Goals and Groceries

When you get this close to the goal, your thoughts are consumed with, "How can I get my hands on $2300 in a hurry?" The thought plays over and over in my mind and is often met with foolish solutions like some lovely rich person feeling sorry for me and finishing the whole thing off! So as you can imagine, we're more driven than ever- intensity is at a maximum as we approach the goal.

I'm currently reading America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right On The Money by Steve and Annette Economides. They are the authors of the HomeEconomiser Newsletter. One thing this book has challenged me to do is to try NOT to grocery shop every week. This family of seven shops only once per month and they take it seriously, let me tell you. Walkie-talkies, dual carts, coupons- the works. As a small step I am trying to shop only once every two weeks. Hegazelle and I took time at the beginning of the month to inventory our cupboards, fridge and freezer. Taking that list, we sat down and wrote out a menu for 2 weeks. Taking those two lists, I created my shopping list to fill in the gaps of what we didn't have but needed for our menu plan. We're entering week two now, and so far we really like it. Hegazelle likes knowing exactly what to grab for lunch every morning, and I like that I don't have to grocery shop this week! The only downside is we had to eat all our fruit last week (before it spoiled) and this week we have only a couple of browning bananas. Our other vegetables and lettuce seem to be doing fine, but we're gonna miss the fruit this week. Maybe next trip I'll buy a watermelon and save it for week 2. We froze 2 of the loaves of bread we bought on the last grocery trip, and then pulled them out at the beginning of this week. So, all in all it's been a positive experience. Oh yeah, and $56 did the trick for 2 weeks. :-)