Updates on Search for Frugality

Roland took the kids shopping for school supplies. He came back miserable that he had spent $100. The kids wanted these fancy binders, and mechanical pencils, and Gary wanted a little white board to write his assignments on. Then he just bought erasers and notebooks and stuff. He had no idea that it would end up that much and he knows he has to figure out a way to shop better.

It was a learning experience. At least he was paying attention, and that really is a significant step forward. I can't tell him that because as some of you understand so well, being told, "Well at least you noticed you were screwing up, dear" isn't something that will make him feel better. I really am glad that he is feeling bad about it instead of defensive. I knew that it was going to be difficult for him. I expected things like this. It doesn't mean I am thrilled about it, just not surprised or furious. It is so hard for him to say no. After the shopping he called me on the cell phone and said that the kids wanted to get milk shakes. I told him to tell them I said no.

On other topics, I bought one of their favorite name-brand cereals and the knock-off version in the bag and made them all take a blind taste test. Every single one of them prefered the cheap version! They were convinced it was name-brand and united as one they could convince me to continue buying it. That will make up for the $100 in school supplies, right?

I also heard from one of the car pool moms. She said that she had convinced her son to give it a try but would I reconsider car pooling if it didn't work out? I told Brian this and he said, "Mom, just tell her this is what we are going to do and if they want to do it too, fine." He really has grown up. Anyway, I did tell the other mom that if the bus turns out to be unreliable I would want to reconsider the car pool. Brian thought that was fair.

Thank you all for your ideas and support.

We are definitely going to go with cash allowance for both of us. On the list of things it would cover are things like buying kids milkshakes when you take them shopping. We have theoretically had allowances for some time, but Roland was "keeping track" in his head which meant that he wasn't really keeping track at all. Cash will make it easier and I will definitely take mine.

I did sit down with him today to talk about his lunches. At first he said that he just had to buy them in the cafeteria. Nothing else was possible. Sadly, lunch in the cafeteria is $3.75 for adults. I showed him our current spending pattern and asked what he wanted to cut down on in order to pay for the lunches. He didn't get defensive and agreed that maybe he could keep food in the refigerator in his classroom. He doesn't want to PACK a lunch, but if he has yogurt and frozen burritoes he could eat those.

Baby steps. It is all about baby steps.

And we do have to tell Brian that we are trying to pay off some debts. I told Andrew. For some reason that was easy. I could just mention it to him. I didn't tell him that we were just shy of being in serious trouble, just that we had decided that being in debt was ridiculous and we were determined to get out. We need to say the same thing to Brian. He has been so mature about the bus, I know that he can and will be about things like expensive binders. I don't want him to be nervous, but he has to know that we are trying to live differently.