Operation Grocery Budget: February 2019 Report

February was...unexpected. The very first day of February, we headed to Grand Rapids with Aaron. February 2nd, he had surgery, and we stayed at the hospital until February 10. He was diagnosed with MSSA septic arthritis of the hip and we had a long stay 2.5 hours from home for recovery and IV antibiotics. The latest update is that he's been cleared of bacteria in his blood, and if everything goes well, will be playing volleyball with his team this season. Blessings!!  Grandparents are AMAZING to drop everything to take care of our other three children, and we had lots of other support. What a blessing - support from family, church family, and friends is not something I take for granted. It 100% shocked me how willing people were to step in and do something practical to help us - SO humbling and thoughtful!!

SO...what you really came for - the grocery final totals. I just finished entering a few final receipts and couldn't help but laugh at our total. We spent a lot more money than we would have normally that first few weeks of the month, between groceries delivered to our kids and parents at home, to the hospital... you don't even want to see our "restaurant" budget category. YIKES. (we didn't find out until we'd already been there 5 days that we had a fridge in our room. Oh boy...) So I didn't really have high hopes for staying below budget in this category, but - I guess we did! Even though we weren't able to be quite as careful with our spending as we normally would be!

Meals, gift cards, money for gas, financial gifts, and Starbucks cards all made our burden lighter! Our kids also benefited by seeing the power, faithfulness AND PROVISION of God in times of difficulty - something that never would have been possible without the difficulty itself. We have all emerged *more grateful* people. His graciousness to us is astounding.

Also - where would we be without a budget? This month marks TWO years of using our budgeting app - I can't believe it's been so long or that I was so hesitant for so long. The thing about budgeting is that it isn't really meant to be set in stone tablets or anything crazy. It's meant to be flexible and meant to work for YOU. It's just a plan, not a prison sentence. It only benefits, it doesn't bite. We definitely took advantage of the need for flexibility this month!

I'm excited to keep going with the grocery budget challenge - maybe we won't meet the big goals that were the original catalyst for the challenge, but knowing we can comfortably and healthfully stay in this price range for now makes me excited for whatever the future holds, whether or not we get to realize our big goals or whether God has something else for us.

Thanks for following along on our operation grocery budget journey!