Day 3 - And miles to go

Today, I needed to go grocery shopping. Ahh, sweet grocery shopping. When needs and wants become blurred.

Before the shopping, Baby Girl and I kicked off the morning trying out Playground Paradise which is this city-run indoor playground at Don Mills and Eg. It is just like any other indoor playground but is cheaper ($2 got both of us in) and, in my opinion, cleaner than most of the for-profit ones. We aimed to get there as soon as it opened but after fussing and fighting about gloves (too itchy!) , hats (covering my eyes, my eyes!), food (cheerios, no, no gators!), shoes (want to wear my train slippers!) and coats (no coat, no coat, no no no!), we arrived a little later than planned.

It's very impressive, is Playground Paradise. It's tucked away behind a series of highrises in a very unassuming looking building but inside is a ball pit, foam climby things and this two story climbing apparatus. In the morning, there seems to be a mainly preschool crowd.

Then, the Oafs arrived. With 10 similarly aged, totally wired, 'far too old for the place' boys and a giant cake-sized cardboard box. And yet they had not booked the place for a birthday (something which can be done for far less than what it would have cost to gas up the large SUVs in the parking lot which presumably belonged to them). The boys were running and shoving and made Baby Girl pretty nervous. The staff seemed to be getting ready to intervene when I decided to call it a day.

All that preamble is was simply to establish that I hit the super-sized grocery store with a Need for Chocolate and Makeup.

I had a list - a week's worth of groceries and household stuff (now that Wally's has been put on my blacklist).  I  was hoping to get by for under $200. But I needed The Dude's formula, baby food, tempra (it is so much cheaper there), shampoo, Tylenol, baby wipes, feminine stuff and diaper genie refills.  A tall order indeed.

I avoided the make-up department. Too tempting to throw a L'oreal juicy tube gloss or some cuticle cream into the cart. Ditto for clothes, kids clothes, housewares and seasonal items. "I don't need Easter bunny tea towels even if they are practically free," I muttered through clenched teeth (I need to start wearing my night guard during the day, I think).

The grand total: $214.38. Non essentials were 1) cinderella toothbrush ($3.29) - don't need new brush for a month but Cinderellas get picked out and am Aurora brush just isn't quite the same 2) Cocoa Camino Chocolate bar ($3.49) but it's Fair Trade and chocolate. No, I've changed my mind that this is a need. 2) 2 Nail files for $1.99 each. I like those big fat Lacross ones and got one for me and one for the kids as the sandpaper has worn down to nothing on the ones at home. 3) Cookie monster 2 in 1 shampoo. We have shampoo at home but Baby Girl has the world's most flyaway hair. If this works, she can pay us back with the proceeds from her supermodel contracts. 4) Those flow-through baking soda things. It's spring and the milk tastes a little like Hummus.

Usually, I come back from these trips to the giant grocery store with a wedding dress and a club chair, with the rationale that if they sell it at a grocery store, it must be a need. So, I'm pretty proud of myself. And I will be taking back the diaper genie refills because they only had the thin blue "for breastmilk" ones  and we are a green "for stinky foods" family (note to the brand manager - when marketing diaper containment devices, if you label one as 'extra-effective against stink,' no-one in their right mind would want to buy the other one ('not so effective against stink?') which is why there are always blue ones piled to the ceiling and not a green one to be found anywhere in the province).

The afternoon, Baby Girl decided that in spite of the scary suits of armour on the third floor, she'd like another visit to the museum. So off we trotted. As we were there, I realized that I had forgotten to buy a copy of The Star which promised to have some sort of special section about this weekend's Pet Show.

Baby Girl has been talking about the Pet Show every day for three weeks. "Is today the Pet Show day?" she whispers every morning upon waking. Ever since the Care Bears Live show, she has been interested in "shows" and their promised magic (she was a little disappointed in The Interior Design show as there were no dancing bears -- Karim Rashid may be a lot of things, but Funshine bear, he ain't). But she's into Pets and into Shows and so the idea of a pet show is holy-mother-of-god exciting to her. I figured that 70 cents and the newpaper-shaped portion of recycling bin real estate the paper would demand was worth it.

But do you think I had 70 cents? No, because I'm on a spending freeze. I had our ROM cards, and a Visa card (which I pretend I need for ID purposes but I really need in case on our walk I discovered that the Walter Steiger shop clerks went all mad cow and decided to sell off all of the shoes for $3 a pair.) So I could 1) go home, try to convince Baby Girl to stay in the stroller, grab some change and pick up a paper from the paper box 2) give up on the paper idea or 3) Figure out an errand I needed to run on teh way home where I would spend $10 or more necessary (and credit-card worthy) dollars and be able to get a newspaper. I remembered that Shoppers had diapers on sale. We always need diapers. And they sell newspapers. They also sell the non-stinky green genie refills so my 70 cent paper cost me $29.62.

From now on, I'm bringing at least $2 in cash with me on my travels.

It's beiong going OK but temptation iseverywhere. I want a new Fermes (faux Hermes) scarf, I want a new lipgoss, I want some jeans that make me look like Tyra Banks. I want books, books and more books. I want to get some trop cher highlights. I want, I want, I want...

So, how goes it with you?

Comments

[rachel]

I'm not on a spending diet (if anything, I am a giant cheap-ass and need some kind of "Spend Some Money on Yourself: It Won't Kill You!" day -- just a day, mind, because a week WOULD kill me...)

ANYWAY, I write because you mentioned feminine products, and I just wanted to praise the Divacup, which I just started using this past fall. $45 (or thereabouts), lasts forever, you will save hugely on feminine products over its lifetime, not to mention environmental benefits. And it's less gross than you think it's going to be (there's a sales slogan! Why am I not in advertising!).

That's all. They don't pay me; I just happen to love mine, and y'all were looking for ways to cut back your spending.

[Her Bad Mother]

Nothing spent yesterday because we were a little under the weather and stayed in. The triumph? No online shopping! (None in a week, actually.)

Tonight, Husband did grocery shopping - brought home Vogue mag and chocolate for me, which doesn't count because he bought it... right?

[Judy]

Not too bad of a day for me, as we were too busy to spend anything. $5 for subway fare to go to meeting, $5 for something to eat at McCrappies (it was an emergency), and my $4 latte, which I have prepaid for on my card, and has been worked into our family budget. I have to have at least one vice left in my life.

[scarbie doll]

Hmmm... I was also out for sushi last night. I only spent 22$ because I was our designated driver.

Also yesterday, I did buy a chai at Fourbucks on my walk to the streetcar from work and spent $5 on TTC fare for the day. Today I bought a charity box of chocolate almonds for $3. So working doesn't actually make you any money... it ends up costing you more.

[Marla Good]

Pretty good, pretty good. Except I got all big-eyed at some fancy sushi while out with the girls, took one bite and left it on the plate. It wouldn't have been wasting money if I'd eaten it, right?

And then we went to a small club where one of my favourtie beers was on tap, albeit at a premium...but then I grabbed about forty copies of the little local newspaper that Josie made the cover of (I just had to work that in) so it was worth it.

Oh wait...this is not a forum where we justify what we did spend - it's where we're proud of ourselves for not spending where we shouldn't. So, um...while getting a jar of pasta sauce at Shopper's on the way home from work, I did not by any of those darling Lindt Easter thingies that make you feel almost like you're eating Godivas on a Cadbury budget. And I put all of my change from my cute new change purse (I needed incentive to organize my change - and I bought it before this started anyway - and it was DARLING - under $5 at El Pipil on the Danforth) in a bank when I got home. TA DA!