Flirting with your husband in the produce department while grocery shopping may not seem like your idea of a date, but when you are saving toward a healthy emergency fund, a discussion about fruit may be some of the sweetest words you’ll hear.
My husband and I had gotten in the habit of a monthly lunch date, on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when all three children are in school. We only have about a two-hour window of time alone, but this was usually sufficient to have a nice lunch and catch up without being interrupted by little people needing this or that.
Unfortunately, some recent events tapped into our emergency fun and drained it practically dry, so a big priority for us is to get it back on track. To do this, we have cut back on the eating away from home, and have put a lot more energy into bringing our grocery bill down. With some careful planning, and a lot less junk food, we’re spending less than half of what we normally do.
So, faced with our economies, we decided to combine the two money saving efforts and go grocery shopping together. While I can’t say it was as much fun as sitting down for my favorite Mexican food and having someone else wait on me while I stay into my husband’s brown eyes, I can say that it did feel good to know that we were both working together on this shared goal.
Plus, since we ran into a number of women from our church grocery shopping at the same time, I should get some serious brownie points for having a husband who doesn’t mind grocery shopping with his wife.
We’ll still get a Mexican meal in today, although this time it will include the kids and homemade tacos, thanks to an impulse buy of some shredded cheese (that is okay, I had to cross off another item that wasn’t available in the store, anyway).