FITISH

First of all, I passed this challenge! No need to drag this.

But did I encounter some issues during this grocery trip? I sure did.

Before leaving my apartment, I turned on a time tracking app. I forgot to check my steps before the trip but I usually have around 1000 steps before morning coffee as I need to walk the pup. I was ready to go.

Walk to the first store was brief, it took only 10 minutes. Carrots were on sale only until yesterday so figured I’ll grab a couple in the other store. I grabbed one item (minced meat) and wanted to go to the self check out. Unfortunately, Lidl only accepts cash at their humanly operated registers so I carefully counted the coins to match the exact price of 5.39 euros and stood in line. One very nice person suggested I could go in front of them but then I showed them the handful of coins. They withdrew the polite suggestion.

Walking to the second store took another 5 minutes. From the moment I entered, everything was not according to my plan. Cabbage was more expensive in the store than it was online (3.69 vs 3.49), same as yogurt (3.09 vs 2.89). Carrots were 0.89 per kilo! Everything started to collapse. I still had to get these items, so I decided to save money elsewhere. Thankfully, vanilla sugar was still 0.39.

Walking up to this isle was a sad experience.

The desired muscovado was not available! And the other muscovado was too expensive, especially now that I learned the prices were higher in the store! I felt betrayed and decided against buying any sugar.

BUT the thought of pronouncing this challenge a fail felt so discouraging to me… after debating with myself in front of the store for a while, and recounting my coins, I decided to go back inside and ADAPT. I bought this sugar instead and I don’t think it will ruin my cookies.

The shopping experience here was a little bit better. It was actually exciting. This store has self checkout which, unlike Lidl, accepts coins. It was fun feeding the machine coins and looking at the till getting down to 0.00.

I left the store with 0.43 euros in my pouch. I learned that I can get carrots for 0.49 cents per kilogram but I had to go the third store! Oh well. I must keep adapting to pass this one.

So I walked another 10 minutes and bought 40 cents worth of carrots. The guy at the register looked at me like I was an idiot when I asked for the receipt. It’s okay, he doesn’t know about the challenge.

My pet bird went absolutely nuts for the carroty snack.

I spent a total of 1 hour and 7 minutes grocery shopping on foot, and by the time I was done I had 5 901 steps. So this trip took probably just under 5 000 steps.

It’s clear that even with careful trimming (like skipping paper towels and tortilla wraps), I ended up at 14.96 euros, almost exactly the budget. From the beginning, I was left with no room for unpredictable things. This makes the challenge quite fragile if anything changes.

I learned it is quite hard to keep to your grocery budget when it’s so tight (lol Einstein over here), but I managed to adapt because I had to.

This challenge definitely made me rethink what I need and what steps I must take to get what I need. If you don’t have money to spend, you must spend more time to meet your needs…

I rate it 10/10 for building character and teaching me to be mindful with my money – will do it again.

Bonus picture of the chocolate chip cookies (yes, I ruined my diet):