Grocery store therapy.

Things are looking up on the daycare front. Bryan and I interviewed, and hired, a new nanny this past weekend--she'll be picking Zoey up from preschool every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and bringing her home for lunch and nap time. This should eliminate the stress of long days at daycare for Zoey, and the stress of worrying about her stressful days for me.

Things are also looking up on the barfing front: Zoey slept like a log all night long last night, and woke up seemingly good as new this morning. With fingers crossed, we invited Leslianne (our new nanny) over for the morning to spend some time with Zoey.

To celebrate the luck of finding another fantastic babysitter (we thought our luck had run out after Shea went back to school this summer), and to allow Zoey and Leslianne some bonding time, I decided to spend some time alone partaking in one of my favorite activities: bargain shopping.

That's right.

Armed with my coupons and my list, I left a semi-tearful Zoey at home and set out for Target and Safeway.

Money is tight in our household right now, as I'm sure it is for most everyone in the country at this moment. Most of my paychecks cover our expenses with a little extra wiggle room, this paycheck, however, just covered the mortgage with very little left over. (I have a precious $20 bill in my wallet, which is my only spending money for the week.)

On the plus side, I absolutely LOVE to shop for bargains and thoroughly enjoy wandering the aisles of Target finding deals on things like laundry soap and diapers. Any shopping trip is a treat for me, regardless of whether I am shopping for myself or for household items. And the opportunity to wander the aisles of my favorite stores all alone, with no distractions from my darling daughter, made me positively giddy.

I had clipped my coupons from the Sunday paper already and had them painstakingly organized in a small expanding folder in my purse. I had my very organized list with me. After hitting up Starbucks for (what I considered to be) a well-deserved Peppermint Mocha (purchased with a leftover gift card from my birthday) (and YES, more caffeine...I know, I know...) I set out in search of Downy. (And whoever thought of combining Starbucks AND Target should be sainted.) I found a score right off the bat--BIG bottles of Downy on sale for $9.00, plus my 75-cent-off coupon!

And the deals didn't stop there! Diaper wipes on sale! An almost-forgotten coupon for 50-cents-off cereal, bringing the total cost of a box of Life cereal down to $2.04!

Total spent at Target: $31.89. Total savings: $4.18.

Then it was off to wander through Safeway. I had scored a mega deal on Safeway coupons in the Sunday paper--a giant box of Pampers for $28.99 (one dollar less than at Target) plus a coupon for 10% off your total bill. Normally we don't do much grocery shopping at Safeway (it's more expensive than Winco) but I couldn't pass up the diaper deal.

You can practically smell the upscale-ness of Safeway when you walk in the door--I am used to shopping at Winco, where cases of Milwaukee's Best fly off the shelves, along with packages of Hostess cupcakes and pork rinds bought in bulk. (Surveying the purchases of shoppers in line in front of and behind me is a favorite pasttime of mine, particularly at Winco. Nothing makes you feel better about your healthy food choices than watching a 200 lb woman buy Doritos by the truckload.) But here at Safeway, it's a different demographic. Nobody was screaming "if you don't shut up I'm gonna beat your ass!" at their toddlers trapped in grocery carts. Organic produce was prominently displayed and the cart I chose glided smoothly up and down the aisles. Still sipping my mocha, I happily walked the store enjoying the choice of Whitney Houston and Lionel Richie 80's hits playing on the sound system. This...this was heaven.

I splurged on a bottle of salad dressing (top-rated last month in my Real Simple magazine), found the mega box of diapers, located the vegetable broth.

Total spent at Safeway: $36.07. Total savings: $4.77.

So I spent roughly $70 today on groceries and other necessities for the house. BUT, I saved almost $10 AND I experienced the joys that only retail therapy can bring. Sometimes it's tough to realize that you work so hard to bring home a paycheck only to have so little left over to spend on yourself. But that's part of the game right now while Bryan is in school and we are making time with our daughter a priority. And really? Shopping for deals on Downy can be just as fun as shopping for a deal on a new purse.