Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Humble Pie

Saturday I decided to venture out and grocery shop all by myself...I guess I needed "alone" time. I hit my usual haunts - Walmart (sorry Micah) and Aldi. In order to stick to my budget, I have to bite the bullet and avoid the temptation of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods more than once a month. I was excited to hit Walmart with a purse-load of coupons and was sure that I was going to do well bargain shopping. When I went to check out, I swiped my debit card only to find that it was DENIED...I guess I should have activated the new one sitting on my counter for the past 3 weeks! I paid with credit card and went happily on my way...until I got to the car. I realized that Aldi is a cash or debit only kind of store and I have an expired debit card and no cash. So, I headed off to the local bank for some cash to finish grocery shopping. When I got to Aldi I loaded up my card with the items from my list and 2 packages of diapers (cheap, I know but they just poop in them!). When the cashier was almost finished scanning my items I realized that I had more food then I had money for. I had to stop her from scanning and ask her to take a few things back out of my cart. I was so embarrassed that others would think that I couldn't afford what I had and was afraid that I had annoyed the cashier by having "eyes bigger than my pocketbook." I humbly paid for my items and went to the car. I immediately called Paul and told him how I was feeling - why was I so embarrassed? I knew that I could afford the groceries but didn't have enough cash to cover the whole cart...but THEY didn't know that. Why did I care so much when I didn't know any of them? I always thought of myself as a person who didn't care what others thought...until now. Somehow, I let my fear of what others may think of me get in the way of the true issue...I had more than I needed and it took an expired debit card to get my attention.

Instead of giving up caffeine (yeah, right!), chocolate or something else utterly delicious for Lent, I made a commitment to myself to give up buying things that aren't of necessity. I never realized how hard it is to pass up the dollar bin at Target until now...for some reason the kids always NEED one more pair of socks or because I have a coupon it makes sense, right? I don't think so. I'm doing well in the "stuff" department, but food is still a tough one for me. I think this week I am going to write down a meal plan for not just dinners, but also breakfasts, lunches and snacks so that I can map out what I really need to buy and stick to it. Who knows, I may even try to cook from scratch!

Trying again

So I set up this cute blog about my prince and princesses on another blog site only to find that it was a royal pain (no pun intended) to upload pictures. I also realized that I had other things to write about besides the royal kiddos...there's more to me than diapers, snot and chicken nuggets...a little more!

So, I'm hoping that this blog will be more successful than the last since it hopefully will be much easier to update!

Happy Reading!