A Tough Financial Decision

Every other weekend, Eric and I peek in our food money envelope to see how much money we have to last us the next five days. We are pretty consistent with how often we go out to eat and how much we spend on groceries, but it's a fun little game to see if we can splurge on a dinner out over the weekend or if we need to buckle down until we get paid.

So last Saturday, there we went to my purse. We had $46 and some change, so Eric said I could pick if we went out to eat or not (he's so good to me). I thought, we can go out to eat for about $25 and have $21 left for groceries. We would be able to get the necessities for the week. And that would have been fine (and what we normally do). But since we've started using the Grocery Gadget app, I've realized that you can get a lot of groceries for $46. And I have been craving Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream, Easter candy and the cookies we always eat in the summer when we go boating.

So for the first time ever in the history of our marriage, I chose groceries over eating out. When we went through Financial Peace University two years ago, we realized that we were spending about $700 (!!!) on food each month. (I take most of the blame on that...) Now, we spend $200 on food every two weeks.

So after church on Saturday night we went to the grocery store. I was so excited to have the freedom to buy all the junk food I wanted. Eric pushed the cart and I was in charge of the list. We went through all the aisles and didn't hold back on any desires.

At the checkout, I gave Eric our food envelope and told him it should cost $34.17. I then headed to Redbox to get a movie (Karate Kid). When he came over, I asked him how much it cost. He said $37 and looked at the receipt and we had been charged for two applesauces instead of one. So we went to customer service and they gave us $3 back and our applesauce for free! (Aren't you proud, mom? You taught me something.)

So now we have even more money to spend on goodies. Which is good, because Hy-Vee didn't have any SweeTarts Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies (my must-have Easter candy). I'll find you, my pretties...