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

Last weekend, I purchased fabric and notions to make Halloween costumes for my kids. It's not often that the price I pay for something surprises me - usually I have a decent idea of what I'm going to be paying beforehand - but not this time. I watched the total go up and up and I actually started panicking a bit. I didn't mean to spend that much, so where did I go wrong?

I thought about that quite a bit on the way home. My first mistake was that I went in without any idea at all of what I wanted to spend. How can I go over budget when I don't have one in the first place? I also didn't keep any sort of running total in my head as I was grabbing materials. If I would have done that, I would have maybe gone back and picked a more inexpensive fabric, or perhaps waited to buy some of the items another time when I would be able to use another coupon. Another option would have been to shop around some more for less expensive options.

I also realized that the total is not a bad number on its own. The number I should be worried about is simply the difference between what I wanted to spend and what I did spend (not that I know that first number, but stick with me here). So, if I wanted to spend $10, but really spent $25, I shouldn't get hung up on $25. It's the difference - in this example $15 - that I should pay attention to. I was planning on spending $10, so why worry about that portion?

I read an article a few weeks ago that said consumers were expecting to pay 30% less on Halloween this year. If I had been polled, I certainly wouldn't have said I was going to spend more than I did last year, yet I did. So it makes me wonder how accurate such a number really is!