The merit of lists
So I did a home experiment last year. It was a game of sorts.
For grocery lists to be specific.
Rules:
1. Make a list of grocery items to be bought at the end of every month.
2. Go grocery shopping in the first week of every month.
3. Stick to the grocery list.
P.S. no vegetables or fruits are to be included in this list.
As a disclaimer, I am not a serial grocery shopper, neither do we (I and brother) need a lot of grocery every month. But I do love grocery shopping and the need to have all the different containers in the house packed with attractive stuff. I just wanted to fall into healthier, controlled shopping habits and needed to see if it affected how and what I bought. Here are my observations.
1. I started noting prices of goods.
2. I actually started noticing changes in the prices. Big deal!
3. Within 2 months, the lists made me have an estimate of the amount of money I would need to set aside for grocery shopping. That just made planning my finances a LOT easier.
4. In the 7th month ie July, I did not have to buy any extra grocery item apart from wheat flour, rice, lentils. That gave me immense happiness and an opportunity to indulge. I experimented with brands that month. I also bought things I thought I would never buy earlier (like this brand of room freshener which is a bit expensive and this masala which is hyped to be multipurpose)
5. I used only card (debit/credit) to make these purchases, so keeping track became simple.
6. My spending chart shows steady increase toward the end of the year, making it pretty obvious that as the party/birthday season approaches, my spending goes up. Also talks a lot about inflation and how the cost to pay for the same products has gone up. The month of July was all experimental shopping. Forgot to add one of my cousins started living with us from October hence the rise in the curve.
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| statistics obsession |
7. I made only one round to the grocery mall every month. No middle of the month/week trips post that one carefully-drafted-list round!
8. I never had to complain about things getting over before the month ended or the next grocery shopping turn came. Of course there were incidents when some masala/cereal would be over 2 days before the grocery shopping day. But I made it a point to add such things to the list promptly and get them during the allotted turn.
9. I never thought of grocery shopping post that one day of visit to the mall. I can only tell the relief of getting a huge task done at the beginning of every month and then not worry about it at all.
This year I plan to deviate a little and allot a budget of 200 Rs. every month for experimental items. To include that brand of pasta or that brand of cereal or that brand of shampoo. This may just add fun to the game and may be test my control.
Do you indulge in any home experiments ? I would be thrilled to hear and maybe include it in my lifestyle :)