What Happens When We Think Too Highly of Ourselves

So, here's the thing. I've been so proud of myself for having such a low grocery budget and doing so well. So, we decided to eat out a few extra times, stock up on some good deals at the grocery store, and generally ignore keeping track of the budget. Needless to say, when I did catch up on budgeting, we only have $80 left in our food budget. Now, that's not necessarily a problem, because we just stocked up at our last trip and have all the meat we possibly need for the next few weeks, however, when I looked at the calendar next month has five Saturdays (our normal shopping day), and our budget for food and household supplies is a monthly amount of $415.

What does this mean? Well, for the next 6 weeks, our grocery budget is actually going to be an average of $80-$83 per week. Since I usually spend at least $10 at Aldi's on produce, that leaves us only $70 or so for the rest of our food (including any fast food), paper products, cleaning supplies, and basic toiletries. Maybe I'll have to post receipts and meal plans for our weekly spending for the next few weeks to help keep myself on track. And I definitely have to watch those "extra" expenses. Fortunately, we should be good on paper products and meat, but we'll definitely have to plan on eating out of our pantry and freezer and stick to the plan!