Day 5

Blog Post #6 – January 5th, 2020

Today we continued our dabbling in couponing.  We took the $25 in HEB (our local grocery store) gift cards we got from buying the visa card and Lowe’s card and bought $25 worth of P and G cleaning products.  HEB had a coupon that gave us $5 off from the purchase and we got a coupon for future use for $5. So we are still $10 ahead. All this took time and a couple of trips to HEB.   I am lucky that I do not have to work weekends so I have time to plan ahead for the week to come. I also spent time cooking and planning ahead breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Having meals prepared makes it much easier to stick to a budget and not eat fast food at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Also my dog seems to have an upset stomach.  We do not have any money in the budget for Vet bills. We potentially had money for a vet bill but my husband miss interpreted the grocery list and spent our full pet/vet budget on dog food we didn’t need yesterday.  I guess I still have my nail salon slush fund we can tap into. 

Another area that can easily torpedo a plan is if the husband and wife are not on the same page.  They say money issues are the number one reason marriages fail. I believe it, after 30 years of practice, I have seen a lot of times were the failure to work together doomed a plan. Besides the dog food fiasco, my husband also signed up this week for a bike ride that takes place in October.  He could have easily have waited until next month but he said “ I wasn’t thinking” and paid the entry fees for the team we ride for. This is almost $100.00 that was no where in the budget and was not an emergency. It is not hard to see how a case can easily be derailed if the budget is tight and people are not careful.