Rude Awakening

This was going to be a short sweet little post about my New Year's resolution to make fewer trips to the Stuff Mart. I know we go a lot, I put the receipts in the checkbook. Just out of curiosity, I took a sample of how many trips we make. I counted the credit and debit transactions for August through November. This count doesn't include my big bi-monthly grocery shopping, I don't go to the Stuff Mart for that. The average was 14.25 trips per month! That is 171 trips a year!

I don't know what each trip costs but if the average (denial) is $20 each that is $3,400 per year. Some of those were items we needed milk, bananas, ice cream... But seriously in 171 trips how many "extras" did we buy? My guess...A LOT!

Now that the shock and disbelief have started to wear off, my resolution has to be more serious that just make fewer trips to the Stuff Mart. I know this will be a painful change especially with a teen in the house. I also think it will be a great opportunity to learn some things about ourselves, like what is really important and, dare I hope, the difference between a "need" and a "want".

Here it goes...

My 2011 New Year's Resolution is to average ONE trip to the Stuff Mart per week!