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5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week 74
When baseball season begins, we are a busy family! Four of our children play ball. My husband is not only the coach for one of those teams, but he likes to help with another. And he’s the representative for all of the baseball teams in our town. Which is added work.
I’m not complaining. We adore baseball, and we wouldn’t devote so much time to it if it wasn’t a lot of fun and a super learning experience for our children. But it does make things like grocery shopping a bigger chore than usual.
I gave up taking kids to the grocery store when my daughter (18 months old at the time) started opening every package and actually ate a stick of butter. Yep. Aside from the gross out factor, I was a little worried about her health. But I guess it’s kind of like me serving a Paula Deen recipe at home…
At any rate, I prefer to take an evening every 2 weeks or so and make my trip. This week I decided that it was too much to add to our schedule, so I treated myself to a Clicklist order. You can read my review of Kroger Clicklist (other grocery store car delivery services are probably similar). My opinion is that not picking up impulse buys with my order equals the savings I might have found in hidden in store deals. So it evens out.
5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week 73
Earlier this week, I took my 3 year old out to run errands. We decided to try a new park, which was so much fun! They have a climbing toy in the shape of a train, which my little guy just loved.
When we finally got home after a long day of running errands, I was ready for both of us to have some down time. But as I unloaded things from the van, I saw him topple head first out of the car and into our gravel driveway. Instead of relaxing, we spent a few hours in the emergency room.
Luckily, everything turned out just fine! He was happy to get a popsicle and watch some cartoons, and I was relieved when the doctor said he looked a lot worse than he actually was.
5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week 72
Do you give your kids gifts for Easter? I’ve heard of some parents that decide to gift an item they were going to have to buy the kids this time of year anyway (like boots or a folding chair for ball games). Then there are the parents that want to go all out for their kids no matter what we’re celebrating.
I’ve done both. On baby’s first Easter, he was 4 months old. But I decided he needed another fun toy to kick at during floor time. (Really? What was I thinking??)
These days I recognize the beauty in simplicity. I like the idea of keeping this holiday focused on Jesus. So even though some kids need new shoes and I’d like to get the little guy some toys for his sand box, I’m resisting. Besides, who wants to start the race where you buy something for one kid and then have to even it up for the rest of them?
5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week 71
It’s funny how getting our largest credit card debt paid off has changed things around here. We aren’t out of debt yet. We have a couple more cards to go (both significantly smaller than what we owed the giant card).
Still, the free feeling of escaping that debt just makes me hungrier to do better with all of our money. It made me curious about other parts of our financial picture. And that gave me more motivation to get debt free.
Now that’s a circle I’d much rather be running than the old “never get out of debt” circle!
5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week 70
Spring break! Which doesn’t mean a whole lot when you’re working on getting out of debt. The kids are off school and life is slow and simple. I love turning off the alarm clock for the whole week!
You could add “take a nice little trip during spring break” to the list of things I’d like to do once we’re debt free. But my list has gotten as long as Santa’s. Once we’re out of debt, we’ll prioritize the things we want the most from our lives. Until then, I’ll have fun in my little fantasy world! It gets me through the journey to debt freedom, so it’s fine by me.