My sister called my grocery budget "fake savings" and I had to rethink the whole thing

Dakota Fox · 2026-10-25T17:20:07.603951+00:00

She looked at my spreadsheet last month and pointed out that I was counting every coupon clipped as money saved, even on stuff we never buy. She said "you're not saving $60 when you spend $40 on stuff that wasn't on the list." That stung but she was right. I went back through 3 months of receipts and about $210 of my so-called savings was stuff like 3 boxes of cereal we didn't need because they were buy 2 get 1. Now I track savings as the gap between what I planned to spend and what I actually spent, nothing else. It's way less flashy but my numbers are honest now. Has anyone else caught themselves padding their savings totals like this?

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My sister called my grocery budget "fake savings" and I had to rethink the whole thing | Budgeting Wins - Librear