Being content while being Frugal

Yesterday I gave in, I broke my grocery budget. I had already spent the money for the week, but after three days without coffee creamer, I could take no more!

In desperation, I dug through the change jar looking for silver change. Feverishly, I drove to the nearest grocery store and ran to the dairy case. I let out a big sigh of relief and the angels started singing when I spotted it: Coffeemate Peppermint Mocha Creamer.

I picked up the bottle and caressed it gently as I walked to the checkout to pay for my treasure. I drove home, walked in the door and put on a pot of coffee.

This story is about more than just a limited edition coffee creamer. This story is really about how spending $3.50 kept me from going on a major spending binge.

Over the past month, we have really tightened up the budget. If I told you how much, you would think we are fanatical about saving for a down payment on a house. And we might be fanatical.

This process of cutting out the fat in our budget has mostly been an exciting time. We are really looking forward to having our own house and land by the summer. The anticipation of homeownership has carried me through most of the pain of small sacrifices, but that almost came to a screeching halt when I ran out of coffee creamer with a week to go before I get more grocery money.

Suddenly I felt poor and over stretched. As Bilbo said in Lord of the Rings, “Like butter scraped over too much toast.” I began to question whether we are being too ambitious in our savings, or if we should skip the down payment and go for a 100% mortgage.

The dissatisfaction was coupled with guilt and a strange longing to go out and buy, buy, buy.

I held out for three days. I desperately wanted to report back that I had stayed within budget on my groceries. Yesterday I gave in. I confess, I went $1.50 over budget on my groceries this week.

As I sit back and drink a cup of coffee, I know that this is the difference between being frugal and being cheap. Staying content while living frugally requires occasional treats. They are better when they are in the budget, but this was an emergency.

photo: Ahmed Rabea used by permission CC-By-SA

Tags: Frugal living, Personal Development

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.