-You know you’re poor when you go to Target just to get a free box of mac n cheese. The checkout guy rolls his eyes and informs you that your total savings was $1.19!
-You know you’re poor when your husband (being romantic and thoughtful) brings you a fun-sized kit kat for a surprise gift... and you are genuinely thrilled!
I think we’re adjusting pretty well to life on one income. My husband and I have been very blessed so far in our marriage, not only with each other and our family and friends, but also financially. We’ve always had some money in savings so even now we don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. It’s humbling to see how well we are able to live here in America. We are poor by our country’s standards and our standards and we like to joke about it, but we both have traveled to real poor places. We’ve seen the shacks and mud huts. We’ve smelled the filth and the sewage. We know how blessed we are and we are thankful. So when I say we are poor, I know we aren’t really. If we ever need more money for food or electricity, there are plenty of things we can give up so that we’ll get what we need. However, I see it as my job to make my husband’s income go as far as it can. To do that, we live on a very strict budget which we stick to down to the penny.
The grocery budget is less than $300 per month. Let me tell you…it is HARD to feed a 6’ 2” 260 pound husband (who has a labor intensive job) on $300 per month! He eats a lot. And I want to make sure he gets good, wholesome food. I recently started meal planning and when we get to the end of the month, it becomes a real challenge. This week, I had $19 to purchase groceries for the last week of October. Yesterday I bought a whole chicken from Albertsons ($.79 per pound) for less than $5. It was dinner last night (with mashed potatoes (peal on for extra nutrition) and green beans) and was my husband’s lunch today. It will be dinner tonight (chicken casserole) and the leftovers will be his lunch tomorrow. And it will be dinner tomorrow (chicken soup) and the leftovers will be his lunch on Thursday! That $5 chicken sure goes a long way when you meal plan!
Another new experience for me is “going without.” My $19 of grocery money this week went to the chicken, milk, bread, carrots and a few other necessary things. When the money was gone, we were still out of coffee creamer and cheddar cheese. In the past, I would just buy those things because we like them, even if there wasn’t money in the grocery budget. But we don’t need them and now there simply isn’t any wiggle room in the budget. So, this week we drink our coffee black and we don’t get cheese on our sandwiches! That’ll just make us appreciate it more come November 1st when the budget starts over. J
