| My wife and I had planned an outing for our | | | | that we would have to get something to eat, and |
| family over the weekend to visit a festival that | | | | from the looks of it, we would be paying full price |
| was being held in one of our state parks. It was | | | | for wherever we went. |
| your garden variety festival, one where all types | | | | Well, not soon after, I "mentally" stopped and |
| of different vendors set up their tents to sell their | | | | took stock of the situation. If I let this building |
| food or their arts and crafts. The home-made | | | | "stress" of mine get to me, the whole outing |
| fudge and the hand woven figurines, so on and so | | | | would be ruined. Then, as I thought more about |
| forth. | | | | the situation, I thought, you know what-who |
| Of course, whenever we decide to go to these | | | | cares? |
| types of things, we at the very least pack a | | | | I have jumped in head first to the whole rebate |
| good deal of snacks, if not a complete lunch. We | | | | coupon/shopping for good deals game, and I have |
| do this for two reasons. First, because the prices | | | | saved myself and my family an immeasurable |
| for food at these festivals is ridiculous and | | | | amount of money over the past several months. |
| second, most of the time they don't have food | | | | So now I am presented a situation where I know |
| that were interested in (we usually try to eat only | | | | I'll have to pay full price. Once again, I soon said to |
| healthy foods). | | | | myself-who cares? |
| So anyways, we packed our picnic basket and | | | | Now that I am firmly on track financially and |
| off we went. Well, if you know anything about | | | | usually don't miss a deal with anything that I buy, |
| Atlanta, you know that a traffic jam can pop up | | | | it is easy to let this mindset take over your life. |
| at any time, and sure enough, we found | | | | Really, it is. One can easily stay up till the wee |
| ourselves stuck right in the middle of a doozy. It | | | | hours of the morning looking for every last deal |
| was a Saturday afternoon but from the looks of | | | | on every last thing that you buy. Well, if you let it |
| this thing it was a Friday at 5:00 o'clock. We didn't | | | | get to this point, I think it takes away from the |
| move for about 15 minutes. | | | | quality of the life that you are living. |
| It soon became apparent that we would miss the | | | | I try to save as much money as I can so I can |
| entire festival if we decided to wait out the traffic | | | | get closer to living the life that I want to, but I |
| (we got a little bit of a late start). | | | | also understand that sometimes you just need to |
| So, we had to go to Plan B. And Plan B was | | | | forget about it. Of course, I don't mean abandon |
| visiting our favorite downtown shopping district. | | | | the mindsets and attitudes that got me to this |
| With this new plan, obviously there really wouldn't | | | | point; I just mean that I refuse to let it overtake |
| be a place to set up our picnic food and sit down | | | | my life. |
| and enjoy it. Well, I 'm sure we probably could | | | | For all the money that I have saved over the |
| have but it would have looked quite strange. | | | | past several months-ONE trip to ONE restaurant |
| All of a sudden I felt this stress building inside of | | | | paying full price is not going to kill me. |
| me. Normally, when we visit this spot, we almost | | | | I managed to wash these thoughts away from |
| always make sure to eat first so were not | | | | my mind; we all strolled into one of these upscale |
| tempted to buy food at this place either. The | | | | restaurants, sat down and had a wonderful meal. |
| restaurants are good but fairly upscale so once | | | | Wonderfully overpriced, but a wonderful meal. So |
| again, the food is a little pricey (of course, we | | | | when formulating your list of saving money ideas, |
| have visited their restaurants, but only when we | | | | life your life first, then save your money. |
| have a coupon). My stress came from realizing | | | | |