Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Paper Towels are Groceries Too




Being on a tight budget is hard.  Really hard.  It's stressful to squeeze every dollar till it screams, and pinch every penny and cut every coupon.  It takes work to stay on top of all the envelopes and keep in mind that this $10 is to buy bread, eggs and milk when I suddenly realize that we're out of butter too and, wouldn't it be nice to have some cream cheese on hand, since it's on sale and I have a coupon.

Since most of the household buying decisions are made by me as Mom, I find myself under increasing pressure to make do with as little as possible so that money can be freed up to go towards our debt.  I deal with this by lumping a lot of things under the heading of "groceries".

Our budget form has many different categories, but I roll everything for the household, from Toiletries to Cleaning Supplies, into Groceries (mostly because we buy so many things at the same store, whether it be Walmart, Dollar General or IGA, and I don't want to stand in line at the check-out pulling $5 from one envelope and $20 from another while also balancing coupons and toddlers).

Ergo, the Grocery envelope is my All-purpose envelope.  Flour, coffee and dish detergent from the co-op - Grocery.  McDonalds coffee - Grocery.  Diapers - Grocery.  Infant tylenol and cough drops - Grocery.  Huge shopping trip to Price Chopper for 6 months worth of bread and toilet paper - you guessed it, Grocery.

All of this picking at the Grocery category throughout the month often ends up with me having two things: 1) an empty envelope when we're out of something important (like milk) and 2) incredible amounts of guilt for that $1 coffee or for paying $1.29 a pound for the Organic rolled oats or any number of other decisions made throughout the month that were justifiable at the time.

What to do?  I'm attempting to be easier on myself.  I know that, while not beneficial, going over budget by a gallon of milk or a roll of toilet paper is not going to kill anything.  Also, I, frequently, remind myself that there are some things in life which are more important than keeping the budget balanced (like my sanity, for one, and feeding my children, for another).  In future months this may lead to increasing of our grocery budget (gasp!) to prevent the completely-empty-envelope-and-refrigerator phenomenon.

Every month, we find ourselves walking the line between appropriate dollar stretching and being overly optimistic about how little it takes to adequately feed and clothe ourselves.  Just to make things more exciting, every month that line seems to be in a different place.

(Btw, our budget meetings don't actually look like that cartoon.  But it did make me laugh, so I thought I'd share.)

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