Starting My Spending Adventure

Well, I'm on day two of this spending adventure . . . and I already cheated.

In my defense, we had no food! I was out of town all weekend, and when I got back late Sunday night, our electricity had just come back on. And our entire fridge and freezer had to be dumped. That means we basically had no food. Nothing. So making lunch to take to work yesterday was a little difficult. My husband and I both had to eat peanut butter sandwiches. Problem was that there was about two tablespoons left for the two of us to share. So we both had two pieces of bread with an extremely thin layer of peanut butter. I looked through the cabinets for something to bring with my sandwich.

No produce left.

No yogurt.

A peanut butter granola bar.

That's a lot of peanut butter and carbs—even for me. Maybe if I brought a good breakfast I'd be okay. So, I looked around. Cereal? No milk. Eggs? Nope. Looks like I was back to that peanut butter granola bar. I threw it in my bag.

On the way to work, I passed a Dominick's. I was compelled to stop and add to my lunch. I couldn't believe I was already cheating at 8 am, but I was desperate. I couldn't survive on a peanut butter granola bar (mini-size, by the way) and a peanut butter sandwich! I bought a carton of raspberries on sale and two nectarines. I'm just too used to the convenience of stores at every corner.

After work I went to Trader Joe's—one of our approved stores—to get lots of groceries. And I really stocked up. I intentionally planned lots of easy, healthy meals to prepare, things that we could quickly make instead of being tempted to run to McDonalds.

Other than my fruit-buying, so far, so good. I got up early to make a Greek pasta salad today to take for lunch and have with our turkey burgers at dinner. I knew tonight would be tight because we have small group an hour after I get home from work. Looks like I'm already starting to plan ahead.

I'm realizing how tough this month will be, though. So far today, I've received six e-mails from stores telling me about their sales and promotions—things I have to take advantage of. Well, guess what? I can't. None of those stores are Trader Joes, Target, or our farmer's market. They're not approved. That's it. So I've started deleting the e-mails.

As a side note, I really have to applaud my husband. He was super skeptical about this. He kept saying, Really?? Only the gas stations in our neighborhood? Only Trader Joe's? Only going out to eat four times?

But he's already thrown himself in head first. He's a good guy. Good thing I have his support. J I know God's going to be teaching us a lot this month.