Boost Your Budget (week 4)

So first I want to talk about my budget conscious decision to take our new puppy to a vet clinic.  Sounds easy enough, right?  A shop-with-your-pet style pet store was hosting a clinic where you paid $3 for each animal seen and the cost of the vaccinations etc they received after the exam cost.  I arrived at the store Saturday morning at about 11:00.  I found the line a bit long running down one whole aisle of the store and curving down the back of the store.  How long could it take, really?  A simple exam on each animal and a quick shot or two.  I figured we had an hour of line standing in front of us...tops.

My 10 year old,  2 year old, baby and 12 week puppy entered the line.  An hour later we had moved up two whole dog food bag widths t word the front of the line.  Not remarkable progress to say the least.  After another hour my 2 year old was really getting pretty tired of standing in line.  After another 1/2 hour the baby had about enough of the experience as well.  After 3 hours we could see the exam table ahead of us!  With the hour long ride to the store location, hour long ride home and standing in line time the ordeal lasted over 5 hours!!!  Wow.  What a nightmarish way to save a few bucks!  Looking back, our dog was on the exam table for maybe 3 minutes tops...so why did it take so long for every else to get done and for us to work our way to the front of the line???  It doesn't really all add up. 

I am also trying to add couponing into my grocery routine. While I have always used coupons, I was more of a casual couponer...if I was buying something and had a coupon, I used it.  I am now very actively seeking out coupons, figuring the best way to organize them and carry them with me at all times when I leave for a store, and using the weekly ads to plan couponing with for great savings.

I scored some great deals at Kroger and Meijer this week like cereal for 50 cents a box (organic at that!), chex mix for 50 cents a bag and Skinny cow candy at Target for 50 cents a box. Free coffee at CVS.  After my shopping this week I had a $20 bill left over BUT I had to spend cash at the vet clinic so I used money out of my grocery fund envelope so that was around $35 so I actually cut my actual grocery spending $55 this week and I bought a lot of extra items because the couponing deals were too good to pass up so I got more and spent less!

Of course this required a lot more time invested.  Time to find and cut and organize coupons.  Time to sort and compare ads and pull coupons.  And lots of shopping time and hassle as I drove from store to store to store unbuckling and rebuckling a car full of small children over and over and over.