Confessions of a Grandma

I just handed over my debit card at the grocery store and did not even look at the total.  That only delayed the sticker shock.  I had to look at the receipt to enter it in the check book at home.  How do people with large families to feed afford to eat?? There are lots of sites with coupons and lots of sites with money-savings tips available on line.  I was moved to check a few out.  Being the daughter of depression-era parents, most of the tips were second nature to me. Don't shop while hungry--you'll spend more. Shop the periphery of the supermarket.  That's where the real food tends to be stocked. Avoid processed, pre-cooked, pre-washed, pre-chopped, and overly packaged items. Watch the specials, plan meals, and make lists. Buy only the amount of perishable that you can use before it goes bad or you just waste food and the money you spent on it. Use coupons only for something you would buy anyway. Watch the scanner.  Mistakes happen....

I spent yesterday replenishing the larder--a huge investment of time and cash.  Then, today, I went out to get some cherry juice for Mike since it is supposed to be good for flushing out the uric acid that causes gout.  Then, I had to run out to the store once again.  I have been thinking, "Mike's birthday next Thursday," for nearly two weeks now.  I just didn't realize until sometime this afternoon that "next Thursday" had actually arrived.  I'm a terrible wife.  Happy Birthday, Mike!

Vermont summer is generally regarded to happen between Memorial Day and Labor Day, which makes this the last day of summer no matter what the calendar says.  And the weather today was certainly cooperating with that bit of folk wisdom.  Mike says it's as though someone just flips a switch.  I'm sure we will have more nice days, but after the record heat of the past week, it does seem fallish today. My hour of garden work turned into three hours of weeding, rearranging, and digging.  I have some plants to divide so I need to dig more garden space so I'll have a place to put them.  The thing of it was that I wasn't drenched and blinded by sweat mixed with sun block so I just didn't realize how long I was working out there.  Now I'll have to cut back on some other part of my day.  The library is closed today and I think the digging takes the exercise place of my usual Monday walk there.  Mike will just have to take on supper because ...

There's always something new we can tax, isn't there? Today I read about a proposed tax on vitamins and supplements. Will the money generated go to health care? Probably not. The other proposed tax was on plastic bags at the grocery store because they use foreign oil to make them and they fill up land-fills. I'm sure it would be a pain for the check-out workers, but I never liked those plastic bags. At least paper bags have a flat bottom. The plastic bags roll around in the back of the car and all the groceries go rolling around in the trunk. Personally, I take a stack of assorted cloth bags when I go shopping. Some of them are a bit of a challenge to hold open and pack and they can cause the self-checkout computer confusion when they're placed on the packing area. But, face it, they are trendy "green." Some stores give a 3 cent credit for each reusable bag. There is a "just right"area in the back of my Ford TaurusX where the groceries sit...