Too Much Choice

In order to survive on a $75 a week grocery limit/budget surprisingly few changes need to be made. One of the main keys is simply keeping a running tally of how much you have spent as the week goes by. It is important to do this as it keeps you up to date with what you have left in the cupboard. The decision you make is whether to spend the last $10 on new food or ingredients or make do with what you have left. It is amazing what you can come up with, using what you have. I used honey to sweeten my coffee the other day as I had run out of sugar. The result was perfectly yummy – probably nicer than sugar, so I learnt that honey is an OK substitute and there was no need to go screaming down to the supermarket to re-stock. My kids are learning this too.

On the subject of sugar, for some strange reason I used to stock several different types of sugar in my pre-budget days.  White sugar, brown sugar. Icing sugar, raw sugar , castor sugar and honey.  Needless to say it all got eaten up once the stringent budget was in place.  When I think about it, how ridiculous having all those choices.  Obviously there is no harm in it, but it’s not really even practical.  Now I will not restock any type of sugar until all sugar/sweetner is gone.  Then I go to Bin Inn and fill my own container, which is cheap and cuts down on wasteful packaging.

 We do purchase a lot of things unthinkingly and great stocks of food sit in some of our homes untouched for months.  Now-a-days we only stock what is required for the week and make sure that is all eaten before buying any more. I sometimes think of struggling people starving in the 3^rd world and wonder what they would make of someone having 6 different types of sugar in their pantry. Would they think we were lucky and rich or greedy and stupid?