Being Disciplined

I am guilty, I am SOOO guilty of this. Lately with the nose dive the economy has taken, whatever your financial situation, we are all keeping our wallets a little closer to our pockets these days and opening them less. For us, building this house is definitely keeping us stringent with our budgets as there are many costs that we are incurring prior to securing the construction loan.

Lately, I have been reading a lot about strict food budgets and challenges to go a week without spending a single penny!! Its hard. I have already made a New Year's Resolution not to buy any clothes this year and so far have kept to it, (if you don't count underwear). But I am enormously guilty of impulse buying in the grocery store, especially pre-packaged snack foods - love my Joe-Joe's!! And I do the grocery run a few  nights a week to pick up "last minute items" that usually finds me walking out of TJ's with a $30-$40 bill each time, that ADDS UP!!

These challenges include shopping once and then living off of that for a week, or more if you can do it. It is hard to buy fruit this way because it goes bad if you don't buy it often. Of course this goes against the old English way of shopping where they would go nearly everyday to get fresh food for dinner prep, but they went to a butcher and green grocer, not to a Walmart Superstore  or a brand new Safeway where we are swooned with premade dinners, gourmet breads, cheeses, cookies, pastries..etc..

The other side is the amount of food we have in our kitchens. Most of our cupboards are full of perfectly fine food we just aren't in the "mood" for. I remember being at a friend's house when I was younger and they literaly emptied their cupboards before going shopping again. I know we have enough food to really feed us for a few weeks but still we venture to the grocery store.

So, I am going to work really hard to go to the store once a week and when things were gone, they are gone. No replacing till the following week. No more going to 4 different grocery stores, maybe one store and a farmer's market. And we will try to empty a few cupboards, save some money and maybe lose an inch or two on the hips, no more Joe-Joe's Can you all do it too?