These past few weeks have been very un-miser-like in the so-called Miser Mom household.
Last week, restaurant spending dominated grocery spending by a lot -- for me, because I was at the math meetings, and for my husband and the rest of the family, because I was at the math meetings.
Not everyone in my family loves cooking from scratch. Or even if they do love it, it's the kind of love that comes more easily when they have a coach [slave driver] standing over them, telling them to do it now. So even though grocery spending was a piddly $58 for the week, I call foul. That week doesn't count.
This past Monday, I went grocery shopping with my dad in Durango, Colorado. You would not have recognized me had you seen me. To whit, we did our shopping at a giant, chain store whose name ends in "mart". Can I say, that I had sort of thought my complete and utter rejection of big chain stores came to me from my family, in the same way my frugality and conservation did? But no, the one time every year that I opt for people-over-principles (at least as far as Wall-stores go) is when I'm with the people who reared me up and set me loose on this world.
Before we went into the store, we compiled a grocery list 3 pages long. We piled three carts full of food. Even though my daughter handed me some cloth bags, we had not nearly enough -- the food got packed into 40 plastic bags. Ugh. Another non-me kind of experience.
We spent $600. That, for a gaggle of 15 people, seems fairly reasonable -- that's $40 per person. It will get us through much, but not all, of this week together. We're back to cooking for one another; we'll try hard to avoid restaurants . . . at least that part of the Miser-make-up is something that comes from my upbringing.
Last week, restaurant spending dominated grocery spending by a lot -- for me, because I was at the math meetings, and for my husband and the rest of the family, because I was at the math meetings.
Not everyone in my family loves cooking from scratch. Or even if they do love it, it's the kind of love that comes more easily when they have a coach [slave driver] standing over them, telling them to do it now. So even though grocery spending was a piddly $58 for the week, I call foul. That week doesn't count.
This past Monday, I went grocery shopping with my dad in Durango, Colorado. You would not have recognized me had you seen me. To whit, we did our shopping at a giant, chain store whose name ends in "mart". Can I say, that I had sort of thought my complete and utter rejection of big chain stores came to me from my family, in the same way my frugality and conservation did? But no, the one time every year that I opt for people-over-principles (at least as far as Wall-stores go) is when I'm with the people who reared me up and set me loose on this world.
Before we went into the store, we compiled a grocery list 3 pages long. We piled three carts full of food. Even though my daughter handed me some cloth bags, we had not nearly enough -- the food got packed into 40 plastic bags. Ugh. Another non-me kind of experience.
We spent $600. That, for a gaggle of 15 people, seems fairly reasonable -- that's $40 per person. It will get us through much, but not all, of this week together. We're back to cooking for one another; we'll try hard to avoid restaurants . . . at least that part of the Miser-make-up is something that comes from my upbringing.
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