Big City Free Weekend: I'll Huff and I'll Puff...

A new year and a clean slate.

After realizing that we're basically clueless as to where our money goes but very aware that we didn't have any, we implemented another common idea for those re-connecting with their frugal side: saving receipts. The plan is to save receipts for one or two months and evaluate our spending. We're not sure what to do after that, but this plan buys us two more months AND we feel like we're doing something frugal, to boot.

Five days into saving every single receipt and writing down everything we purchased, we were doing great. So great, that we decided we needed a reward for being so good at spending money and placing receipts in a basket.

Motivated by confidence in our plan, a new sense of frugalness and plain ol' post-holiday boredom, we decided to head to Big City for free-city theme weekend. An art center was having a free family day, we had coupons for three free loaves of bread at a favorite bakery, we had gift certificates to use at an art-house movie theater and, Husband's parents live there, so that would equal free childcare.

We packed our lunches, grabbed our coupons and gift certificates, and stragetically left at naptime, praying to the Nap Gods that Twin A and Twin B would sack out for most of the drive to Big City. After a quick stop for gas we'd be off. Husband went in to pay for the gas, and came out with not only a receipt for the gas, but for a bag of caramel corn, a bag of cheese puffs and a bottle of juice.

"Um, what's all that?" I asked.
"Oh, just some snacks for the road," Husband replied, closing the van door.
"But we packed lunches."
"I know, but what's a road trip without snacks?"
"Did you really just buy cheese puffs? We have a gigantic bag of them at home -- two blocks away."
"Oh, we do?"
"Seriously? You were eating them last night."
"Oh."

At this point, furious about the frivolous and very unfrugal cheese puffs, I started driving toward Big City. I found myself in my first frugal new year's dilemma. What in the world was he thinking? How do I refrain from making him go right back in and return the puffs? Was I going to let salty snacks ruin our trip? Can you even return cheese puffs at a gas station? What would we say the reason was? My wife is psycho? We have cheese puffs at home and we forgot we're trying to be frugal? Would they ask if there was anything wrong with the puffs? Then what would we say? Would they credit our Visa $2.39 or just give us cash?

I remained calm, trying to remember if I'd ever seen a return policy posted at a gas station. I didn't think so, and started thinking about what it would say. Would they also have to start printing receipts with the policy posted too? Have customer service counters? I'm not sure I've ever returned anything to a gas station before and wondered why not. We bought some almost-expired graham crackers there last summer that were terrible, and had they been from Grocery Store, we might have returned them, or been from the dollar store, we might have eaten them in the name of frugality, but we just gave them to the kids instead.

While thinking about what the time limit would be on returns at a gas station, I did something unusual for me: I kept thinking, calmed down and didn't start running my mouth. I took this as an opportunity to make our talking about money not a battle, not something that Husband did right or wrong or something that I did right or wrong, but as an invitation to discuss problematic purchases like puffs.

So, the puffs became symbolic of our spending as a whole. Even though Husband and I had both committed to being more aware of our spending, for some reason, awareness didn't translate into action -- it never even occurred to him to question this purchase at all. Why? Because every time we left for Big City we got snacks. Snacks that usually ended up under a car seat, stepped on, accidentally dumped in the bottom of a diaper bag or worse -- about one third eaten, left in the van until the next trip, and then promptly thrown in the garbage.

We discussed the Cheese Puff Theory all the way to Big City -- the Cheese Puff Theory being one that asks: is this a necessary puchase or just a Puff Purchase? Can we live without this Puffy item? Is there an alternative to the Puff? Why are we considering buying the Puff? Could we wait awhile and if we still "need'" the Puff later, re-consider it again?

We're not sure if the Nap Gods were present or if the Cheese Puff Theory was simply boring to small children, but Twin A and Twin B slept the entire way while their parents ate cheese puffs and caramel corn, licked their fingers, and discussed how this was absolutely, for positively sure a Puff Purchase and the LAST time that we get to have gas-station snacks on the way to Big City. Or, maybe we'll just return the bag, half eaten with the remaining kernels picked up off the van floor and tell them they didn't taste very good. One thing's for sure: we'll have our receipt.