My husband and I can be rather frugal with our money. This approach has allowed us to save, but also allowed us to take 16-months off work and bike around the world. It means that we have learned to always question when we buy something or spend money. We sometimes catch ourselves spending too much time debating over the cost of something trivial (like spending 45 minutes on the phone with t-mobile to figure out why I was charged $1.33 and getting it credited).

One of the biggest things that has changed since my diagnosis is that I often make decisions that involve spending money based upon ‘the regret test’. What do I mean by that? I mean that I ask myself, ‘will I regret not doing it?‘ If the answer is yes, then I worry a lot less about the cost of the thing.

What is interesting about this, is that often I’m not spending that much more money and sometimes it even ends up being less expensive. I think I’m just lucky when it comes to booking air travel – but also I’ve learned a few tricks like checking online before calling in a booking because the telephone agents always seem to quote $200 more than the online price and when you challenge them on it, they can get you the online ticket price!

So, today I got to use up my credit with Air Canada (I had to cancel a trip when I was initially diagnosed) for a trip to visit my parents during American Thanksgiving. I managed to use up my credit and book my husbands flight with the price on the website, which today is $100 cheaper than it was when I checked two days ago.