We are poor. I know this. We have been poor since we got married. I was poor before that. Or maybe broke is a better term. We have enough to live on, just not a lot for extras. So either way, broke or poor, for the most part, it doesn't really bother me. I don't care if we don't have cable. I don't care if I can't buy new clothes every weekend. I hate shopping anyway. I like finding good deals, or finding awesome clothes at thrift stores. It's more fun that way. The only time being broke really bothers me is when it comes to food.
I love food. I love good food. We both love cheese, expensive cheese. While I was shopping on Friday, I made the mistake of wandering to the "gourmet cheese" section of walmart, which at our walmart is one small cold case. I pondered the different kinds of cheeses and wondered if I could buy one. I decided / realized that I don't work anymore, and have no money, so should not buy expensive cheese. And we have plenty of cheese at home. I did pretty good at walmart, with only one impulse buy. Then I went to Maceys. And spent $16 on impulse items. Now granted, these were all items on sale, that we will use. I bought some fish fillets (that doesn't look right...) on sale, and some turkey tenderloins that were "reduced", and some dated salad that we ate and was really good. For the most part, I can make a budget and stick to it, but when it comes to food, I have a really hard time. I used to make up for it by adding to the food budget from my own money. Alann budgets $150 for food, and I was adding $50 or so a month. And easily spending it. But now, I have no money to add in. So cutting back has been really difficult for me. Luckily, we are currently on WIC, which buys the milk and a few other things. (How they expect me to drink 2 gallons of milk by myself every week I don't understand.) And I am consciously trying to create meals out of what we already have. Our cupboards are NOT bare. This week, I think I bought fewer than 10 items that were for planned meals. The other stuff was staples- foods or condiments or products that we were out of, or that were on sale and we can store. Since I only buy meats especially when they are a really good price, we can make most of the meals out of what we have. But then I go to the store, and see turkey tenderloins half off and buy them. Or fish fillets. We are learning to like more fish, since it is good for us, so I buy some when it is on sale. If I hadn't spent that $16 ($17 if you add in Walmart's impulse), I would have been at or under budget. So that is my plan for next time. Be on budget. I did it the time before. I can do it again. I wish Alann could come to the store with me more often. He is good at keeping me in line.
Showing posts with label temptations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label temptations. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Happy 50th Post to me!
Whenever I get motivated to get organized, I also want to buy stuff. I always seem to think that if I just had a better system, a better place to put things, I would be able to stay organized. If only I had a rolling 18 pocket shoe organizer. Or the $300 Pottery Barn Daily System.
(Of course, once I really looked at the Daily System, I knew I wouldn’t use all of that.)
I am always tempted most to buy things that I think will help me in some way. Clothes and shoes I am not tempted to buy. But organizers and kitchen appliances, sign me up!
The other day, I almost bought myself a little (tiny) rice cooker, because it appeared to be on sale (tricky Target) and I have wanted a rice cooker for a while. But then I went to where they have the appliances on display (I found this one on an end-cap) and could look at the thing and decided it was pretty shoddy. So I looked at the next one up, and it was nicer. It had a delay feature. But the next model up had a delay feature and a brown rice feature. I hadn’t even considered that maybe the rice cooker wouldn’t know it was brown rice. And then the next model up also had an insert for steaming veggies or fish! Who couldn’t use that! Before I knew it, I wanted the $60 rice cooker with all the bells and whistles. Marketing at it's finest!
I am not opposed to spending money on an appliance that will actually help me. The delay feature is almost necessary, since we use brown rice and it takes 60 minutes to cook, instead of 20 for white. (I actually have rice in the oven at home right now that will theoretically be done when I get home. It will turn on at 5. We will see how this experiment works.) We don’t want to wait until 7 or 730 to eat dinner. Plus I have had issues cooking the brown rice. I never seem to get it right. But will I actually steam veggies in it? (My mom can tell you, probably not, since we had a veggie steamer/ rice cooker and we rarely used it. I think it cooked rice ok though. It's probably still sitting at my mom's house, unused. Maybe she will send it my way when she reads this. She's cool like that.) Will I actually steam fish? NO! I have never steamed fish in my life. Maybe if I was on some crazy diet and steamed all of my foods and ate nothing but veggies and fish, maybe this would be a good investment. But otherwise, probably not. At least not until we start needing to make baby food. (And yes, I still intend to make baby food. At least until I try it and it fails miserably. I just don’t trust Gerber too much, and it’s so easy to make a huge batch of say green beans, portion it, freeze it, and just pop out what you want the night before. )
Of course, in the end, at least these days, I know enough about myself that I know that no matter what I buy, if I don’t use it, I am better off not buying it. And honestly, I might not, no I probably won’t, use it as much as I envision. I want a letter organizer type thing to sort the mail in. That way, when whoever brings the mail in, we can sort it into Becca’s, Alann’s, junk (to be shredded or tossed later), store flyers (for grocery shopping), and bills, because I always seems to lose at least one bill a month! Of course, we already have one of those letter organizers that gets taller for each slot. We just don’t use it for bills. I try to put the bills there, but then I forget, and the organizer gets crammed with other stuff. Usually, I open the bill, look at it, rejoice (or despair) over it, and put it with my purse, so that I can enter it into the bill pay. But then we decide to go somewhere, or I need something out of my purse, so it gets moved. And then I forget to put it back in. Of course, sometimes, I cant even find my purse, so the bill goes somewhere and gets lost. So maybe if we had a big organizer, I could actually keep track of things better. I just don’t know the solution to be honest.
(Of course, once I really looked at the Daily System, I knew I wouldn’t use all of that.)
I am always tempted most to buy things that I think will help me in some way. Clothes and shoes I am not tempted to buy. But organizers and kitchen appliances, sign me up!
The other day, I almost bought myself a little (tiny) rice cooker, because it appeared to be on sale (tricky Target) and I have wanted a rice cooker for a while. But then I went to where they have the appliances on display (I found this one on an end-cap) and could look at the thing and decided it was pretty shoddy. So I looked at the next one up, and it was nicer. It had a delay feature. But the next model up had a delay feature and a brown rice feature. I hadn’t even considered that maybe the rice cooker wouldn’t know it was brown rice. And then the next model up also had an insert for steaming veggies or fish! Who couldn’t use that! Before I knew it, I wanted the $60 rice cooker with all the bells and whistles. Marketing at it's finest!
I am not opposed to spending money on an appliance that will actually help me. The delay feature is almost necessary, since we use brown rice and it takes 60 minutes to cook, instead of 20 for white. (I actually have rice in the oven at home right now that will theoretically be done when I get home. It will turn on at 5. We will see how this experiment works.) We don’t want to wait until 7 or 730 to eat dinner. Plus I have had issues cooking the brown rice. I never seem to get it right. But will I actually steam veggies in it? (My mom can tell you, probably not, since we had a veggie steamer/ rice cooker and we rarely used it. I think it cooked rice ok though. It's probably still sitting at my mom's house, unused. Maybe she will send it my way when she reads this. She's cool like that.) Will I actually steam fish? NO! I have never steamed fish in my life. Maybe if I was on some crazy diet and steamed all of my foods and ate nothing but veggies and fish, maybe this would be a good investment. But otherwise, probably not. At least not until we start needing to make baby food. (And yes, I still intend to make baby food. At least until I try it and it fails miserably. I just don’t trust Gerber too much, and it’s so easy to make a huge batch of say green beans, portion it, freeze it, and just pop out what you want the night before. )
Of course, in the end, at least these days, I know enough about myself that I know that no matter what I buy, if I don’t use it, I am better off not buying it. And honestly, I might not, no I probably won’t, use it as much as I envision. I want a letter organizer type thing to sort the mail in. That way, when whoever brings the mail in, we can sort it into Becca’s, Alann’s, junk (to be shredded or tossed later), store flyers (for grocery shopping), and bills, because I always seems to lose at least one bill a month! Of course, we already have one of those letter organizers that gets taller for each slot. We just don’t use it for bills. I try to put the bills there, but then I forget, and the organizer gets crammed with other stuff. Usually, I open the bill, look at it, rejoice (or despair) over it, and put it with my purse, so that I can enter it into the bill pay. But then we decide to go somewhere, or I need something out of my purse, so it gets moved. And then I forget to put it back in. Of course, sometimes, I cant even find my purse, so the bill goes somewhere and gets lost. So maybe if we had a big organizer, I could actually keep track of things better. I just don’t know the solution to be honest.
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