I love my savings account. I love knowing that I’m earning money on my money. I especially love it because I know that I’m earning more than anyone else is.

Still, there comes a point where it’s just not worth it to micro-manage your finances and throw every last dollar in the account with the hopes of making a little bit of extra interest.

There are four reasons why it’s just not worth it:

• The Stress Factor
• The Low Reward Factor
• The High Risk Factor
• The Time Factor

Let me explain:

I usually leave about $200-$300 in each of my checking accounts (Bank of America and ING) and put everything else on my credit card. I don’t use cash all that often so I rarely have to worry about running low.

Well, rarely isn’t always, and last week I ran into a problem. After transferring a large majority of my paycheck into savings, my roommate reminded him that I owed him for groceries (we switch off, and it adds up for about a $150 transfer each time). No problem, right? Well…as it turns out, I also had a $100 automatic transfer coming out of that same account to pay off my student loan. To make it worse, this all happened on a Friday and two business days to transfer more money in from my other checking account wouldn’t happen until Tuesday so I was stuck.

I had a few choices: I could just suck up a $35 overdraft fee, then try and get it reversed. When I get within $50-$100 every month, I’m probably cutting it too close. This is a case of The High Risk Factor.

I could withdraw money from the ING ATM and deposit in my Bank of America ATM, which would post immediately an save me. Sounds like an obvious choice, even if it is a little time consuming. This is a perfect example of The Stress Factor.

Anyway, I headed to the CVS which has the ING ATM, and it was out of service. No problem, they must have another one somewhere. I whipped out my free iPhone, plugged in my location and up popped another ATM about 15 minutes away. I got there but that one was ALSO out of service. What gives ING? Ah, the frustration. Plus, I had just spent 25 minutes to find out that two ATMs weren’t working. This is clearly The Time Factor.

The next closest one was REALLY out of the way, so I headed home a bit disappointed. I stopped by the Bank of America ATM, deposited the $20 I had in my wallet and saw that I was $6 in the red. Don’t forget that I did all of this because I wanted to keep an extra $100 in my savings account! That $100 would make me only $2 per year, or less than 20 cents per month! That’s not exactly going to get me rich any time soon. It actually isn’t even enough money for me to spend even a minute thinking about! Yes readers, this is The Low Reward Factor.

When I got home, my roommate was waiting for me and had some unimportant news for me: “Oh, by the way, you transferred me too much, I’m sending you $12 back right now.”

So in the end, I didn’t go over and I wasn’t charged, but I did waste about 40 minutes walking around D.C. searching for an ING ATM and aged about 15 years while worrying about a $35 fee. I wanted to save a very little bit of money so I risked a whole lot more. I think it’s time to take a step back and relax a little bit.

Readers, have you ever been so intent on saving money that you forgot to take a look at the big picture?

There are 2 ways to have extra money for the things you want or need – make more money or spend less. The first one? Not so easy. But spending less money may be easier than you think. Three years ago, we made the very difficult decision to start our middle child at a private school. For a variety of medical and education reasons, it’s necessary for her. Two years later, we moved our oldest to the Montessori school as well. Since making those decisions, our income has actually gone down – twice!

Yet, we’ve found room in our budget for the panic inducing tuition costs we were committed to.

It starts with taking a line by line look at where your money is going. If you’ve never calculated every, single penny that comes out of your checkbook, you’re likely way overspending in surprising areas. A detailed look at our finances showed we were spending close to $100 per month on fast food. That’s $1,200 each year at McDonald’s! Not only is this type of diet unhealthy for your wallet, it’s not good nutrition either. Seeing that number in black & white made it much easier to forgo the drive thru.

Once you know where your money is being spent, it’s time to figure out how to lower the amounts. Discretionary spending is highly subjective. Most people don’t see cable television as expendable, yet we live happily without it every day. I will, however, touch on a few flexible categories and provide specific examples for reducing expenses.

Food: Yes, food is not an option. At all. But, take a closer look at the type of food you’re buying. Do you spend a lot of money dining out when you could cook for less at home? Do you end up in the drive thru or ordering pizza when you haven’t planned your meals? Is your grocery cart full of expensive convenience foods or overpriced junk? Careful planning, and a strict budget, can cut your food expenses in half rather quickly.

Entertainment: I’m not about to tell you to give up fun just to save a few bucks! There’s always room in the budget for free entertainment. If you’re going out every weekend or spending money on books, movies and games, you’ll be able to free up plenty of money by visiting your local library. Check with your area parks for free activities & events as well. Coffee shops & bookstores often host free music, poetry readings or open mic nights that make for an interesting evening.

Clothing: Yes, another necessity, but think about how you are spending your money on clothes. Consider thrift store shopping, hand me downs or repurposing items to expand your wardrobe. If you must buy new, signup with your favorite stores for their newsletters & mailings, which often come with coupons. Buying clothes, shoes & accessories online can also save a good bit of money. You can even try things on in a store first, to be sure of your fit & style.

You can truly find ways to save money on just about everything – including absolutely necessary utilities. It just takes a little advanced planning, research and creativity. Track your expenses for a month or so, then dig deep to see where you can start to lower your budget. You may be surprised at how much extra money you can find to pay off debt, take a vacation or save for retirement!

Heather Sokol is sweating the big stuff for 3 beautiful, active girls. She helps people lower their budget, without lowering their standards at Inexpensively.com.

Yesterday I announced that I was getting an iPhone, but I didn’t simply decide to get one, walk into the AT&T store and sign up. I was much more involved and I did a lot of research before finally pulling the trigger.

As we know, the cost of the iPhone was $200 and the monthly service is $30 i addition to the service I already have.

I already had some of the iPhone features like tracking my Nike+ runs and the ability to make calls. I bought a Nike+ sportband last summer that broke recently, but since the damage was caused by sweat getting into the display (a common problem) Nike replaced my sportband with a new version for free. Sweet, right? Well, it gets better.

Nike not only replaced my sportband, but they sent me an extra sensor. Well, that’s perfect because the iPhone only needs a censor to track my runs. So I was left with a brand new sportband and censor. I decided to sell it and see how much I could get for it. Well, I was able to snag a cool $40 for it, which I’m very happy about.

$40 down, $160 to go.

Next, since I was having trouble with my phone, AT&T sent me a brand new replacement phone for free. Well, I didn’t need that, so I put it up on craigslist and sold it for $125. Nice!

$165 down, $35 to go.

Finally, since I was having such terrible problems with my AT&T phones (one broke and then the replacement broke two days later!) that the customer service department gave me $105 off my bill to compensate for my inability to make calls or send text messages for about a week. Amazing, right?

$270 down, -$70 to go.

So what does that extra $70 go toward? My first two months of iPhone service!

By being resourceful, I was able to subsidize my iPhone purchase by selling unneeded products (that I got a TON of use out of) for over $250!