Even though I have been trying to stay away from all places that sell stuff in order to keep my spending down, I HAD to go to Wal-Mart today. The cats were out of food and I needed some kind of carpet cleaner with odor remover in it. When I was at home on Monday I noticed an odd smell coming from Zach’s room. After crawling around on my hands and knees for a while, I was able to pinpoint it to a small area on the carpet. The only thing I can figure out is that he must have either spit up or spilled some milk on the carpet that I didn’t know about and now it is rotten and smelly.
So, I set out at lunch with a $25 gift card that hubby had won at a meeting at work a few weeks ago. I figured if I was only buying those two items the $25 would cover it with no problem. When I walked in the store I was determined not to buy anything else. Then my mom stopped to look at a pair of pants that she liked. Warning signals were going off in my head, but I paid no attention to them.
We ended up spending about 20 minutes browsing through the clothing section before I spotted the clearance racks. I found a rack with jeans that were marked down to $7. I started digging through them to see if I could find something my size because I desperately need some jeans that fit. Losing weight begins to suck when your clothes are all too big and you can’t afford to buy stuff that fits! I didn’t find any jeans that I liked, so I moved on. Then I spotted a pair of dark brown corduroy pants that were just my size. I have almost bought these pants so many times over the last year (not this specific pair, but some very similar to them). When I looked at the price tag, I discovered they were only $5. Did you see that? FIVE DOLLARS! I had to buy them. I quickly vowed to myself that I would not pick up anything else that was not on the mental list.
We moved on from the clothing section and I quickly found some carpet cleaner and the cat food. As we headed to the checkout, we passed by the Health & Beauty section where they had a big display of my favorite shampoo packaged with a free bottle of conditioner. When you have dry, frizzy, curly hair like mine (even as short as mine is) it is absolutely a must that you buy good shampoo and conditioner. Since I would probably have to buy this anyway in another week or two, I figured I might as well buy it and get the free conditioner with it. Buying it today would save me money later. See how I rationalize my spending?
I picked up a Coke Zero at the checkout to go with my lunch, and the grand total came up to $27 and some change. I did go slightly over the $25 gift card, but compared to my usual Wal-Mart trips that always cost at least $100, this is an improvement. Really, when you think about it, I spent less than $3 because the gift card was free. I don’t think that’s too bad. Hubby will be so proud of me!
This is good progress! If you keep telling yourself only to buy things you NEED it starts to get better.
I feel the same way, every time I go to walmart I spend at least $100. It’s all stuff I need to, no clothes, movies, DVDs, nothing, especially now that I have no job. My last Walmart trip with out any of those aforementioned items. $89. lol. But you just cannot pass on $5 pants, even I could not do that!!!
I’d say that was a super shopping trip- you got what you needed and a pair of pants for 5$!?!?!?! Wow, super shopping skillz.
I seriously never leave wal-mart with a bill under 80$, it’s rediculous.