Preventative shopping

Given my druthers, I'd never go to a store.  (Gilbert & Sullivan would ask, "What, Never?" "No, never!"  "What, Never?"   "Well,  . . .  hardly ever."  Oh, geez, I love the H.M.S. Pinafore!)

One of the things that pushes me into stores in-spite-of-it-all  is what I'd call "preventative shopping".  When I know my family will be wandering through expensive areas, I try to go to "normal" stores to stave off those high-price purchases.  Here are some examples:

• I never (well, hardly ever) buy commercial cereals.  But when I'm getting ready to travel long distances with my family, I buy oat-based cereals to make trail mix.  I'm trying to head-off the purchase of as much expensive airport food as I can.
• Similarly, before long car drives, I'll go buy extra bread, PB & J, and other preservative-laden grocery store foods, so we can minimize the number of road-side restaurants we have to stop at.
• The boys seem to have a need for a new pair of shoes every month -- this has a little to do with how the shoes wear, and a lot to do with their felt need for variety.  So instead of letting my boys drag me to expensive so-called-thrift-stores in the winter, I stocked up on extra shoes at yard sales this summer.
• If I had no men around me, I'd be almost exclusively vegetarian.  But my husband and my several sons love meat.  They wax rhapsodic:  Chicken, oh chicken!  Lamb!  Beef!  And my husband buys whatever corporate meat he can find when he feels the need.  So I've started contacting local dairies and turkey farmers, buying sausage and hamburger in bulk, so there's good meat at home in the freezer, ready to cook up into manly meals.

As we get ready to bring E-son into our home, my husband is aching to buy him lots of stuff. Already he's bought the kid an army hat, a bike helmet, and an Under-Armor shirt.  I'll be keeping an eye on the yearnings and yens of these guys, to see if I might be able to stave off some large expensive purchases with strategic preventative shopping of my own.  I'll keep you posted.