saving, penny by penny.

i am thinking of my future children today, and how i'd just *so* much like to be home with them, watching them grow, letting them explore, helping them learn. i'm starting to want nothing more for my future than to build a peaceful, frugal, beautiful, handmade (to borrow a soulemama phrase lol) home.

i felt terrible after my trip to whole foods today, where i spent $90 AFTER putting this and that and the third can of such and such away. but then i realized i haven't shopped there in weeks, opting instead to eat from my stockpile and hit the local markets. and that i probably won't need to go back there until next payday a month from now. i really do try to stay away .. .it is expensive, and it's a bit of a drive from everything else. but i got in a trip to joann's for some knitting stuff in the same journey ... and it was, i realized, basic stuff that added up the bill: tahini, olive oil, henna (sorry i just can't do grays yet at the ripe age of 30! and henna lasts FOREVER once you do it). i will get two recipes out of my purchases from my new ayurvedic cookbook, a lentil dal and a lentil soup. i'm sure some of that will be frozen for lunches. i love having hot, homemade food at school. lunch is my biggest, most filling, most important meal of my day so i have to do it *just* right.

then i went to get lightbulbs, thank you cards, and a birthday card at target. while there, i overheard one woman ran into another she knew, and said, "i come here to grocery shop and end up buying all this other stuff! haha!" i realized that i used to say this, too. and in that same instant i realized that laugh-off/denial of purchasing for mere basic necessity is what's so very wrong with us. i didn't judge her, but i let her comment sink a little further into my soul than it ever had before.

in the past week, i've turned down my brain's lovely ideas for a quick sandwich, an extra can of pineapple, etc. etc. i did go out to dinner last night... a lovely vegan meal at a local mediterranean restaurant. i was starving after two yoga classes and still 25 minutes from home. i had packed already from home breakfast, lunch, and afterschool snack. enough's enough. ... okay. i also spent $2 on mini loaves at a local bakery because i need to bake again. haven't gotten back into that swing yet. considered saving the equivalent of what i spent on these things. i might, but i also took into consideration there was good reason for me to spend this money. it wasn't a frivolous night out.

we are supposed to get some snow tomrorow night, so i thought renting a movie might be nice. so i got ONE instead of the three or four i usually get. much cheaper, and it will keep me away from the blue screen and into a book, or some knitting. nothing wrong with that.

it's fun to have this new mantra -- I AM a saver -- almost powerful-feeling, in a very empowering kind of way. it's not part of me yet, but i'm liking the territory, the question that comes more naturally all the time, "how can i save here?" it's working, albeit slowly. just today, $200 went into the ING automatic from my checking account. i'm hoping it will do so each successive payday until summer when i am unpaid. it won't be much, but it will be the most i've ever saved .... well, EVER. hello, thirties. hello future. hello security blanket, however small.


recent raw foods lunch on my trip to chicago ... let me say that almond pate was where it's AT!! :-)

"the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

hoping for a snow day tomorrow. to stay home ALL the delicious day. sounds good, doesn't it? but if not ... well ... it'll be laundry at the 'mat followed by a movie and just hangin' out in the p.j.'s. ahhhhhhhh.