Curbing the Spending

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!