What can $15 buy at Walmart?

I never realized how far $15 could really go until we recently started saving for a house. Being married to a banker and enjoying numbers myself, we are actually excited about this new stage in our marriage. "The Saving Stage" where we plan to sew a nest egg that we can hopefully reap later on down the road.

Well, after sitting down to set a strict budget for the next year or so, I've found many ways to make a little money go a long way. (For those of you who don't budget out there, it really is a great spiritual discipline that you should try. There's nothing quite like trying to be a good steward of your finances in order to honor the Lord AND your husband, especially when this is all new to a girl. It's quite the challenge, but a good one I'm thankful for because it brings a sharpening along with it.)

All that to say, here is where the brutal honesty comes out and you realize that I'm not as good of a steward as it may appear. At first when we divided up the household roles, I truly thought going to the store for groceries was a punishment. I thought that somehow Grayson was banning me to the mundane forever, that was until I recently discovered all that the Jonesboro Walmart has to offer. One perk about Walmart (among MANY!) is that it is basically like a SuperTarget, at least that's what I keep telling myself. It's like a SuperTarget in that you can get not only food, but also CLOTHES, ACCESSORIES AND MUCH MORE!!! The great part is that when the credit card bill comes in, all it reads on the line is "Walmart" which is instantly recorded into our "grocery" section of the budget. Well, it wasn't until last night that I realized why our "grocery" budget was set so high ... so I can purchase clothes, of course! Forget food for the man in the house, I need some rewards for working so hard to save - in the form of clothes preferably!

Grayson and I are both very goal oriented people and so now that we have set the goal of saving money, we both desperately want to do the right thing because we know in the long run we'll be happier with a home we can call our own. Unfortunately though, in order to achieve the goal of saving, we have to cut corners on things that we don't necessarily "need". And although I've tried to rationalize trendy clothes as a "need", I always seem to let my logic win and settle for wearing the clothes I currently own (which are perfectly fine). That was until, I realized that Walmart actually has some cute "rewards" for me. It basically goes like this ... when I feel as though I've done a good job throughout the week of resisting delicious Starbucks, a lunch out to eat, new shoes and lotion from down the street, I treat myself to a new pair of inexpensive earrings, nail polish or like last night - a bathing suit! I know that $5 here and $10 there will add up, but at least it's adding up in the "grocery" section and not the "clothing" section, right?

Now, I don't want you to go away thinking that I keep all of this from Grayson, because I don't. He is actually quite pleased to know that something as simple as a bottle of 99 cent nail polish is a good incentive to keep me from purchasing $20 worth of Starbucks each week. I do what I can, but a girl's got to have some motivation to keep her going (actually, knowing that we're saving for a home is really enough), but a little sussy every here and there doesn't hurt either.

So to answer my question from the beginning, $15 can buy a whole heck of a lot at Walmart ... like 21 pounds of bananas, 6 packages of popsicles, 7.5 smart ones meals, a little over 3.5 gallons of milk, 2 purses, like 3 picture frames and even an orange bathing suit w/ matching orange nail polish for the toes. And can you believe, all that falls under the same little category of "groceries"!!! It's just brilliant :)