digging deep

Where did all of my money go when I was single? Probably to clothes and such. Yeah, definitely clothes. How about when we were married without a child? More clothes? Eating out? Vacations? Definitely not savings. I wish I could go back in time to smack myself upside the head and say "Listen, you don't need more shoes. You need to save and not put things on credit." Because here I am, however many years later, relearning everything my parents taught me about saving and debt. By this time next week we'll be completely out of debt, except for Jason's student loans, for the first time in 7 years. Seven years and who knows how much discretionary income thrown away. Gosh we were stupid! But better late than never as they say. And since life is under no obligation to give us what we want (Margaret Mitchell), I'll just have to make the changes for myself. Which is why I'm going to start doing something I told myself I just didn't have time for. Ladies and gents, starting now, I will begin price matching and couponing. Le sigh. 
As part of my better budgeting goal of last month I'm taking some new steps. In February I kept track of every dollar we spent, without prejudice. I didn't try to curb spending - I just wanted to see where it was all going. And after paying all the usual bills, most of our money was going towards prescription costs and groceries. Now, doctor's bills and prescriptions are kind of non-negotiable in my life so I can't really cut back on those but I can do something about how much we spend on food stuffs. 

I'm not sure why I've had such an aversion to price matching and coupons all these years. Maybe it was those times I stood in line behind that lady at Walmart, the one with 2 carts full of groceries and binders full of ads, taking 20 minutes just to check out. But really, who am I to judge? She probably spent 15 bucks on all those groceries while I was stupidly paying full price. 

So that's my new addendum to budgeting: Save where I can. Make a list, find coupons, price match, stick to the list. And try not to hit up the store multiple times a week since that's where the dollars start to add up. And hopefully, by next month, I'll have made a big enough change that I'll be able to see the savings in my budget.