Incentive

I love Us Weekly magazine. I started reading it in college and got a subscription shortly after we got married. It was much more costly than other magazine subscriptions since it comes weekly, so after two wonderful years of reading I tried to save us money and decided I could do without. We had just been through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace and I decided that it definitely wasn't a necessity. I found myself getting in the longest line at Wal-Mart just so I could read my favorite sections. John would bring them home randomly if I had a bad day, and they always appeared in my stocking for Christmas.
Today all three of us made the trip to Publix for our weekly groceries. We had just done our budget for September and found that we majorly overspent in the grocery department for August. The middle of the week trips to pick up a "few items" did us in. We try to only spend $100 on groceries a week. Now, we are really trying to not go out except for a dinner and lunch on the weekends, so that means more groceries need to be bought while still trying to stay at our weekly $100. We got all we needed for the week and were in line paying when I spotted it. Kendra and Kourtney on the cover, telling all about their pregnancies. I know it is silly but I LOVE that magazine! It was then that John decided to make a game out of our weekly grocery store visits...he made a deal with me. Each week when we checked out at the grocery store, if we stayed under $100 including tax, then I could buy Us Weekly. Talk about incentive!! As soon as he told me this, I glanced at our items on the belt to see if we could do without any :) There weren't any so I nervously watched as she rang everything up. Garbage bags. Cereal. Rotisserie Chicken. Frozen Pizza. These were some big ticket items. Low and behold we were just under (and I'm talking cents) $100 so I got to take home my magazine!!! And we even got Ice Cream!!! I asked him what happened on the weeks when we needed to buy diapers, knowing there was no way I could buy diapers and enough food for us to last the week and STILL be under $100. He replied that I would just have to tighten up and be clutch. Oh how proud Dave Ramsey would be!!