It's the little things in life...

Priorities shift as you get older, and they also shift when you realize that your regular paychecks are about to dry up with no real replacement in sight. As my birthday approached, I realized there were several things I had been wishing for around the house that certainly fell into the category of non-essential. Of course the non-essential category has greatly expanded recently.

While trying to cut our budget anywhere we can, some regular purchases have started to seem extravagant. My favorite food in the whole wide world is the Aldi brand of microwave macaroni and cheese. A whole meal of this wonderful goo costs a whoppin' $0.87. Sometimes it's $0.99. But a blue box of mac and cheese is only $0.35 and you get twice the food. So one third the price and twice the food means that my favorite cheesy goo costs 6 times more than another mac and cheese that's still pretty good. The slightly smaller loaf of honey wheat bread is sometimes double the cost of the whole wheat bread.

So with these kinds of cuts in mind, here is the list of stuff that Mom bought me for my birthday which had been on my non-essential list. You ready?
Two more foot stools to scatter around the house.
Two more cheap face clocks.
Two new cheap napkin holders of the simple style that I like.
A slide for Quint.
Two new Teflon coated pans ($10 and $7 respectively).
A gallon jug of that wonderful softsoap handsoap.
Batteries - D, AA, & AAA those suckers add right up! And size D recharables don't have the same voltage and therefore don't run baby toys correctly.

None of those things are very expensive, but they added up.

Another thing I've shifted lately, is my diaper purchasing. I had been using Diapers.com, buying a million diapers at once in order to avoid shipping costs, and having huge boxes of diapers arrive at my house for about $0.22 cents per diaper. And that's my favorite brand too. Seemed like a pretty good deal since you can pay $0.30 per diaper if you're not paying attention at Target or Walgreens. Aldi sells diapers starting at size 3 (Quint's current size) for $0.15 each. Until recently, Aldi diapers had one slightly annoying feature that made me willing to pay more for my favorite diapers. Aldi diapers are just as good for Quint as my favorite diapers, they were just folded in an annoying way. But they've changed recently and aren't folded that way any more! So now I have absolutely no problem with cutting our diaper costs by 30%! So this means that I can diaper Quint for $20-25 per month.

Complete subject change:
I FOUND MY CELL PHONE!! It was in the front yard, covered in watery mud, and lit up and worked when I opened it!

Back to original subject:
It's amazing how much money you can save by just never, ever going into a store. I've noticed that I blow about $3 every time I go into Walgreens. Simple solution. Don't go into Walgreens. And when you need OTC medicine (thus negating the drive thru), walk quickly down boring aisles. Don't even think about walking into Hobby Lobby, Lowes, or WalMart. Only walk into the dollar store with a specific list and STICK TO IT! Also, I've got to start sticking to my Aldi list. The snacky-carb aisle gets me every time. On the other hand, I need to buy some better snacks for Quint.

Ok, so I don't have a good conclusion or wrap/up thought to this post, so you'll just have to make do with the fact that my brain has jumped to a subject other than this blog, and deal with it.

Cheers!