Sometimes taking some time off from writing and trying to regroup is a good thing. I have been spending a lot of time in the past 10 days or more trying to declutter and get my home organized. The main floor of my home has been decluttered which is a good thing. Now I must work on our upstairs.
I am settling into a routine which is good. I had a routine at my former job and having a routine at home is equally beneficial.
Today was grocery day. In this path to frugality I have struggled in the area of grocery spending. I have been searching the sale ads, clipping coupons from newspapers and searching for coupons on line. I used to quickly look over a store ad and rarely clipped any coupons. Now I take the time to review the sales ads, clip the coupons and make a list. Well today it paid off. I spent around $80.00 net. I had a total of $35.00 in coupon savings. I can hardly believe that I got $115 worth of groceries for $80.00. This has been a goal of mine to save a lot of money on our grocery bill. My best deal was that I got 5 pkgs of toilet paper free. It was on sale for 99 cents for a four pak and I had 5 $1.00 off coupons. I was able to buy cereal for $1.00 a box with coupons matched to the in store sale.
I am feeling more confident about my new life at home. I sleep better each night as there is no work stress. I spend my days cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping and such and I love it.
The county I live in here in Iowa has the highest unemployment rate in the state. Since I am now grocery shopping during the day I have noticed that there are people at the check out using their food stamp card to pay for their food. A lot of these people are men with their children. Wives are working while their husbands have been laid off from their jobs. One man was in front of me with his two little girls. He paid for his groceries with his food stamp card but still owed 69 cents. He used his credit card to pay the 69 cents. I look back at that and I thought about offering to pay for it, but he appeared to me to be a man that valued his dignity and would have been embarrassed to have me offer to pay 69 cents and thereby acknowledge his financial situation.
As for the free toilet paper and the $1.00 boxes of cereal - I will take them to our local food pantry for distribution to anyone who needs it. Now I am more motivated to seek sales and use coupons so I can purchase food and donate it to the food pantry.
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