(Not Really a) Shopaholic and Sons

Other than books, I do not have a shopping problem. I actually hate to shop. But we’re reevaluating the family budget, so my shopping options are changing.

I have been having groceries delivered since before Middle Brother was born. First we used Shipt, which I love, by the way. The shoppers are communicative and seem to really care about their clients, since most of their pay is entirely based on your good will when tipping. Then I realized how much more individual groceries are on Shipt and HEB started offering free next day delivery, so we switched to that. I’m not sure who they were actually using for the deliveries, but they were awful. I had a couple deliveries left at my door without anyone even knocking, so I had no idea perishables were sitting on my porch. Then they canceled free deliveries and went to free curbside, which can only work for me on certain days. I am not loading up two littles to drive to the store just to have groceries loaded in the trunk and come home because I didn’t know exactly when we’d be out yesterday.

Based on this somewhat insane conviction, I ended up at the grocery store with just the two littlest for the first time ever on Friday evening. Middle Brother had a blast. He spoke to everyone we passed, played hide and seek behind pillars, and convinced me to buy almost every fruit and vegetable ever. Little Brother likes all new environments. I was lucky. Both of them were so well-behaved. My budget, however, was not so lucky. While beaming over my two beautiful boys, I paid zero attention to how much was going in our basket.

And then yesterday we went to Costco for diapers. Luckily, this time, we had Big Brother for assistance. For a teen boy, Big Brother is pretty aware of our family budget. Since it was just the two of us for a while, I’ve always been honest with him about our financial health. So, we only ended up adding some chips and Febreze to our basket.

I assume this is something I’ll get better at with practice, but for this week, I’m hoping we actually have enough food for a week and a half.