What I Learned from Last Week's Grocery Shopping

 

You know, we all say, by times, we live and learn.  We also say, by times, that hind sight is better than foresight.  This is true.  No matter what happens, whether good or bad, we can see behind us and know we did right or we can learn a lesson from the mistakes that we made.  This is in any situation.  It could be from the perspective of eternity or just from the day to day of doing our routine things that don't necessarily have any long lasting effect (if this is possible).  Anyway, all philosophy aside, I did learn why I overspent last week. 

My weekly allotment of grocery money is $150.  Most weeks I do not spend more than that amount.  In fact, I was thinking of lowering it.  I want to wait a little longer to make sure of how much lower I want to go.  Last week I went over my $150 by about $60.  If you did not see My Grocery Cart of Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, 2010, read it here.  I made two mistakes.

1.You will notice I went to Aldi's and bought a lot lot of staples all at a good price. I did not need most of them.  I should have waited until a week that I was not going to stock up on other things.   Then I would have stocked up at a good price and kept within my budget.

2. I bought all my items at Food Lion in one trip.  Food Lion runs their sales from Wed. to Tues.  My other grocery stops are from Sun. to Sat.  I should have bought all the 3 day sale items on Friday. Then on Monday, when I usually go to Food Lion for my Sunday paper, I would have bought all the other good sale items.  This would have scattered my large stock up spending into 2 weeks. 

Last week was a very good stock up week at Food Lion.  I could have done it within my budget by doing these two things. But, as I said, hindsight is better than foresight.  Now I know.  I will try to organize my stocking up better from my experience last week.

Do you agree?  Can you organize your spending so that you can stock up and not go over your budget?