4 habits that helped me stop stressing about money

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• Author Erin Lowry lived on 23,000 a year and pinched pennies to avoid debt. 
• In order to scrape by and get her financial life together, she used a few tricks anyone can adopt. 
• Find the budgeting approach that works best for you, negotiate for more pay, and say no to the things you don't want to spend money on. 

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Standing in front of my open fridge one summer night in 2011, I considered my meal options: leftover pizza scavenged from my job working for a late-night TV show or a post-sell-by-date panini I pardoned from its dumpster fate while working at my second job as a barista. After soaking up a few minutes of refrigerated coolness, I picked the tomato, mozzarella and pesto sandwich, and popped it into the toaster oven. 

This was a pretty common scene from my early 20s. I was scraping by on just $23,000 a year—but was still determined to avoid debt and even tuck a little money into savings: I pillaged leftovers to reduce my grocery bill, refused to use an AC unit (no matter how hot) to keep my electric bill low and ushered at Off-Broadway shows to keep my entertainment costs close to zero.See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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See Also:

• I did a 30-day 'no-spending' challenge and it completely changed how I think about money
• These money decisions you make in your 20s and 30s could make or break your future
• I make $500,000 a year — and I have 4 sugar babies

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