Affording Fun Without Stress

This past week the regular purchases returned to normal, represented by one trip to Costco where I spent about $75 on what is for us a typical market basket. Costco had pork chops on sale for well under $2 per pound and sliced turkey lunch meat for about 30% off. I did not exactly back up the truck for this as we are still trying to get back to normal after the end of the year expenses.

I will write about the other factor that influences my buying decisions more in the future and that is our goal to have a buffer inventory of food on hand for emergency purposes. Note that in this case “emergency” is classified as out of the ordinary events such as a personal schedule that interferes with getting to the store on my normal shopping days. Not exactly talking about extreme prepping in preparation for massive civil unrest.

An astute observer will recall that my standard approach is purchasing staple items preferably at reduced prices. So what is the roughly $50 (taking out the chicken for $8) spent on things like soft drinks, salsa, cookies and chips? Not exactly staples found on the periphery of the store Mr. Cheapskate, what is up with that?

Short story: DoodleTwo and I went camping over the weekend. I bought some fun stuff favored by Doodle2 to make it a little more special. Oh yeah, DoodeMom and DoodleRed stayed home to watch movies and to work on their tatting while DoodleTwo and I were messing around in the country and I wanted to make their weekend fun too. I note for the record that my favorite Milano Dark Chocolate cookies do not seem to have survived the weekend in either place.

Getting back to business, I find that by keeping a close watch on our normal food expenses I can spend money on occasional fun stuff without stressing (too much) about the cost.

~The Hub