The fridge was getting bare, so it was time to head to the store today. Usually I like to go by myself. But Hubby has been working non stop (hooray for our bank account, boo for not seeing him!) so if I didn't take the girls, we would end up having nothing to eat.
Going to the store drains me on a few levels. For one, there is just shopping with the girls. Now, my girls are very good kids, and I admit that I am a very lucky mommy. That being said, there are still problems while at the store. DinoGirl (she's 4) LOVES to run around the store. She usually doesn't get to far away, and she's really cute and quiet, so most of the time it's okay. However, she does wander sometimes, and then I have to go find her. Usually I put her in the cart, but today we just had too many groceries to get. And then there is Monkey (she's 1). She does sit in the cart, because, being 1, she would wander super far away and end up lost. Plus, she is loving pulling everything off the shelves. But, putting her in the cart means I have to watch her constantly because she can climb out of the cart. Doesn't matter if I buckle her or not, she gets out of it, and then I have people screaming at me that my toddler is standing in the seat, about to fall! Thankfully today, both the girls were really good, there was no far wandering or cart escaping, and a nice produce worker even gave us samples of different kids of apples, which made the girls very happy!
Second part of the store that is draining is the getting everything into the house! The way our condo parking lot is set up, our parking space is far away from our front door. So I usually steal someone elses spot, just so I can get everything unloaded. I unloaded the girls, got them set up with lunch, put the gate up, and then rushed to get everything into the house before my neighbor yelled at me for using her spot (which she never uses, by the way). Then I have to move my car, and then put everything away. Today, while I was putting everything away Monkey decided that she was done with lunch. So what does she do? She dumps her bowl of pasta on the carpet. She then decides that DinoGirl must also be done, so she dumps her pasta on the floor too! While vacuuming up all the pasta, I ended up vacuuming up one of DinoGirl's socks that she has just dumped on the floor! I'm trying to get the sock out, and she's crying that she misses her sock. I was very happy for the nap time that was to follow the clean up session!
The third, and most draining, part of shopping is the financial aspect. It seems that no matter how little I get, our bill is always so high. Hubby and I have started planning meals for a week or 2, and then shopping accordingly. That has cut our bill down, but it is still so high. For our income level, we really should be eating crap. But, we both insist on feeding our girls healthy, whole foods. You will find very few packaged foods in our house. We are even starting to get into making our own pasta. And our girls eat so many fruits and veggies. We honestly cannot afford to feed our girls as well as we do, but we don't really see it as a choice that we can make. My girls love homemade food, and they reject fast food. And that makes me proud, and so happy! But it also worries me to no end. We have cut pretty much all luxuries out of our life. We live in a tiny condo, we have the cheapest car insurance possible, there are no fancy cell phones in our house, and both of our cars are on their last legs (yet another point of worry for me, seeing as once they go we have no way to replace them). DinoGirl only goes to preschool 2 half days a week. There is nothing left to cut except our food bill. It saddens me that we hardly make enough to feed our girls!
A lot of that has to do with the area that we live in. Everything is more expensive up here. Everything. We do want to move, and we will move, but probably not for another year. I try not to stress about money, and most of the time I succeed. That is, until grocery shopping day!
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