Tough Shopping Times

It‘s that time of the year!!  Shopping for Christmas or Holidays (now so many people call it) can be a quite an experience – both negative and positive.  Even though many of the big items are now much cheaper these days, having negative economics (let’s not call it recession – it just scares the heck out of me) breathing on our back is not helping us fulfill Merry and Jolly Christmas for our family.

I am one of the lucky moms to stay home with my children, but it does put extra pressure on my husband – one income to run the house.  So, my job (not only raising, feeding, cleaning, preparing, and etc) is to save money – to stretch his paycheck. 

I have discovered how cheap I have become with everything.  I never pay full price on clothes (never-ever), buying groceries on sale or using coupons, going through the clearance racks, stocking up on “manager’s special” items, and going through online stores: i.e. Gap/Old Navy/Children’s Place, Overstock, ebay, and Craig’s list. 

Also, when we do order pizzas or clothes online, I try to find “promotional codes,” (I usually go to www.retailmenot.com website, and most of the times it works)  to have extra discounts or free shipping or future discount codes sent out to me via email.  Last month alone I have managed to save over $100.  Yes, it is not a tremendous amount of money, but saving here and there really does add up. 

I think it’s fair to say that most of the savings we have to do is placed on the moms (I am not forgetting the dads either), and it does get quite overwhelming, and sometimes just disappointing. 

Trust me, I have read articles, books, watched TV shows, and researched online to save money, but I have discovered that it is harder to do (and sometimes impossible to do) what they are trying to tell me to do. 
For instance, guests/authors suggested double coupon days at the grocery stores – unfortunately, we do not have such stores participating on double coupon day, and the stores who offer discounted foods at lower price are dirty and are in a less than desirable neighborhood – sorry, not going to expose my children to drunks.

Also, the experts suggested going to different stores, but with such high gas prices (over $4/gal) I would be losing money at the end of the day.

Moreover, these “experts” have suggested shopping in bulks and go to the store only once a week – if something runs out than they have to wait for the next shopping trip.  I don’t know about you guys, but I do not have the heart to tell my children “sorry no milk and bread today because you guys ate them all!” 
My friend actually follows this instruction – she shops at Sam’s Club (spends about $600 to feed 8 people for two weeks), and if they run out of milk or fruit or bread they have to wait until the next shopping trip.  To break down the numbers it’s about $42.86/day or $6.12 person/day or $2.04 meal/person.

Well this works well for her family, but it does not meet our needs.  We want to expose our children to different types of foods – fruit, breads, entrees and etc.  I have discovered that going through the isle (not the junk food isles) I found many items that were on sale that were not advertised in the newspaper.  For instance, I bought organic cereal, normally costing $4.59/box, for only a $1 – so, I stocked up on them; bought organic pudding for $0.59 (normal price of @ $2.99/box); and etc.

I don’t think you have to sacrifice quality over quantity (this is a personal preference and our decision to raise our children).  Yes, it does make us feel better when you can get a more bang for your buck, but at what cost?  Isn’t this why we work so hard? 

Forget the children’s perspective or feelings for a moment – don’t you feel better when you can provide high quality foods and clothes for your children?  I am not saying you should only feed your kids organics (because I sure am not) or buy them Gucci’s or Louis Vuitton clothes (I don’t even own them), but I don’t think we should sacrifice quality when it comes to our children – we don’t even know what kind of impact we are putting in our children’s health and mind.

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