Loving the Budget

Yesterday evening a friend sent me this.

Did I tell you our Kroger is closing? It is . . the first part of March. They’re marking things down. I was in there Tuesday and saw that all the canning stuff was on an end cap and figured it was going to be marked down. She sent me that picture about 6 p.m. last night.

Me: Kroger has their canning supplies 50% off.
Vince: I guess we could go down there.
Me: NOW??
Vince: Sure!
Me: No . . I don’t think there’s anything I need. I have plenty of jars and lids.

This morning, we had another conversation about it.

Me: I may go to Kroger. I need more fresh veggies (kale, cabbage, broccoli, etc.)
Vince: If you go, will you see if they have more of the cereal I like?
Me: Yes, and I may get some jars.
Vince: What do you need?
Me: Nothing really . . and I’ll probably talk myself out of leaving home anyway.
Vince: If you go, we could meet somewhere for lunch.
Me: I’m not going . . I don’t want to go to town.

Vince had to go to the dentist this morning and, who would have guessed that he ended up going by Kroger?

He got jars and lids/rings and those plastic lids that I use so much. I’m quite happy to get those. I usually buy the off brand at Walmart and they aren’t quite as nice as the Ball brand. Just yesterday I had to scrounge to find a wide mouth plastic lid and added those to my shopping list. Don’t need any more of those!

Here’s what he came home with:  (Kroger price/other prices online). Some of the items weren’t exactly half price but Kroger prices are a good bit higher than Target or Walmart, which is where I found most of these prices. No matter what percentage off they were, I’m thrilled to have them.

• 5 boxes wide mouth lids – ($3.20/$5.29)
• 8 boxes regular lids ($1.40/$3.00)
• 6 boxes wide mouth plastic lids ($1.90/$3.88)
• 3 boxes regular mouth plastic lids ($2.10/$2.99)
• 3 boxes rings/lids ($3.20/$5.29)

He did call me to see what type jars I needed. Mostly I needed small jelly jars because I give away a lot of those. I sometimes get them back and sometimes don’t.

I didn’t count the jars but I think he got 4 boxes of jelly jars, 2 boxes of wide mouth quart jars, and 3 boxes of wide mouth pint jars. With us using jars for our drinking glasses, and for leftovers and for canning, you know I will use these at some point.

Here’s why I don’t like the budget. First, you either live by it or you don’t. This all came to about $100. I’m not even sure there’s a category on the budget for this because I didn’t plant to buy these. But, were I to run out of jars during the middle of canning season, I’d be paying a whole lot more than $100 for this amount of stuff, not even mentioning that it would be a hassle to have to go buy them when I need to be canning. The other option would be to say “Oh, this isn’t in the budget. We can’t buy it!”

 

My feeling is . . buy smart. Buy what you need and don’t waste money and so long as we’re not running out of money each month . . what difference does it make what we spend? When we come across a good buy and we know it’s something we will use, we’re going to get it!