General Goals 1) to be debt free in 3.5 years 2) save lots of money

Monday, February 7, 2011

Budgeting is Just Planing in Disguise


As I mentioned yesterday I have been doing a lot budgeting to make sure that I pay bills before I leave for Cuba and any bills that I can hold off paying until after I get back. Its been a balancing act and my calculator has never been out of reach. Its funny while I don't use it at work I always being it with me, I actually start making my bi-weekly budgets at my desk. Any ways I digress...

The key to a successful budget is the planing part. Take for example the cat litter I bought yesterday for almost $15.00 for 22kg (trust me I gritted my teeth about it). Normally cat litter at Cosco cost me $7.49 and when they have the coupons I get $2 off so it only costs me $5.49. Now we normally always pick up 2 boxes of about 18kg each (we have 3 cats its a necessity). When we we get down to 1 box we stick it on the list and get more. Some how the system got derailed and when I mentioned we were on the last box it did NOT get put on the list.  As a result when mom went out shopping on Saturday she didn't get cat litter. So yesterday I had to go to Zellers last minute to get it. We were in desperate need and one litter box down without it... never a good thing in our house. Mom having spent all her money yesterday couldn't afford to pick it up.  So I paied for it.  Now don't get me wrong I am not complaining about paying for it, what galls me is OVER PAYING!! For the cost of two boxes at Cosco I paid the same amount for one at Zellers and I got less bang for my buck!! Instead of spending 15.00 on 36kg of cat litter I spend 15.00 and only got 22kg. This is where the planing comes in, had it been put on the list mom would have known we were out. But even if she wasn't able to pay for it, I would have, but at Cosco. Worse thing  about this whole situation is we will still have to get more litter in a week or two.

Lesson Learned: great budgeting and saving money comes down to planning!!

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