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How Do You Balance
By Mommie | February 23, 2008
So where does being frugal cross into the realm of stressful? As I come up on another weekend, this one has “budget” written all over it. That being said, I know that we need to cut even more off our grocery bill and we need to work on cutting out even more of our eating out (FYI, we’ve already planned to go out tonight for dinner, guess we’ll start that budget piece tomorrow).
How far do you go? I could cut out all eating out completely, but then guess who has to cook THREE meals a day… I could have my family eat only beans and tortillas, but then my husband would probably leave me (lol).
An example I use is our wedding. We planned our entire wedding, we did everything from printing bulletins to making our own invitations, in leiu of finding affordable wedding invitations. Besides saving us money, you know what else we got? STRESS.
What we could have done was just buy cheap wedding invitations and saved ourself the headache. But we didn’t. While our invitations turned out very nice, we still had that to worry about, plus the entire rest of the wedding.
In retrospect I think I would have spent a little money on low cost wedding invitations and saved the stress.
So when you’re being frugal mommies, make sure and weight the pros and the cons of the moves you make.
Topics: Uncategorized |
February 24th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Hi Mommie,
I totally understand your problem. A few years ago my family and I had the same problem. I’m not sure where you live or if there is one close to you but a friend of mine turned me on to Super Suppers and it has changed our life. Our total food bill was cut in half!
We thought it was such a great idea that we bought a franchise and opened a store! And then we found out it was harder than it looked!
Now we’re having a real problem. At first we had people standing in line to get in, we couldn’t keep up. Now I guess the new has worn off and we’ve slowed down to a steady stream…not quite enough to keep the flowers watered if you know what I mean.
My question for you and your reader’s input is this. If you do frequent a “meal assembly” kitchen (Super Suppers, Dream Dinners, Dinner by Design, etc), why do you and if not, why not? If you’ve never heard of this concept, please take a moment to check it out and share your thoughts about how we can reach more and/or new customers.
We’re really struggling here and sure could use your help. Thanks in advance.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Oh, I completely agree with you. Sometimes putting the money down is worth the time and stress of DIY projects. I think it comes down to finding the balance of what you like to do and what needs to be accomplished.
For instance, I love Coupon Mom and Grocery Game for saving time and stress of combing through all the ads and coupons to stay within grocery budget. I do pay for the Grocery Game service, but the return I receive in time is well worth the small cost.
I wouldn’t find a menu planning service worth it for my family just because I tend to like getting the specials more than following a list to make dinners for the week. It would be more stress for me to try to fill in the list for dinners for a weekly service than to make a plan myself. For others, they might prefer the list.
We did alot for our Wedding too. I made the Invitations, shopped and shopped for the better deals. Between my Mom and I we made the cake and everything came out really nice, but we still spent a pretty penny on the Food, flowers and pictures. Things we just didn’t want to stress over and let the professionals do their job.
Finding balance, it’s always a struggle. For eating out, I started Mystery Shopping. We now regularly visit restaurants we would never have gone too on their dime and my work in writing a report. I’d much rather put together a few essays for a nice meal!