The past couple of weeks I have been trying to save money on gas. As is stands right now, it costs about $16 just to drive Mikey to gymnasts and back, (not to mention the $20+ for the lesson) so I need to make every gallon count. Keith said Safeway was having a promotion on gas for employees, so for every $50 I spend, I get 30 cents off per gallon and another 10 cents for each prescription.
I decided to go online and look at the ad and the specialized coupon program and actually print out a list. I would only buy things that were truly a bargain and cap the spending at $100. It worked really well. I got 90 cents off my first tank and 60 cents off my second. (Too bad I only fill prescriptions once a month.)
Yesterday I learned a really good life lesson. I had done my homework on Tuesday and then gotten too lazy to go to the store. I made it yesterday before I had to pick up Mikey from school. I got all the things I wanted and figured I had made it to the $100 so I went up to check out. The grand total was $184 before I swiped my card and $126 after. I thought I should've weighed the produce or maybe I got the wrong size on something so it didn't get the discount, no biggie. Then when I got out to the car I started looking at the receipt. Several of the things that I had specifically purchased because they were on sale--rocky road ice cream which I haven't bought for at least 2 years--didn't come up at the price they should have. I got out of the car and headed back into the store with my receipt and list that I printed right from their website so they had to honor it.
This story isn't going where you think.
When I got to the door of the store, I realized I printed the list on Tuesday the 13th and shopped on Wednesday the 14th. Most of the sales had expired. I calmly walked back to my car that thought very hard about something I heard recently. It was in the context of the youth program at church. Someone said, "We don't want the kids to fail." At the time I had remarked that I think a little failure is good for everyone. On the way home from Safeway yesterday I thought how very good failing was for me. I couldn't have learned that lesson in a way that would help me more. I will never go shopping again without checking the dates of the ads or the coupons. It illustrated to me the very real cost of being careless--about $20 bucks.
I think failing at things is good for people. It makes us hungry. It makes us work harder. In some cases, it shows us that we don't want to be embarrassed again. It illustrates actions and consequences. It helps us determine how bad we want something. It points us in new directions. It's a good thing to fail sometimes, if only to know how great succeeding feels.
It's good to be simple or maybe open-minded enough to learn lessons in the little things we do every day. I hope I can let my kids fail once in a while so they too can learn.
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