this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Except that I really didn't.

While visiting my parents in another state and reading their local paper, I caught a few articles about saving money.  One of them featured a woman who saved a lot of money by couponing and taking advantage of store specials.  You know how grocery store receipts often print out how much you save?  This woman said that she had saved as much as 95% before.  Don't get me wrong here, that's totally fabulous, but unless I'm walking out of the store with a week's worth of groceries that I just purchased for $4, I didn't save 95%, no matter what my receipt says.

Today's receipt told me I saved 35%.  The total before all the store specials took effect was $109, I believe.  The reason I won't claim that I saved 35% is I wouldn't spend $109 in one grocery trip.  I just happened to take advantage of a lot of specials this week, specials that caused me to stock up on many things.  Had many of the items I bought not been on sale, I wouldn't have bought them (or I would have bought less of them).  I walked out of the grocery store paying the same amount I do every week, thus I saved nothing.

It's not what you save that matters, it's what you spend.