A unique talent!

Todays blog challenge topic is to "educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at."

 I would have to say that something I am very good at is a skill I like to call "magical money thinking".  This is a tricky skill to learn.  It involves making spending money look like you are saving money.  I am not talking about collecting coupons and shopping on triple coupon value day - that really is saving money. This is altogether different (as my husband will quickly tell you). Not only do you have to make it look like you are not really spending, but you have to believe it.  Kind of like clapping for Tinkerbelle if you believe in fairies - if you are old enough to remember watching the old Peter Pan movie.  One of the ways I accomplish this is to buy something and then return it.  Let's say I buy a sweater for 40.00 on Tuesday.  On Thursday I return the sweater and buy 3 shirts for 20.00 dollars each.  I have only spent 20 dollars!  What a deal for 3 shirts!  Now I can afford to buy those expensive jeans!  After all they are marked down 30% - I can't afford NOT to buy them!  Another way to make money magic is to simply move the decimal point over one place to right in your checkbook.  Look!  You thought you had 150.00 but now you have 1500.00!  This is very helpful for writing the checks to pay the bills.  I tried this once - purely by accident.  It is so exciting to discover that you have a thousand more dollars than you thought!  At least it is exciting until you start hearing that BOING BOING of checks bouncing around all over the place.  That is actually my least favorite method although you do get the biggest pay off temporarily. You also get the biggest headache from it.  If you like to eat out with friends there is a very simple way to make magic money.  Put the whole meal on one check, and then offer to pay for it with your credit card, and have your friends give you the cash for their shares.  You will literally walk out of the restaurant with more cash than you walked in with an hour or two ago! Don't try this too often though, it can catch up with you eventually when that pesky credit card bill comes. So my favorite money magic is when I find free money.  Wow, a 20 dollar bill in the pocket of my jacket from last winter!  FREE MONEY!!!  My husband tries to convince me it really is money that was missing, but FOUND money doesn't feel the same as MISSING money - which is a very unpleasant feeling.  Currently I have a new favorite magic money income.  Did you know that the grocery store will pay you to return glass milk bottles? They don't even have to have anything in them - they will give you money for EMPTY bottles!  They are so nice, they just hand over 1.50 per bottle!  And I had to buy milk anyway!  You can try to tell me that the deposit money was added to the actual price of the milk, but it just doesn't feel that way.  And this summer with 2 of my kids coming home for the summer we will go through a lot of milk.  I will be loaded!  Anyone want to come to the mall with me?  I have 2 dresses to return and 3 empty milk bottles!