The Diary of an Un-Frugal Weekend: A Lesson in Being Prepared

Posted by Lynnae on July 28, 2008

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Just as the sun doesn’t set in an instant, people don’t crumble in an instant.

What is it the Boy Scouts say? Be prepared? I sure wish I would have listened to that advice going into this weekend! It might have saved me some money, that’s for sure!

It all started Friday. Actually it started before Friday. After my fabulous grocery shopping for a month experience in June, I never really got back on track. At first we were eating extra food from June, since I have a tendency to overbuy. Then we went on vacation, and we ate food I bought specifically for the trip.

When we got back from vacation, I never carved out the time for a real grocery shopping trip. I told myself that we should eat up some of our extra food, because it will be easier than moving it next month on moving day. At first that was true.

Then I told myself I’d go shopping tomorrow…and tomorrow…and tomorrow. Really, I was just making excuses, because I hate grocery shopping with the kids, and I hate grocery shopping later in the day when it’s busy (when my kids are at their day program).

So that’s where I began Friday. No food in the house, except for breakfast. But it was OK, because I was going grocery shopping on Friday after I dropped the kids off. Or so I thought.

I dropped the kids off, and decided to hit Home Depot to try to find flooring for the bathrooms in our new place. The buying process is going quickly, so I need to get things picked out. Not finding anything there, I drove out to Lowes. I found some vinyl that I liked (we decided on laminate for the rest of the house), and bought a tile to show my husband.

So far my day was going as planned. That would soon change.

I got some gas for the van (it’s down to $4.29! Woohoo!) and called my husband. We needed to sign some papers for the house, and decided it would best be done while we were both in town, so I wasn’t driving all over the county, wasting gas.

I called the realtor and made an appointment for 1:00. That was at noon. My grocery shopping trip was a little compromised at this point, because I wouldn’t be able to get anything cold, as I didn’t have a cooler with me. No problem, I thought. I’ll just get non-perishable food. We have plenty of milk at home. (The one thing we did have).

I arrived at the grocery store at 12:10. I had put about three things in my cart, when my cell phone rings. I never realized how noisy a grocery store is.

Hello?, I say. I hear something unintelligible on the other end.

Excuse me? I madly try to find a quiet place in the crowded store.

This is the day program calling. We have a situation.

My heart stops for a moment. Is one of my kids sick? Did someone break their arm? Um, what’s going on? I ask.

Well, um, a parent called in to say their child has lice, and we checked all the kids, and well, um, unfortunately Liz has lice. Can you come get her?

Oh boy. I was NOT expecting that. Um, yeah, I’m in town, so it will be a few minutes, but I’ll be right there. I check my watch. 40 minutes until we have to meet the realtor. I think there’s enough time.

I leave my cart with it’s three items in the aisle, praying that I will be forgiven for not putting the stuff back before I leave. I really felt bad, but this was something of an emergency.

I picked up Liz and Sam, and the day program people tell me they just found a couple of nits, no bugs. I thank them, put the kids in the car, and against my better judgement, drive back to town to sign the papers.

By the time we’re finished signing, it’s 2:00, and of course I haven’t had lunch yet. And there’s no food at home. So I hit the Taco Bell drive through. Even though my kids had eaten lunch already, they insisted they were starving. So instead of a meal for one, I bought meals for three. And the spending started.

To make an already long story shorter, we ate out three times this weekend. Three times in one weekend. I didn’t make it to the grocery store on Saturday, because I spent the day combing and combing Liz’s hair with a lice comb. Fortunately, I didn’t find anything. I believe the day program was wrong, and her head is fine. Still, I bought a lice comb and other assorted supplies for de-licing her hair, and that was spendy. Fortunately, I have my receipt, so I’m going to try to return the unused items.

Sunday, we spent all morning at church, grabbed lunch on the way home, and headed off to the Mercy Me/Casting Crowns concert last night…the only frugal part of the weekend. We carpooled with friends, got in with comp tickets (courtesy of my husband’s job), and shared a babysitter.

The last song we heard before we left the concert was Slow Fade. The song is clearly about compromising one’s Christian walk with little choices, but the same concept can be applied to one’s financial life. Gibble wrote about it a while back. And it was his post I remembered as I was trying to figure out what to write today.

Part of the song Slow Fade goes like this:

It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away
It’s a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day

People never crumble in a day. That’s so true. It’s the small choices that make or break us. Last week I made plenty of excuses for not grocery shopping. The truth is, I chose to do other, less important, things instead. And that left me unprepared when there was a true emergency.

This morning, after I drop the kids off, I’ll be hitting the grocery store, first thing. If I had done that last week, we wouldn’t have spent the money we did over the weekend. In the grand scheme of things, I know the amount of money we spent wasn’t huge, and it’s not going to break our budget. But I want to turn things around before I start to make poor choices that have a larger effect on our financial situation. I don’t want to blow it, one small choice at a time.

Photo by kevindooley.

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Comments

23 Responses to “The Diary of an Un-Frugal Weekend: A Lesson in Being Prepared”

Kristen on July 28th, 2008 6:12 am

Don’t be too hard on yourself Lynnae. You’ve got so much going on in your life. It’s understandable how you could have a less-than-frugal weekend. You’ll get back on track. I have a tendancy to procrastinate when it comes to grocery shopping, too. It’s one task that I really hate. But it does end up costing more when you have to go out or order a pizza.
James on July 28th, 2008 6:30 am

Wow! You’re hard on yourself! Make some necessary corrections and learn from your mistakes. Yeah, you could have done some things a little better, but your head is in the right place and you’re never going be 100% frugal 100% of the time.
Ron@TheWisdomJournal on July 28th, 2008 6:50 am

It never ceases to amaze me that, no matter when they ate, it you mention food, they’re suddenly starving to death.

I love your idea to shop for the entire month. I’ll have to get my family in on that secret.
Jeff on July 28th, 2008 7:05 am

I’ve been having the same problem. Getting home from work, I don’t want to go out and run errands. So instead I get something delivered and just tell myself that I’ll do it later. Great thoughts …
Brad on July 28th, 2008 7:45 am

If I don’t sit down on the first of the month and make myself write down what I will need for the rest of the month, I don’t go to the store. I either eat out or mooch off of friends.
Ana on July 28th, 2008 7:58 am

I have days like this all the time. I wish I didnt but having kids sometimes makes it that way and no matter how hard I try, it always happens. Oh well.

On another note, I have recently come across a remedy for lice that is SUPER cheep!! Regular white vinegar.

Here is the link for the page I found the information on. http://www.gomestic.com/Homema.....egar.11881

Hair rinse: For soft and shiny hair, use one-third cup vinegar and two-thirds cup warm water. This same solution can be used on kid’s hair during the dreaded head lice season. Vinegar closes the shaft of the hair making it too slippery for eggs to be attached. The same solution will also dissolve the glue like substance used to attach their eggs for times when head lice have already begun to nest.
Willow on July 28th, 2008 8:17 am

Excellent excellent post! Not so much the grocery-store thing; we’re human and that kind of thing can happen so don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s the bigger lesson… I call them the “becoming” moments and I’ve blogged about some of mine and have some more I need to write about. They’re the little moments, even more so than the big ones, that shape us. But I had never thought of them in terms of our Christian walk. So thanks for giving me an opportunity to look with a new perspective.
Lynnae on July 28th, 2008 9:28 am

Yeah, I know I tend to be hard on myself. It’s the perfectionist in me trying to escape. Thanks for the reality check.

I just sometimes feel that this is the big area I struggle with, and I never seem to make any progress.

But, it’s going to be a better week. I’m headed out to do the grocery shopping in a little while.
Annie Jones on July 28th, 2008 10:16 am

I had a weekend much like this. One thing after another didn’t go as planned and we ended up eating out twice. Stopping to cook was just not in the cards on Saturday and Sunday. That’s just the way it went.

But then, for no reason at all, I took Kat out for breakfast this morning. That one I do feel badly about.

Now it’s time to climb out of this rut, brush off and get myself back on track.
barb on July 28th, 2008 10:24 am

Great blog. I really appreciate your posting those lyrics, they couold be for both the Christian walk & money issues. I am widowed with no children, but I do enjoy your blog a lot. You are pretty hard on yourself, though. Things happen. You have a lot going on.
Bonnie on July 28th, 2008 10:32 am

I echo what the others have said about being hard on yourself. I would say the real lesson to be learned from this one, is not what you think though. I would suggest that the lesson to be learned is teach your kids to actually help with the shopping, so that it’s an activity that all can look forward to, and so that no one is tempted to do the drive through ever.

Things to do at the supermarket (different tasks for different ages and abilities
1) cross things off a list as they go in the cart
2) find out which brand is the best value on a specific item.
3) find the item that matches the coupon
4) memorize which item is on what isle
5) keep a running total of the amount spent
6) check the expiry date to find the one on the shelf with the expiry date furthest away
7) be the cooler monitor (making sure it’s in the car for every shopping trip. It makes all the food last longer if it doesn’t warm up on the way home, even items that don’t have to be refrigerated will benefit).
identify things that can be purchased at the market that are low cost and healthy but can be eaten right away, in case you are hungry (like pre-prepared roast chicken, fresh fruit, yogurt, etc.).

well you get the idea. One of the big benefits is that the older kids get to start to get more responsibility as you go along and they will be more prepared to live independently if they understand all the intricacies of shopping. I even get my 5-1/2 year old involved in cutting out coupons. Sometimes we even take her play dates along to the marke with us and they enjoy it too. It is never too early to get kids involved in the business of the household. As long as you find a way to make it fun, they will want to participate… and along the way you will find its loads of fun too.
Marci on July 28th, 2008 12:39 pm

Write it off to stress, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and look, you’re back on the straight and narrow It happens to all of us sometimes. And you learned from it.

Now - you’re going to be under even MORE stress as the house, moving, and new school, etc, gets underway….. How are you going to deal with all that? May I make a suggestion? When you are doing that grocery shopping, pick up stuff to make several stick-in-the-freezer meals… Do it now while you have the time. Or just make double bathces and freeze on each night. It won’t matter whether you eat them at your present home, or your new home, but you are going to need easy-to-do-meals for a couple weeks while you are moving for sure…. Make it easy on yourself, and do the cooking/freezing dinners up now! And as soon as you get possession of the house, but before you actually move in, put bread and sandwich fixings all in the new house’s frigerator.. so much better than having to stop painting or whatever and run out for lunch. Good luck with the move
Marci on July 28th, 2008 12:43 pm

Re: Little kids and grocery stores. When I need to take my little grandkids along for groceries, I give them each a ‘list’… they first ‘write’(color) 1-3 things on it that they are responsible for. These are foods that they like and want to be ‘in charge’ of getting.
While shopping, they have the ‘list’ in hand to keep their little hands busy, and they are interested in the aisles and whether it is the aisle that has their ’stuff’ in it…. Seems to keep their interest.
Glblguy on July 28th, 2008 5:35 pm

It’s all about priorities Lynnae, and right now you just have a bunch of things going on. Remember, it’s about direction not perfection.

Thanks for the link!
Kileen on July 28th, 2008 9:20 pm

Ok, I am sure the babysitter didn’t mind. She might have had some fun after all, it filled her night with some hugs and laughs.
The Frugal Momma on July 29th, 2008 7:06 am

Plan on more dinners out as the house buying progresses. Or buying paper plates… cooking and doing dishes are not things one worries about in the middle of such projects! I plan on working take out into our next home repair project, because it always seems to come to that!
Steward @ My Family's Money on July 29th, 2008 11:03 pm

I am currently moving too and my wife and I have been eating out more as a result. I’m definitely trying to not worry about it, and not having time to update my budgeting spreadsheet has helped, but I’m kind of dreading what I will see once I get the time together to crunch the numbers. I guess I will just have to wait and see.
Brad on July 30th, 2008 9:52 am

Your weekend is the same as the last 5 years of my life. I ate at Del Taco for breakfast, went out for lunch and ate dinner and Chili’s (or a similar place). Every day.

I blew THOUSANDS every month on eating out and gained 30lbs. Who knew being so horrible with spending would cause tons of debt and such.

Sigh.
Kate@LivingTheFrugalLife on July 30th, 2008 10:21 am

I agree that there’s no sense in being too hard on yourself. Clearly, you recognize your own behavior. Clearly, this was an exception rather than the rule. You’ll pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and resolve to do better next time. I think it’s great that as a frugal blogger you have the honesty to put this story out there. I appreciate honesty in this area.

-Kate