that peaceful, easy feeling...

This morning as I was going through my reader, I saw a link to this old article written on The Simple Dollar site. The points Trent makes in this article are quite valuable.

Recently, the husband and I have started sitting down on Sunday afternoons and planning what we want to eat the week ahead and writing a grocery list of what we need. This keeps us from buying a bunch of random stuff ("I'll do something with this ground turkey...") and it also keeps us from buying things we don't need. Even though it takes more time, we shaved a good $50.00 off our grocery bill by making the list and sticking to it. This is especially good for my husband, since he is the world's WORST for impulse buying and always enjoys accompanying me to the grocery store. He writes down a few things he has cravings for and we get those things, but it eliminates those wandering eyes. :) I have also noticed that it has reduced the amount of money we spend eating out if we're looking forward to the meal we're going to cook at home. For example, "I'm going to cook bbq chicken tonight with baked potato and slaw.." rather than, "Well, I've got some chicken...and some cabbage...oh I'm too tired for this...it's been TOO long of a day, let's just go out."

The points that Trent makes that I think are exceptionally noteworthy are as follows:

1. Cut your visits down to once or twice a week. I usually do one main visit per week (on Saturdays) and one smaller visit (usually on my way home from work on Tuesdays). This reduces the opportunities to buy frivolous things.

4. Before you go, consider what you’ll probably eat at home in the next week. You don’t need to sketch out every meal, but have ideas for several meals before you go and make sure you have the ingredients for all of those, plus any additional foods you might want.

The real key, though, is to stick to your list once you’re in the store. It feels like a real accomplishment the first time you see a smaller bill at the checkout and you look through your sacks and don’t see anything silly.

Amen.