Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Economics 101

(photo from stock photo's site)
I was laughing as my friend Beth shared a story about her son. His shoe had a hole in it, and he insisted that he didn't need a whole new pair, just one shoe. I thought it was cute, that someone so young had a sense of being frugal. I also wondered if my kids do...

Being military, being overseas, we have honestly not been that affected by the economy. We have noticed gas prices rise, the cost of groceries steadily rising but...it ends there. We are lucky, I know that. However just because we are "safe" from what is going on, it doesn't mean that we should just throw our $$ away right?

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of taking all 4 of my kids to the commissary. I let them know the rules before we even went in. I must say, they did pretty well on the "not running in the aisles", "let people pass you, don't hurry to get by them", etc. The whole "don't ask Mommy for anything, if she wants to get you something she will" rule was the one that didn't quite take.

In my cart went, mini oreo's, ice cream, 3 boxes of cereal, yogurt for Ben, yogurt for Harmony, yogurt for the big boys and Dora yogurt for Ivan, spaghetti o's, frozen pizzas etc. I forgot how much junk we buy when we are all together.

Last night I poured out juice with dinner. I came into find the jug of apple juice almost completely gone. The three older kids had helped themselves to seconds. Filling the cups until almost completely full. Connor, after pouring, changed his mind and decided to just dump it out. AGHH! I caught him before he did though.

This morning I find Ethan chowing down 2 yogurts out of the 6 pack. AFTER I told him he could only have one. I pointed out that we had cereal, bagels, bananas, etc that would fill him up.

I can't believe how much money we have wasted on food, just by having them at home. They are in for a wake up call. I am getting tired of them wasting food & money...just because they can!

Is anyone else going through this? Ugh so annoying!

2 comments:

Janice said...

Marie, I am SO close to just not buying yogurt for my kids anymore. Even though I know that means I can't have any either - unless I get myself a mini fridge and have it in my room. They ALWAYS spill it or don't even come close to finishing it. But... that's all they want to eat! My husband is usually the one that ends up adding extra items to my cart when we are shopping. I'm looking forward to leaving the girls with him so I can take some grocery trips by myself!

Jennie said...

I'm glad to hear this happens everywhere. I just thought I was going crazy over here with 8 kids doing the same thing. I hate going into my clean kitchen and realizing all the clean cups are now dirty because they get a clean cup everytime!!! Good luck!!!