Saving Money With a 'Fun Fund'

Saving money for the future doesn't have to be so serious, and it's not always done for such high-minded goals like retirement or paying for a child's college education.

When my husband, Earl, and I got married, it was the second time around for us. So when we joined households, we had a hodge-podge of furniture that clashed and which, frankly, looked like something out of a badly furnished dorm room. There was steel mixed with wood. His old yellow leather sofa and my glass tables. It was an architectural mess.

I don't remember just what caused our awakening of how frightfully uncoordinated our furnishings were. But I do recall the two of us, almost simultaneouly, having an epiphany that something (OK, everything) needed to change. The house needed to look like grown-ups -- adults who had at least two cents worth of style and taste -- lived there.

But we didn't rush out to the nearest store and buy everything at once, or engage in impulse shopping. Instead, we shopped for just the right items, planned our purchases in order to continue saving money, and made fun out of the process.