Living on less

Baby B has had a significant impact on the amount of fun money that we have to spend. To offset the cost of childcare and my new Zulily habit, we're trying to live on less. As is typical of me, I keep getting distracted by shiny objects and then find myself swirling in a sea of contradiction. Here are a few examples:

• The coupons that I proudly printed and cut out from Coupons.com didn't scan at the grocery store, so to get my $5.35 in savings, I sent Nick BACK to the store, reprinted coupons and receipt in hand 
• On Friday, while in the car on the way to Pittsburgh, I purchased a brand new llama collar for Chino. I mean, how could I say no to this? By the way, if you are looking for really cute and durable collars for your furbaby - I highly recommend collars from The Mod Dog on Etsy
  
• We are currently in the midst of "Eat what you have week" because I am determined to use up as many of our existing groceries as we can before going to the grocery store on Sunday
• I just purchased 12 bottles of foaming hand soap (they were on sale...but 12? yes 12)

Unfortunately, I've perfected the art of justification. Here's an example: I'm no longer drinking beer at bars, and I would have bought the llama collar anyway, so therefore I'm actually ahead and because I have to go to work every day, I deserve to be able to buy this llama collar for my mutt who already has 15 collars. Yes, I can read the crazy. 

As we continue to adapt to live with Baby B, we ARE getting better at living on less and/or justifying frivolous expenses. Really, if you would see a before/after of our Visa bill, you'd be shocked and amazed at the amount of money we were spending on beer. The growing pains are still...painful. It takes a lot of adjustment to go from DINKS to DIOKS.