Frugality

Epic Grocery Shopping Fail

I’ve just returned from the grocery store – and I may have done irreparable harm to my frugal cred.

First – We were out of everything.

Second – I only had thirty minutes to buy everything that we needed.

Third – I forgot my grocery list.

Fourth – I forgot my grocery price book – and, frankly, even if I had remembered to bring it, I would never have had enough time to consult it.

Fifth – I went shopping on an empty, starving stomach.

Sixth – I entered the store right at 5:oo pm – quite literally the busiest time of the day.

I’ve never zipped through a grocery store so fast in my life.  I honestly have no idea what I purchased.  I feel like I spent twice as much as I should have, and I really do not have the heart to look at my receipt.  In this case, ignorance will be bliss.

Remember that really cheesy television game show… What was it…  Here, let me ask my wife… Oh, yeah… Supermarket Sweep!

Yeah, that was me.  I was just up and and down the aisles, piling things into the cart.  Paying for my haul took ten minutes, and I think I heard my debit card scream in pain as I swiped it though the little card reader.

To all of my frugal pals, please forgive me.  I promise, the next time I go to the store, I’ll be better prepared and I’ll give myself more time to shop!

13 thoughts on “Epic Grocery Shopping Fail

  1. It is nice seeing that you too make purchases on a empty stomach:)

    I haven’t been to your blog for a while because well…..you seem so perfect. We don’t have any debt but our mortgage….we are struggling like everyone else.

    When I saw that you didn’t own your own home a while back I thought to myself….If I didn’t have a mortgage…. yes I too could save up so much.

    It’s nice to see that you are human:)

    ~Renee

  2. Yes.. Ignorance is bliss in this case! Why were you in such a rush? I am guessing the shopping trip was not planned.

  3. @Renee… Thanks for stopping by…. I’m FAR from perfect… ask my wife.. (One note about the house… It’s provided as part of my compensation… So, in effect, I DO “pay rent”, but it’s just included in my compensation package…)

  4. I had an ice cream fail yesterday. I’ve been bashing the Hagan Daaz ice cream for changing their “pint” to slightly less than a pint (14oz), only to turn around a buy a “pint” of the yummy goodness in a moment of weakness. We feel your pain my friend.

  5. Haha! Been there, done that. And I loved that supermarket sweep show. I was totally going to go on there and win it all. Never happened, but in my dream world it would have.

  6. Don’t beat yourself up about it… it happens to the best of us! A few times I’ve forgotten to use a coupon (like one I had for a free pack of diapers!) until it had expired! Argh!

    Just shows you’re human! 🙂

  7. I agree…you can’t be frugal 24/7 and 365 you’d go mad. But your story reinforces a good point in that most of your problems stemmed from shopping in a rush. For me the easiest way to save is through planning and research, the exact opposite of what you had to do. Yikes.

  8. Look at it this way – living frugally ALLOWS you to be able to do this once in a while without busting the budget. Just like a dieter who ‘falls off the wagon’, you haven’t done major harm, and can ‘get back on the horse’ right away. So let yourself off the hook! No mea culpas necessary, you’ve EARNED the right to take the easy way out when you needed to!

  9. Ha. That sounds like me when I have something half-way prepared and just realized that I am out of a key ingredient. I must say, I have learned from shopping on an empty stomach. On Sunday I stopped at McDonalds for a $1 burger before going into Stop & Shop because I just knew that if I didn’t then my cart would be twice as full as I needed. I was only $10 over my budget so for me it was a success.

    Oh, and I remember watching Supermarket Sweep with my mom when I was a kid. I never understood getting the big cans of coffee. They always took up too much space in one cart when you could have swept a boatload of other things in there.

  10. This happens to the best of us! Lately, for me, I’ve been so outside of my normal weekly routine that I just haven’t had time to hit the produce stand…or any grocery store, really! Today, I have to go grocery shopping (HAVE TO) but I still won’t get to go by the produce stand first…it’s on the wrong side of the bridge. So, I’ll buy my produce at the grocery store and hope (HOPE) that I don’t pay double.

  11. I have to admit that like your first commenter I don’t read your blog all the time because occasionally it makes me feel like a failure. So I really did appreciate this post of an imperfect human moment! 🙂 Your debit card “screaming in pain” made me laugh out loud. We have all been there. Sometimes things get out of control and we can’t plan as well as we would like. I just hope that you got a few complete meals out of the trip. I’m the one who is constantly doing things like planning hamburgers but forgetting buns, planning nachos but forgetting the salsa… things like that.

  12. I did the same thing today 🙁 But I’m one week postpartum, have 3 boys and hubby said he’s go with me to the store on a whim – so I went for it. I definitely will do better next time too!

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