My apologies – that was … uh … a bit of a long week. And/or month.
I forgot that I was about to get hammered at work with a ton of new projects. This time of the year is crazy busy for me since it’s when most of my major clients go on vacation. They leave, and leave the work to me. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining! I’m very glad to have it.
When I last left you, we were at the end of No-Spend Month. The final tally?
We spent NIS 1543 – well above our goal of NIS 1000, but still dramatically less than we spend every month. Our grocery bill alone is usually well above NIS 1500.
When I wasn’t looking, my daughter’s feet attacked our budget.
She outgrew her sandals. We live in Israel. We live in sandals.
Have I mentioned how insane the cost of kids shoes are?
I’m a bit ridiculous when it comes to buying for my kids. I like to get nice stuff, but rarely buy anything that isn’t on sale. Even when we aren’t trying to stick to a budget, I just can’t handle paying NIS 80 for a sweater and seeing it on sale for NIS 20 two weeks later. With the added fact that kids clothes seem to follow the same ridiculous seasons (it’s in the upper 90s here right now and I saw the first snowsuit at Fox today), I see no point in buying at full price when I can either a) buy a year ahead when the previous season goes on clearance and stockpile or b) buy mid-season and get them on clearance.
As a result, I have clothing through size 5 for my daughter, who turns two on Sept. 3. Admittedly, she is the height of a 3-4 year old, so a lot of her clothes are sized much larger. For shoes, I buy only even sizes and started at 22 – sandals at 22, sneakers and sandals at 24, sneakers and sandals at 26, etc. In short, I buy many months ahead when there are good sales and always buy from the same store to take advantage of the club card.
I just dropped the ball on this one.
And so we went shoe shopping. It was a much better deal to buy two pair (25% off the first pair, 50% off the second) than just buy one, so we broke our budget to do it. It was still a good deal (NIS 220 for a pair of sandals and a pair of tennis shoes), but we hadn’t planned for it. That and a few other odds and ends pushed us over our limit.
I’m not complaining. Indeed, buying that day, we signed up for the club card. The card got us another NIS 50 off in every month where someone in our family has a birthday (Aug., Sept. Jan. and April) and another NIS 50 off of a purchase in the next 90 days. We made a return trip about a week ago and got two pair of sandals (including one for our little man – he’s only 4 months old right now, but he’ll need them eventually) and a pair of tennis shoes for him too. We also got six pair of socks free using our customer card points. Total spent – NIS 250. Total without sales, discount card, etc. – NIS 680. Mission accomplished. We saved about NIS 400. That’s more than $100.
Today, we also got Abby a pair of Crocs – on sale for NIS 100, paid for half with Leumi card points, total spent NIS 50. Chalk one up for the good guys. I’m heading back tomorrow to stock up on Crocs for the whole family.
And on that note, it’s back to a more frugal, but regular, life.
[...] – we were attacked by children’s sandals. We finished at NIS [...]