Grocery therapy

So.... money is a little tight just now - don't you hate it when you don't budget adequately for the beginning of the month and all those payments? - and I just happened to get some cash for a uniform deposit refund. Refunds are sneaky and nice like that. Anyway, I thought to myself, I am just going to use this cash that I have to buy a few groceries until we get paid again (or find out that we actually have more money left than anticipated. I can dream, right?). Okay, so I guess the real scoop is that I wanted to make this amazing chocolate peanut butter cake for my husband's birthday and didn't want to spend "regular" grocery money getting the extra ingredients we didn't already have.

It took kind of a lot of guestimating and pre-planning, but I gave myself 30 dollars to spend and I spent almost a whole dollar less. Even with a few substitutions. PS I love buying food in bulk - even if it's the same price as what is prepackaged, I can buy just as much of it as I need. I guess that whole "pay with cash helps you save money" thing is true... but I don't know if I'll keep doing it. I seem to recall my mom getting actual grocery money from my dad when he got paid, so maybe that's something we can do. We don't ever have cash, and it's less convenient especially when you start using change, too, but I really thought about what I was getting and passed by things that we miiiight have needed in the future, but maybe would have only been a luxury.

Well, I was proud of myself.

Now all I need to do is tackle the kitchen the way I tackled the grocery list. I'm not really looking forward to dealing with some of the things I pulled out of the refrigerator. Or taking out what looks like a heavy garbage bag.... I'm such a wimp, especially since pregnancy (though admittedly I probably was before then, too).

Now for something completely different!

Okay, so I don't think my hubby reads this, but in case he does I'll be a little cryptic. Part of the reason I wanted to save money on groceries, in addition to paying rent and insurance, is so that I could do a little secret something special for his birthday. Just little things, mostly, but I didn't know where the money could come from. Well, the beginning of the school year came around, so I thought, hey! My textbooks! I should be able to sell those to students. However, several attempts at selling the books fell through, and the arrangements for the secret weren't lining up as fast as I'd hoped and, well, I got a little discouraged. Should I give up on the secret? Should I not plan on having any extra money from textbooks?

Well, I'm still waiting, but things are looking up. I got emailed three times about the same book (which is actually kind of distressing - what if the first person doesn't get back to me and the others find another means to get the book?), and I realized that some people might not have added all their classes yet. There's still some hope on that front. And I've gathered a little more on my secret, so as long as I don't procrastinate too much it should work out (speaking of which.... maybe I'll tackle that next instead of the kitchen :-D).

It's funny, too, because while I was discouraged, I remember thinking about a lesson from Sunday about trials and how sometimes hard things precede really good things. Not that it was excruciatingly hard or anything, but I wondered if perhaps I should just trust that things would get better if I kept trying. Maybe it wouldn't work out the way I hoped, but there was no reason to give up.... well, I'm glad I didn't. Even if the secret only goes as far as what I have now, I'm sure Gary will love it. Even if I don't sell my textbooks immediately, we'll get by. The future? I see many more financial difficulties to come (read: childbirth!), and for the moment, I'm sure we'll get through them somehow. It's a good feeling.