Referencing the gas and eating out savings, that's a huge part of it. When you cut those daily costs, the money really adds up over time. It shows that how you work can be just as important as what you earn.

Sometimes those weird tangents open up interesting talks though. I've heard some strange stuff that actually made me look at things differently.

Your dig site confusion seems solved with layer sorting, but I doubt it's always that clear cut. Soil layers can get mixed up over time, making patterns hard to see. @the_thomas mentioned his garage, but a dig site isn't as tidy as old bike parts. Artifacts shift and layers blend, so what seems sorted might still hide bigger issues. I've seen cases where layer sorting gave a false sense of order. It's useful, but calling it a simple fix might overlook real problems.