Trial and Error

So guess what? It's July 5 and Les and I have already spent over half of our newly-winnowed grocery budget, and have gone $11 over our monthly "food not cooked at home" budget! Whoo-hoo! It's gonna be a fun month.

It's so weird. When I was in grad school, I honestly and truly ate saltines and peanut butter some weeks because I ran out of money. Friends were sending me Trader Joe's gift cards in the mail because they suspected I was broker than broke. Les lived on a grad school budget for EIGHT YEARS. So how did we go from penny pinching rock stars to overspending freakos in just a few short years?

I guess you could also ask how I went from marathon runner to never-runner in just 2 years.

The answer, I think, is the same for both. Slacking off on the discipline that makes certain things in one's life run smoothly and naturally. When I committed to the marathon, I committed to early morning runs. I committed to not wearing high heels for 6 months, to eating and not eating foods that fit my training. I knew I would not be able to go out with my friends every time I wanted to, or stay out late before a long run. But it was OK, because everyone knew I had my Eye on the Prize. And that eventually your life would go back to normal.

Same with budgeting and living well with less. When you're in grad school, you have this goal of finishing up your degree and then getting on with your life. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. A goal. And everyone knows about it. You can put up with ramen and sly gifts of pantry staples from friends because you know that in a couple of years you'll be able to buy our own darn pasta, thank you very much....

So how do you define what you hope will be a New Normal? Hopefully this blog will help some with the accountability. But we're really going to have to re-learn how we eat, shop, and spend quality time with our friends. Because we ate out 4 times this long weekend (ONE WEEKEND!) and there went our whole pot of money for the month. There are other ways to hang out with people you love, so I've just got to bit the bullet and suggest a walk, or an ice cream cone rather than dinner and drinks. The point is the "together", not the spending, right?

Yeah, well, that's the update so far on this month of trial-and-error as we try to put our money where our "live well and spend less" mouths are.