There’s one thing I’ve found with this project – there is personal growth learned from living within your means. Living on a budget I think is something that should happen in more households. One thing that is for certain, and I’m not a big fan of the word certain – because I think life in general is a contradiction – but I am more certainly conscious of where my money is spent. This week I bought two things not needed too often: oil and butter. That was about $8 worth of my food budget for the week. I am facing a dilemma now because I will be working a night shift and over the weekend. I worked last weekend, too.

What I need is coffee. How am I going to get through all this? Really, seriously, I am so glad to be working that I will take whatever hours are offered; I just want to be able to focus on my work with a regular pick me up from my Coffee Comfort Zone, as I like to call it. I habitually, have a cup of coffee or tea in the afternoon after lunch. This habit makes me feel full and alert to get back to work and I like that feeling, in fact I rely on it. I’ve been having tea, two bags at a time just these past few days. I’m somewhat of a coffee snob, I like to buy the beans. But very often  in my life, I’ve had a jar of instant in my cupboard. So I’m tossing around buying about a cup of beans at a time, say each week, or, should I buy a jar of instant. The instant is easy, and I can take it to work easy.

I suppose, I will have to see what I need to actually buy next week and what I can actually afford.
Trying, but, it takes dilemmas like this to see how you really are and what means something to you. I will definitely not buy coffee over food. But one of the great things about planning and living within your means is that it forces you to think; to think about food and what your true feelings and desires are and looking forward to what you’re really going to need. Priceless lessons learned about myself.