Never Shop Hungry

Yesterday I stopped at the store on my way home from work to pick up a few items on a list. Being close to dinner time, I was hungry. I ended up filling my cart with junk food. My intent was to pick up a battery, laundry detergent and milk. While I did get the items on my list, such items as Tostitos, Velveeta cheese, salsa, crackers and Oreos also populated my cart. Bad move to grab a cart vs. a basket which further enabled caving into my hunger cravings. The kids at home were happy to see the junk food but it was not what we needed. I ended up spending over $50 on what should have been a $20 trip.

Lessons learned:

• Don’t go grocery shopping when you are hungry. Food and low prices (I’m always looking for a deal) were just too hard to pass up.

• Stick to the list. Even though I had a list, all the end caps, large stacks of food and low prices were too good to pass up. Even though I got a great deal on all the extra munchies, it cost me twice as much as I should have spent.

• Use a basket not a cart. I had plenty of room in the grocery cart and it didn’t weigh me down when I added the additional items not on my list. If I would have used a basket, I know I wouldn’t have been as tempted to purchase items not on my list.