March 15th,the very first day of my vacation, I ended a very nice day, at the Stock Show in Houston, TX., by walking back to the hotel, in the dark, and "discovered" that the parking lot had an unexpected dip!
I wasn't paying attention, and fell on my right knee. It is fractured, and is a pain in more ways than one! Extra expense, co-pays, and not being able to do everything I want to do, is the worst of it.
On the savings, front, I added $272.79 cents to my ING account. Most of that was money budgeted for the vacation and not spent.

It is really difficult to stay motivated to save when savings interest rates keep going down, my IRA has taken a severe beating since October, and prices of food, gas, utilities, etc. are going up.
ING rates dropped to 3.10 per cent and the old savings account is not making a lot of progress now.

How do you keep your focus when it all seems to be going downhill?

I don't think I will ever purchase a book at full retail price again.
My town has a new very large, very nice Goodwill store, with a large, well organized book section. They even have free coffee and cookies, and tables in the book area, to sit and browse.
Yesterday, I got four paperbacks, all current and best sellers. The retail price on the books was over $62.00 but my cost was under $3.00 for all four books!
Reading is entertainment for me, and I either pass the books on to friends and family, or take them to a used book store for credit toward more books. It is a win-win situation.
I used to think buying books at Sam's was frugal. Not any more!