Why cut back on groceries?

After yesterday's post, maybe I should explain a little bit about why I want to cut out grocery bill in half or more.

Life isn't about never spending any money or finding ways to cut corners, but it's about priorities. It's about prioritizing your time, the people in your life and the way you spend your money.

When Nate and I got married, we knew that budgeting would be a bit tricky. I am a saver, even a penny pincher, by nature. He is a spender. We had to learn to acclimate to each other.

One way that we started to acclimate was by prioritizing. What would we try to save on and what would we splurge on?

We eventually narrowed down the list, without really sitting down and talking about it. Things just came up and we figured out our priorities. We decided that someday, we would want to live on an acreage so that we could have animals and we could have good, quality family time outdoors and so that our children would have chores and grow up with responsibilities. That means putting a lot of money toward our mortgage now, because we can only afford an acreage if we pay off our house as quickly as possible.

That is a huge priority and a place where we do spend money.

We also love to vacation. We like to get away and spend time together. We like good food and drinks and fun on the beach. It's worth it to us to have a nice vacation and to spend the money there.

We also don't see the point of eating out unless it is food that I couldn't make at home, and that usually means seafood or something expensive that we splurge on. It doesn't happen often, but if we do eat out, we splurge.

So, wanting to spend money on those bigger items means we cut out the smaller items. We don't need to get Starbucks coffee whenever the craving strikes, when we can make coffee at home. We don't eat out when we get home late, we make macaroni and cheese. We don't go to the movies when renting a movie or waiting until it comes on TV will do. And we don't need to waste a whole bunch of money at the grocery store.

It's good to take a step back and look at life. What is worth spending money to you? Don't just spend willy-nilly but really examine your dollars and where they are going. You only get so much, and you have to take responsibility for where it goes. Don't complain you don't have enough, decide where you spend it and that's that.