Grocery Budget Buster: Forgetting the Groceries

I poured over the ads, coupons and multiple couponing blogs to put together an awesome list for Meijers and Kroger last week. I was stoked that I found multiple items for free and had survived the five hours of errands with my two children.

I quickly unloaded my bags of groceries for pictures and found I was missing a bag. Somehow I had left all of the Healthy Choice entrees at the store that I had gotten on sale for about $6 total. A whole week’s worth of lunches for Tim were either sitting in some forlorn cart or abandoned at the customer service center, where I had to visit to use my high-value $5/5 coupon.

I called Krogers and there was no trace of my bag. They offered to let me bring in my receipt and get new boxes, but I declined as nap-time was approaching and we had plans for the rest of the day. I doubted whether they would let me bring in my receipt the next day, and I was too timid to go back, thinking that they might not trust me.

Although I scored some great deals, especially at Meijer’s, I was a little bummed that I had forgotten food at the store and wasted money. The best way to stretch your grocery dollars is to use your food up, and that’s hard to do if you leave the food you’ve paid for at the grocery store.

Chock this to a lesson learned in frugality. To see more frugal posts check out Life As Mom’s Frugal Friday.

Oops, What Happened to Our Cell Phone Bill

Tim and I each have a cell phone but not a land line. Tim’s is a prepaid phone that we put minutes on about every three months. Mine is a basic plan with 450 minutes and free nights/weekends and calls to members of the same provider. Whenever Tim needs to make some calls, we just switch phones. Since most of my family keeps in touch through the phone and has the same provider, and most of my calls are to family, we rarely go over our minutes. In fact, until this last month I don’t think we came close to within 100 minutes of our limit.

So imagine my  surprise when I found our bill this month to be almost double what it normally is. We had made a few longer phone calls and never checked our balance. I didn’t catch the error until it was too late for the phone company to change our plan for one month and change it back, which could have saved a few bucks.

We will pay the penalty this month for assuming that we could never go over our minutes. Because of this slight hiccup we are making some minor adjustments in our budget this month. I have decided to go on a cash only budget for the bills we don’t pay online or by check. In addition I am making a few more items from scratch like bread and refried beans.

In order to prevent this from happening in the future, I am making it a priority to check our balance halfway through our usage period and if we are close to our limit than checking it every few days. For others who have trouble going over their balance there are tools your cell phone company might offer for a small fee to prevent you from going over your minutes. You may also be able to change your plan for one month and then change back.

Although this bill is an inconvenience for the month, I would rather learn my lesson by going less than $50 over than going over by several hundred. We are also at a point where we don’t need to go into debt or dip into savings to deal with this small situation, we just need to use a little creativity.

The Cost of Flossing

A few months ago Tim and I went to the dentist. This was the first time for us to go in over 2 1/2 years since our student insurance didn’t cover dental care. I have always had a healthy mouth so imagine my shock when my dentist said I had seven cavities!

The dentist told me that my teeth were healthy where I brushed, but that cavities had developed in the areas where I should have been flossing. I learned there is a reason that dentists encourage regular flossing.

My laziness and ignorance ended in me having to go back to the dentist twice more and spend around $200 for the fillings. My dentist told me it would have been around $500 more if I would have gotten the white fillings.

Since Tim is a better flosser and also ended up with a couple of cavities, I attribute some of my own cavities from staying away from a dentist for 2 1/2 years (which I never plan on repeating). But the development of the other cavities I blame on forgetting to floss. If I would have been a regular flosser I’m guessing I would have saved at least $100, the time of my appointments and the pain of dental work.

I am now a regular nightly flosser and believe that the minute-and-a-half it takes me to floss and the $0.99 I spent on floss is well worth it. Flossing is just one example of how a little time and money upfront can save a lot of money and pain in the long run.