebates, Mr. Rebates, or Shop at Home.  I go through each site methodically and try to figure out which site is going to not only offer me the best coupons, but also give me the largest amount of money back.  I don’t think it’s always necessary to resist spending, but I do think it’s important to do a little bit of leg work to maximize savings and spend wisely.

3) What personal finance or frugality habits were the hardest for you to adopt and why?

I started FantabulouslyFrugal.com because I have a fierce love of bargain shopping and wanted to share that with others.  However, starting the site also caused me to take a good look at myself and my own spending habits.  While I was saving a good amount of money on the items I was buying, I was still buying too much, meaning I wasn’t actually being frugal at all.  One of my favorite personal finance websites is Fabulously Broke in the City and the author of that site had developed her own budgeting/ finance tracking software using Excel.  I purchased that program and immediately realized where I was spending too much money.  In short, day-to-day purchases were killing my savings and my wallet.  Silly things like stopping by McDonald’s for a “cheap” lunch or picking up a Starbucks on the way to work really add up quickly.  I’ve since made a concerted effort to cut those little non-necessities out of my life so I can start saving a little more money but also purchase things I really want and/or need.  I try to not spend any money during the week except on fresh food.  Some weeks are more successful than others, but I’m getting there!

4) Have you ever taken frugality too far? How so?

I don’t think so.  I’ve always been an “everything in moderation” kind of gal, so while I’d like to think that I’m living a more frugal lifestyle these days, I haven’t really changed my life too much to do so.

5) What resources (blogs, books, websites) would you recommend to someone who’s newly frugal?

There are so many frugal resources out there!  I have a couple that I check out every day.  First, Bargain Briana provides a great rundown of ways to save money at various drug and grocery stores. I Will Teach You to be Rich is a fantastic personal finance site for young people, along with Fabulously Broke in the City.  I love cash back shopping sites like the ones mentioned above and over the past year and a half online sample sale sites such as Gilt, Ideeli, or Rue La La have made it so simple to save a large amount of money on designer retail items.  Finally, the number one site I recommend for browsing or for shopping is Craigslist.  I know that sounds a little funny, but I can’t tell you how many inexpensive and free bargains I’ve found on that site!  Heck, I even found two of my previous roommates on Craigslist.  It is really one stop shopping for everything cheap!

Click here to view the original article from which this interview is based: 42 Money Lessons from 19 Very Frugal Bloggers!

Click here to see the original Time.com article Cheapskate Wisdom from … Lots of Cheapskates