Let me begin by saying that I am not sharing any of this to attract your sympathy. I actually feel more empowered about our finances than ever before.
But, the day to day choices we make are what got us into debt, and by the other side of the same coin, what will get us out.
If there is anyone reading this who’s going through a similar journey, I hope you’ll see that it’s not easy, but it’s very possible.
With that out of the way, I’ll share a little story about our groceries this week. First, we ran out of milk on Wednesday.
The Man of the House stopped on his way home from work to buy some for us. Unfortunately, I am the keeper of the grocery cash so he used the debit card. Well, though it was only three dollars and some change, he came home, did some online banking to make sure we didn’t have an impending overdraft.
(Of course, we wouldn’t have been penalized for that because we have overdraft protection–you all have that right? It could save you $55 or so in overdraft charges! However, it does charge to our credit card and we’re not interested in doing that!)
Then he set aside the correct amount to deposit the next day.
Whew! A lot of thought went into that one little purchase. And then, I asked him which store he went to. Ooops, not the one that had milk on sale. Sorry, Honey, I forgot to tell you!
Next, on Thursday, we were running out of bread. (Okay, can we skip the comments on how I should have planned better for this week? It provided a valuable learning experience. Yeah, right.)
So, The Man of the House called me from his cell phone to ask if we needed anything else and where was bread on sale. He had remembered to take a $20 out of the grocery cash to prevent another day like the one before. I checked the sale flyers and sent him to the correct store. Forty-cents off–hey, that’s 20 inbox dollars emails!
We’ve actually been doing this sort of thing since about January. It’s been the best way for us to stay within our budget.
For those of you who have no trouble staying on budget, I admire your ability. But it’s been my experience that no matter how much income you have, it takes frequent management and thought to spend it properly.
Be a Blessing! Lady