Are you a little too proud of your frugality?
Do you look at what others buy and judge them?
Or is it just me? I catch myself doing this all too often. In fact, my pride stood in the way of eating better for far too long.
Check out ThriftyTexasPenny for a wonderful wonderful wonderful (can you tell how much I liked it?) article she wrote called “Will You Go Back to Kindergarten With Me?” Her post goes well with the post that I had planned today. One sentence jumped out at me:
We also have to recognize that there are times when we just need a teddy bear to get through the day.
Does being a frugal person or a tightwad define WHO you are? I’m fairly certain that I read this quote from Amy Dacyczyn’s book “The Complete Tightwad Gazette”, but unfortunately I can’t find it right now:
Frugality is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Now back to your regularly scheduled grocery shopping post. Needs vs. Wants. Amazing how things change over time. As I was entering in my grocery spending data, I realized that at one point I would have said quite a few of these items were luxury items. People change, budgets change and priorities change. We have very few actual “needs”, but here is how I define a need:
If we WANT to have something then I NEED to buy it so we have it on hand.
Take coffee – it’s definitely not a true need, but we drink it every morning so I need to have it on hand. I have been buying coffee beans and then I don’t buy coffee out as often – one of my true frugal luxuries is a cup of coffee that costs $1.35. When I buy coffee out I use my own allowance money, but since I’ve been buying beans I haven’t been going out to buy my coffee anymore.
Remember, it doesn’t matter if I eat lobster every night and you eat tuna, what matters is the process I used to figure out how to make our grocery budget work for us!
| This week instead of listing out everything I bought and the price, I decided to add an additional column – Need? Want? Luxury? I haven’t had a big shopping day this week so I plan to do this next week as well. |
You’ll see coffee grounds on this list which didn’t come out of my grocery budget. In order to make our food budget work for me, I don’t include “company food” in our budget. It was way too stressful for me so we increased our “holiday” envelope to account for company food.
Yuban coffee is the brand of coffee grounds I buy and it hasn’t been on sale FOREVER (last year I could get it for $5.00 per can). I bought this coffee in anticipation of company coming for the holidays so that amount comes from the holiday envelope. Make sense? Probably not, but in my little brain it does LOL!!!
Click on the image below to enlarge it:
So what is your “teddy bear”?
This post has been linked to:
Grocery Cart Challenge
Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom
3 comments
1 ping
Mary
October 14, 2011 at 8:48 AM (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I don’t judge other shoppers but I admit I sometimes envy them!!
Pounds4Pennies
October 14, 2011 at 12:40 PM (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Thanks for linking up at Pounds4Pennies. I wouldn’t say I envy, but I do go out and try to find the same thing at a much cheaper price. Then I feel better. Right now I am trying to decorate my home with a tinsy budget. So that means stopping at the resale shop until I can find the pieces I want. It may take me a little more time. But I know when I find it and redo it. The piece is going to me awesome.
Johnlyn
October 16, 2011 at 7:43 PM (UTC -6) Link to this comment
You are both much nicer than I am LOL!
I look in their cart and see people paying full price and I think what are they thinking! Then I have to catch myself because that was ME years ago and sometimes even today.
How to Grocery Shop on a Budget 10/21/11
October 21, 2011 at 2:47 PM (UTC -6) Link to this comment
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