Grocery Games
My son got a little cold at preschool that he promptly got over. However, he gave it to both his little sister and me, and we’re not getting over it quite so fast. Lucky us.
The silver lining though is when your head is all stuffed up and you feel like a train ran over you, you rush through grocery shopping not even looking at things not on your list (for the most part). I spent $57.74 at Aldi and $22.58 at Walmart for a total of $80.32. Of that, two things I bought were not originally in my plan - Roma tomatoes for $1.29 and a citrus pet deodorizer (if you’ve been near my cats’ litterbox you know desperate times call for desperate measures) for $3.94 - a total of $5.23 for impulse purchases or 6.5% of my total spending. Not under 5% like I was aiming for - that cat deodorizer was expensive! And it, even through my stuffed up nose… smells. A lot. If it doesn’t tone down soon it’ll rival cat pee as one of the most annoying smells ever. So it may have been a bust. Darned impulsive purchases. 
The actual total spent I was happy with, except that I am going over to the Kroger across the street from us tomorrow to stock up on a few of the advertised sales in their circular which are going to cost probably $20 total… so that’ll put me right back at $100 again. I haven’t quite figured out how to deal with bulk purchases from a budget perspective yet, so they’ll just go right into the grocery budget for now. I’m feeling like I need to really clamp down on the spending going on but at the same time feeling like I’m not really going overboard on anything, so I’m going to have to think about it some more. I do know one thing - the surplus left over this month is not going to be much, and next month will likely be even worse. Snowflakes may be hard to find.
~J
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Related entries for your reading pleasure:
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
I FEEL THE SAME WAY!
I have about $300 in surplus right now to tide me over until the end of this month then I roll it over into savings… but when I spend, I feel so bad… even though I shouldn’t!!
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
6.5% isn’t bad, especially with the whole cat thing. You probably knew you wanted something but forgot to put it on your list. It’s a thought, anyway.
For now, I guess buying in bulk should be on the regular budget. Except–were you the one looking to buy cat meds in bulk? Because if that’s a monthly bulk expense, you can dip into emergency and pay the emergency back a relative percentage each month.
But for others which can’t be planned as well, I don’t know any alternatives. Sorry.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Have you ever tried plain old baking soda mixed into their litter? It used to work for our smelly kitty. much cheaper, too.
Just an idea.
You’ve been doing great on keeping the impulse purchases down!
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:49 pm
@Fabulously Broke - I feel bad too. I am working on it. I need to find some kind of balance where I feel okay lol.
@Mrs. Micah - I am the one with the cat meds. I have two months worth right now so I decided to try and save up money for it before I need it again. Although the cat decided to pee on something anyway yesterday so I am irked with her. lol
@Kris - we mix baking soda in the litter… they are just smelly I think. lol
September 24th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I just read a tip from a lady who deals with bulk purchases/stocking up by budgeting $10 a week for stocking up. When she finds a deal or deals that she wants to stock up on, she spends the entire amount or a portion of the $10 to get as much as she needs. Whatever is left over that week rolls over into the next weeks’ bulk budget. This way if she doesn’t find anything to stock up on one week, she may end up with double or triple the amount to spend on bulk purchases when she finds several deals that she wants to take advantage of. It sounds like a great plan for what you need to account for those purchases. If you need a higher amount at a time, maybe allot a certain amount on a monthly, not weekly, basis.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:34 am
That’s a good idea! I need to really figure this out