<$Friday, August 24, 2007$>
Gaming the System
| I took off work yesterday for Husband's birthday. It was a pretty nice day for us both, for being low-key and low-budget. I was originally going to take him out to breakfast before his classes, but he decided he'd rather sleep in and spend the money on pizza that evening, so that's what we did. We couldn't find any specials or coupons to take advantage of, but it was his birthday, so we went ahead and made the splurge. I also picked him up an inexpensive-but-delicious birthday mini-cake from the Wal-Mart bakery. It was the perfect size--enough for us each to have a generous slice, and then it was gone, never to taunt us with its high-calorie numminess again. That's the last food splurge for us until our anniversary next month. We're still trying to get a handle on this food spending thing in a way that will let us both feel satisfied and eat healthfully while not spending a small fortune on food every month. Cutting out fast food is the most obvious answer, but we also spend a LOT on groceries. GRS has an article on The Grocery Game, but according to his commenters, this is best suited to larger families and isn't much good for individuals or couples who, like us, like to eat very specific foods and buy as much organic as possible. There's also Coupon Mom, which, unlike the Grocery Game, is free. I think I'll try her out and see if I can't at least save us some money on our non-food groceries. I actually used to be pretty good at the coupon game, combining online coupon sites with double-coupon days to almost double my grocery budget. But after we changed our eating habits (for the most part), I realized that coupons just tempted me to buy things that I wouldn't have bought otherwise, so I quit using them. There's got to be some kind of compromise. I'll be trying Coupon Mom out, and also looking around for coupons and specials on organics and things we actually buy. I'll keep y'all posted on the results. Labels: frugality, healthy living, money management, spending |
