Bringing Home the Groceries

  In today’s economic climate, budgeting your money is important. Setting firm limits on how much you can spend and on what will greatly help, because no one should be accruing debt with job loss a real possibility. I, for example, have a strict budget of how much can be spent on food. I may tend to go overboard, but for me, it’s been helpful to further break down my food allowance, setting amounts in categories like: fruits and vegetables; meats; cereal; beverages (non-alcoholic); and discretionary. It’s the discretionary category where I tend to get in trouble; this week, I’ve greatly exceeded my animal cracker budget.
  Perhaps I should rephrase that, since saying I have a set animal cracker budget kind of makes me sound like I’m eight years old. It’s not always animal crackers, that’s just what my spending was on this week. Sometimes it’s Goldfish crackers, other times it’s Teddy Grahams.
  The reason I overshoot my budget is that I can’t set boundaries. If I have a box of crackers sitting in front of me, I will eat most, if not all, of the box. (My dinner on Saturday was a bag of honey mustard and onion pretzel bits.) So if I gobble down all my discretionary funds two days after going to the store, I either can suck it up for the rest of the week, or give myself a budgetary exemption. Generally it’s the latter.
  To combat my habit of overeating, I’ve found it helpful to enforce the boundaries that ought to be in place. Using plastic sandwich bags, I divide the contents of each box by seven. Right now in my cupboard are seven bags evenly filled with Teddy Grahams. This way I know how much I am allowed to eat each day. I’ve also found this to be helpful with carrot sticks.
  With a continuing recession, it’s important to eat a nutritious and balanced diet, which might need to be done on an ever-shrinking budget. Now is not the time to waste food. And while having “treats” might seem frivolous, I prefer to think of my discretionaries as incentives. If I don’t finish my dinner, I don’t get any animal crackers. Or if I don’t eat all my vegetables, I won’t get to have Teddy Grahams. Self-imposing these rules allows me to stay healthy and make sure I’m not wasting my food money.
  And once I can put a stop to having my lunch money taken from me, I’ll be just a bit more financially secure.