Oh, the joys of no credit

One of the things we need to be very conscious of now is our grocery shopping. Before, we'd just decide what we wanted to eat, create a list, and go shopping. Typically, it'd be easy to spend anywhere from $125 to $150 a week, sometimes topping out at $180. If we spent a little too much, it didn't really matter because if we didn't have enough money, there was always the overdraft to carry us through to the next paycheque.

That is no more.

This week, my husband's company was late with the automatic payment of his salary. We had exactly $100 to last us the weekend including grocery shopping and getting cold medication because my little guy got sick. My husband's thought was that we had to only buy for some of the week then go back on Monday or Tuesday.

But I was determined...

Over the past couple of months, I have been honing my homemaker skills and somehow, he still doesn't believe me that I can keep the grocery bill down, despite all the proof. Armed with my week's meal plan and a list from which I would not deviate (unless good substitutions were available), I went to work.

After all was tallied: $75.00

However, we still needed to go get several medications from the drug store. I go in confidently choosing what I need. I even got myself a little sugar-free chocolate bar as a 'job well done' treat. At the register, all my items are tallied and horror of horrors... it comes to just over $30. I was *sure* I added everything up and it didn't come to more than $26 (OK, we had like $102 in the bank, or so I thought). I remember that maybe my hubby said we has $112, so I tried to make it go through.

NOT APPROVED
$ NOT AVAILABLE.

Gak!! And a line had formed now. OK. So, while I fought not to turn several shades of purple and apologized to the people behind me, the cashier had to call for back up over the loudspeaker because she was new and didn't know now to void. Meanwhile, away with the chocolate and a large version of a stomach remedy was swapped for a mini-version. New total: $25.64.

APPROVED. THANKS
OBTAIN CARD.

Whew.

I just checked; after that drug store purchase, we had 48 cents left.

Wow.

Well, at least this isn't like my university days where I lived for several months on a rotation of Mr. Noodle, rice cakes with peanut butter, macaroni and cheese and frozen veggies.