--or even half the time.
The "perfect win" is when you find something like chicken, or peanut butter, or ketchup at the rock-bottom sale price of the season, and you stock up so well that you have enough to last until the next time the price is that low.
The perfect win was when I found full-sized candy bars for 10c each, on the clearance rack. I bought five of them, and on Hallowe'en, we each had one. (Sorry trick-or-treaters, you got the tiny bars, while the family got the full-sized ones!)
But the perfect win just doesn't happen for us all the time. Like this past week. November 1st was my produce stand's big clearance day. It's best to get there when they open at 8 AM. But I had to work. I knew that if I went later in the day (after work), most everything I wanted would be gone.
So, what did I do? Well, I made a list of everything that I really wanted to stock up on. Then I went through that list and guessed which items would sell out before I could get there mid day on November 1st. I did my best guessing. And I stopped in late in the afternoon the day before, October 31st. They'd already begun to mark down some things, and I could see the stock of other items, that I knew I wanted, was very limited.
I picked up probably 2/3 of my produce stock-up on October 31st. I paid more than if I'd been able to come the next morning, but much less than grocery store prices. Then the next afternoon, November 1st, I stopped in again, and filled out the rest of my shopping, at their great clearance prices. I bought more of some things that I had bought the day before, but now were cheaper (garlic and sugar pie pumpkins), and I added some other items.
I did mis-guess on the 25 lb bag of carrots that I wanted. I didn't get them on Oct.31st, and they were sold out by the time I got there on Nov.1st.
I didn't get the perfect win this time. The perfect win would have allowed me to stop by first thing, on the morning of the clearance. But I did do good enough. And sometimes, good enough is just that, it's good, enough!
I remind myself to take a step back and look at the big picture. Are we still doing well with our budget? Yes! Are we carrying forward a surplus every month? Yes! Am I able to feed my family well on less that the USDA says I should be spending for a family of five? Yes! (Do I care what the USDA says about any of this? No!) Am I satisfied with the balance of time and convenience vs. money spent? Yes! Then I'm doing fine, even without getting the perfect win every time.
When you start to feel like your frugal efforts are just not matching up to your expectations, take a look at the big picture. And remind yourself that your good enough is truly good, enough. You'll have a perfect win again sometime, and you can gloat to yourself all about that when it does.
If you're curious what I bought at the produce stand this week, on clearance and on not-quite-clearance, here's the list: 20 pounds of russet potatoes, 17 heads of garlic, 10 pounds of oranges, 7 sugar pie pumpkins, 6 green bell peppers, 5 avocados, 4 sweet mama squash, 2 acorn squash, 2 eggplants, 2 heads of cabbage and a large bag of mushrooms. (Shouldn't there be a partridge in a pear tree on this list?) And I spent just over $36.
