Cutting back is hot right now, and for once I am right in the middle of a trend. I am doing my best to keep our spending to a reasonable level, and so far it is working.
Most of our cash flow goes to gas and groceries. In an effort to control that spending, I try to stick around the house on days when I have nothing planned. There are some days that I never use my car. That makes me happy, even if the next day I use a whole tank. Sometimes a psychological victory is the only thing you can win, so you better appreciate it while you can.
With groceries I have been trying to do one big shopping when we need it. That means I use what we have in the pantry and freezer to supplement the fresh food, and I don’t let the fresh food go to waste which we used to do all the time. We’d buy a big load of fruits and vegetables and days later it would rot from neglect. Sad, lonely vegetables.
Now I am trying to plan our menus around what we have. I look at the fresh food supply first, then add something nonperishable to make a nice meal. Last night it was pork chops and broccoli with baked potatoes. All fresh! Tonight will be leftover broccoli stirred into tomato sauce on top of pasta. Yum.
In doing this I have made it possible to postpone the weekly shopping trip and make it almost every other week. I will pick up supplements here and there like milk or eggs, but I was really excited that last week I had not done grocery shopping in 2 weeks. So I trotted off to do errands with my list and coupons. I am a big Ralph’s shopper, and someday I will tell you the story about why I chose Ralph’s. Anyway I had to go to the UPS store, and I knew there was a Ralph’s in the same plaza, although I had not been to that location before.
After I did my UPS stuff, I bounced into Ralph’s…and realized it was an Albertson’s. I briefly considered turning on my heel and heading off to Ralph’s, but that would have used more time and gas. So I gamely set about getting my groceries at Albertson’s.
The problem was that I have a ton of coupons specifically for Ralph’s that I had planned to use. I needed a lot of groceries because we were having friends over for dinner and there were certain household necessities that needed to be replenished. At Ralph’s my full cart would have cost about $150. Instead I paid over $200. I have been kicking myself ever since.
To punish myself and my entire family, I am skipping my weekly Target run. Dental floss is reusable.
I will not even tell you how often we go to the grocery store. It is ridiculous. My husband, who makes 99.9% of the grocery story runs would agree!
You crack me up.
A lot of my budget goes to groceries too – I find it extremely hard to buy the right amount of groceries for ONE person. Everything goes bad before I have a chance to use it. Except for bags of microwave popcorn – which, I’m embarrassed to admit has been my dinner of choice more than a few nights…
oh goodness I hate when I do that.