As you may have read, we are on a budget. We want to pay cash for our adoption, plus we want to manage our money instead of it managing us. Anyway we have really changed the way we think about money and the things we buy.
Part of our budget plan is to pay "non-bills" using cash. This means groceries, clothes, entertainment, gas etc. When I say cash, I don't mean not using credit, I mean the cold hard stuff.
Well yesterday we had a little cash left in the envelope and we decided that we need to buy some food. I went along to the grocery store (which I hate going to) to show Ryan a new store. It is really cool with great low prices, but you have to bring your own bags and they only take cash. This was fine, we whipped out a 20 and paid. The down side to the cool cheap store is that it is leftovers or something, so they don't have everything. We had to go to the store by our house to buy a few things we needed for dinner.
We bought the few items we needed, Ryan did a quick check in his head of how much we had spent and we went to the checkout. Well, calculations went wrong I guess because our total was $15.43. I had a 10, Ryan had two ones, then I looked in my change and I found a $1 coin and 4 quarters, I remembered that Liam had taken the quarter deposit we got back from the last store and put it in his pocket, I found a dime and a nickel and Ryan came up with 3 pennies. As he was handing the woman the money, he confirmed that it was 43 cents. She said yes as she rolled her eyes at us.
We weren't embarressed because we know we are doing the right thing, but we may have made a little bit of a scene. We were that commercial that Visa does with the entire store stopping because someone paid cash. I just don't care because if we had used the debit card we would have bought more than our budget allowed.
I do have a lot of other frugal stories that I'll share with you later. It's so tough going from a spendthift to a frugal shopper, but we are taking it one day at a time. Which reminds me that tomorrow is 25% off day at the thrift store, yay!!
3 comments:
Julie,
I am so proud of you! If I had been behind you in line I definitely WOULD NOT have made you feel bad at all. Digging for your $15.43 is much better than using your debit or credit card. When your family is finally filled with all of the children your hearts can hold, you will be glad you spent an extra 60 seconds to dig through your pockets!!!
Thanks Amy! We are happy with the way we are living and that is all that matters. It is tough sometimes to forgo the easy meal of eating out, but we are trying.
I think that in the end you will be so glad that you did. You won't be thousands and thousands of dollars in debt ... and then you'll be able to take your bigger family out to dinner!
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