You would think I might have learned something from the last ten months. With one income, we had to tighten our belts quite a bit. After the unemployment checks ran out, we notched them even tighter.

I gave up the extras that I probably should have given up from the get-go. The mochas. The lunches out. The magazines that I seem to be magnetically attracted to. Any beauty product that cost more than $3.

I’ve actually appreciated the cutting back because I think it’s prepared us for the new adventure of having TWO paychecks. Now we can actually start saving again. And more than we did before. Wahoo!

But some stupid habits die hard. Very hard.

I gave myself a small bit of leeway from the nixed mochas and I’m now allowing myself one each week. So I ordered it at Panera when lunching with Dev the other day. I plunked down nearly $14 for a meal with a child who only eats half of anything and destroys the rest before you can rescue it. And then I took a sip of the mocha. Blech! Ahem…mochas are supposed to taste like chocolate. There wasn’t a hint of the chocolate goodness in this one. It was, like, frothy coffee or some crazy concoction along those lines. And it was baaad!

So there went $4 into the garbage can. Klunk.

Still, I couldn’t get the desire for a lusciously chocolately mocha out of my mind. Tough luck, I should have told myself. You lost out on one of your weekly mochas. Four smackers went down the tubes and you have to live with it.

Nah.

I went through the drive-thru at Mainline Coffee and slapped down another $4 for the mocha I rightfully deserved.

I really haven’t learned a thing.