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Wellness Wednesday for April 29, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

Jump in the discussion.

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After all the medical expenses and surprise home repairs have settled, spending is $1,039.65 higher than it was at the same point last year.

It's a little frustrating. I've cut my discretionary spending pretty deeply, and I can't seem to get ahead compared to last year.

  • I've significantly cut down on eating out.
  • No major entertainment purchases (eg: I don't need a new speaker cabinet)
  • Groceries are basically just Aldi and Sam's club now.
  • I'm traveling less overall.

Unfortunately:

  • I've had a few big "block" expenses in the form of medical bills and home repairs.
  • The traveling I am doing tends to be long distance, and gas prices are high right now.

I guess all I can really do for now is keep it up and hope I don't get any more big surprises this year, so my attempts at frugality overtake those expenses.