Little Black Guidebook

Constant Comment Tea Tag (Back), originally uploaded by Alien Spouse.

Ok, saving for Europe spending challenge #2 was to get through our most routine money spending event “grocery shopping” without spending unnecessarily. Results were mixed.

I love tea and usually splurge on loose leaf good stuff, but I did manage to settle for some Bigelow Tea Constant Comment this week. I also made a menu and a list and I stuck to it where food was concerned.

But then I got to the personal products aisle. My favorite shampoo/conditioner, which I can actually feel the difference after I use it was on sale. Ahem, it was $7 instead of $10 for beautiful, organic, makes my hair lay straight and smell like heaven shampoo. I could have bought Dove for $2 per bottle and been fine, but I had been so good with my food purchases and it was 30% off so it snuck its way home with me. Deduct $10 from Europe trip savings.

I find saving money to be like dieting for me, it just doesn’t work if I feel like I am depriving myself. I come up with justifications, cheats, and can turn a bad day into a bad week/month/etc and suddenly I’m having a garage sale and wondering “Where did all this stuff come from?”.

Dieting is something I have given up. I have dieted and lost the same 40 lbs twice in my life. But I have also lost 25 lbs the right way, slowly over the last two years, where it was not a diet, but truly a lifestyle change and I know how good it feels to not be lecturing myself, but to be thinking about things in the context of taking care of my body.

If I approach money with more of the attitude that I now approach food with I may be healthier overall. So I’m going to change all my self lecturing over my shampoo to a quality vs. price decision. It is just worth it to me and I’ll find another creative way to replace the $10 in the Europe fund.

Uploaded by ajburgess

The saying: “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.” usually holds true for me. I did get lucky and my failure to plan worked out. My work provided lunch at a meeting, which avoided the choice of buying something or going hungr. I totally missed that today was no spending day and didn’t pack anything. Oh well, chalk that exercise up as a try again later.

Amount saved $16.00 for lunch and gas at lunchtime. ($8×2 for me and hubby as he also forgot lunch and got my leftovers) = 11.6 Euros or the price of 1 ten pack (un carnet) of Paris metro tickets, which I know we will go through this fall.

Next challenge, get through the grocery store without anything not on the list and not absolutely necessary. Somehow my cabinets are full and yet we both looked at the fridge yesterday and said there was nothing to eat except for frozen pizza. Clearly we need to evaluate what we have and then make a list around a meal plan and cook some of these staples or donate them to the food bank if we aren’t going to use them.

I saw these clips of Oprah in Denmark (happiest citizens on Earth) over the weekend and was struck once again  with how less things can lead to more life. I’m no minimalist yet  trust me, but I have been trying to eliminate things that get in the way of living, wether by taking up my time to maintain/clean them or mentally cluttering my life. I have made over $400 on Amazon selling used books, videos, video games, etc. over the last two months and cleaned out a lot of our unused media in the process.

Now I’m up for a new challenge, not bringing new stuff in the house. This attempt to save money and space will result in extra savings to put towards our Europe trip this fall. First challenge is not spending money for ONE day.  I don’t mean this literally as in dumpster-diving for dinner, but I won’t spend money that day. I will plan ahead and pack lunch, etc. so some may consider me to be front-loading my expenses. Trust me, this will save money over my average day.