...groceries.
I know: Stop the presses! What a huge deal! It's so exciting, I just mi- zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz...
However, I just got done paying all of our bills for the month. Now I'm "white knuckling" about our spending for the next 3-5 days, hoping beyond hope that there are no surprises as far as finances go. This seems to hinge on, above all, our groceries.
Today, plans are being made and flyers are being scanned to really kick our grocery budget in the teeth. This will likely be followed with a week spent canning things like beans and peaches ($0.79/lb this week!) and soups, and exploring the myriad of possibilities that come with whole chickens (cheapest meat by the pound). This is no easy thing, considering my hangups about organic and whole foods and the dietary needs of my autistic son. Coupons for unprocessed dietary staples are few and far between, which is why our grocery budget is so huge.
My goal, God willing, is to cut out budget in half for the next couple of months and get just a tiny bit of money reallocated toward student loans. We're currently shouldering three of them, but one of them may actually be history by the time Christmas rolls around. As soon as that is resolved, I will really feel the power of the "snowball effect" that Dave Ramsey touts in his books as that money is then hurled at loan #2.
But it all comes down to groceries. It is the lone column that funnels away 1/4th of our budget. Everything else, save for a few bills, seems to be nickel-and-dime kinds of things, which can also be pared down as necessary (like restaurant visits, which have all but been eliminated).
Ugh, my kingdom for a chicken coop!!! But that's another rant for another time.
As our beloved priest is always telling me, "Blessed poverty!" This too shall pass and then there will be something else to take up the financial slack. That was my way of encouraging you. Wish you lived next door. I'd let you visit the chicken coop whenever you wanted and maybe bring you a pot of soup to help tide you over for a day or two.
ReplyDeleteYou are so very sweet! I wish we lived next door, too. You'd have a very willing and able free laborer. I keep offering Louis' godparents our time and talents on the farm they just bought and I'm anxious for them to take me up on it. Steve (you met him) says I romanticize it too much, but I don't know that I can romanticize it enough. It just seems so very rewarding to me to work with the animals and the ground that provides food.
DeleteAnyway, I got into the kitchen last night and figured out that I have enough basic things that I can make into more essential things, I'll just need to use my time wisely. I can do that in between loads of laundry. And the wheat belly book is ready for me to pick up at the library, so that will have to happen today sometime. :-)
Poverty is a blessing. We have survived far worse than this and it made us better people. But I'm terribly impatient about getting out from under these loans.
Pardon my typos and awful grammar. I just woke up. :-)
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