Just buying groceries?

I get stressed when going around the big supermarkets. You know, the ones with wide isles and shiny floors. Their job is to sell me stuff and I feel it is my job to buy it. But that’s not my job. My job is to buy what I can afford.

It helps a bit to go in with a list that I have carefully thought out beforehand. But then I then lose the list, or see some special offer that I can't ignore.

Then I see the Back to School display. I haven't got any children going back to school, but it looks like there's a deal on folders. I always need folders, especially in nice bright colours with useful labels. Pencils too, surely if I buy colourful pencils my administration more fun?

Then the garden section. I don't have a garden, but I do have a neglected window box. I could buy some new secateurs to encourage me to use it, and some seeds that can't be planted for three months.

By the time I get to the till, the list is at the bottom of the trolley. I load everything on to the conveyor belt, and the grumpy lady scans everything though. I try to do a rough calculation on how much I'm spending, but things are going so fast that I cant possible get it right. The final figure comes up and I can't afford it with the cash I brought. So I just give the lady my credit card and will sort it out later.

I can’t possibly ask her to take some things back now: the queue is piling up and am sure I need everything I have got anyway. I leave the supermarket and get home where I put everything away somewhere and throw away the list and the receipt. month later I get the bill from the credit card company and see that the total is huge.

A few days later, I need to just pop to the supermarket for something I forgot to get and maybe get some fresh food, which does not last anyway. I will make a mental list this time, it’s only a few things. I enter the supermarket, that place of safety where everything can make my life better. All I have to do is go and collect it.

I can buy organic things and feel I am looking after my health, like organic chocolate and organic cake. I'll buy some extra things for the freezer to make the journey worthwhile. The basket on my arm is so heavy I need to swap it for a trolley. Well, if I have gone to this much trouble I might as well stock up on dog biscuits and some more shampoo.

My mental list has slipped somewhere in my mind. I knew there was something I really wanted but now I have forgotten. I go through the process of paying with the card and getting home. This bill too will arrive on the monthly credit card bill, the same as the first one. It will be massively higher than I had calculated.

I spend so much on groceries, yet I have little in the fridge. So now I feel deprived and have also spent beyond my means. How does that work?

If I had had taken in cash with no credit card, this could not have happened. The worst thing that could've happened is I get to the till and have to return some items. At best, I would have only bought the things I could afford in cash.

By getting rid of my credit card I can prevent myself getting ‘lost’ whilst shopping. It might feel a bit rough in the beginning, to have to deny myself items I think I need. When I get nostalgic for the rush I used to get, I look at my three pairs of secateurs just to remind me of the olden days. The time when I was so naive that I thought I was "just buying groceries".