In Shock

I was doing some basic calculations this morning when I was responding to someone's question about grocery spending on the Simple Savings forum. Before I tried to be actively frugal our weekly grocery budget was around $140 a week. At that stage we had 2 young children and a baby and from what I could figure out I was doing *okay* (ie not being excessive in my grocery spending). To keep up with a growing family and inflating prices, I had worked out that an approximate increase of 5% per year for the grocery budget kept things on track.

Based on those figures our grocery budget this year (3 years on) would be around $160, maybe more. The way my 9 year old DS eats, I'm sure I could have easily justified increasing it even more than that. But I've worked out the difference in what I *could* be spending and what I *am* currently spending ($60 a week) adds up to over $3000 over the space of a year!!! Now I'm in shock!!! I have to keep going back to the calculator and rechecking the figures because I'm sure I must have made a mistake somewhere. lol. How's that for an incentive to continue my "$100 a week" challenge?

Some people think of frugality as being deprived or "poor". To me it's about trying to be a good steward with what we have, getting more for our money and being able to stay at home with my children. Whatever way you look at it - how can you describe finding a *bonus* $3000 in the budget as being poor or deprived? LOL. I call it being rich. :-)

Frugality is also about making choices. That $3000 is enough for us to have a family holiday. What great freedom to have so much choice within our finances! I think we'd rather take the holiday than having the extra in the food budget. :-)