How to Turn a Short Run to the Store into $50 Down the Hole in Five Easy Steps

1. Make sure at least three of the seven things you need to pick up cost five dollars or more

Grocery List

2. Buy two packages of brats because they are on sale... even though they've been on sale for the past month

3. Buy three packages of butter because the hormone-free kind are on sale.  So much so they are the cheapest quarts of butter at the grocery store.  When is that going to happen again?

(Probably all the time, for the next few weeks, until it's sold out, because you go to the super duper cheap grocery store where no one else ever buys stuff like Tom's toothepaste or Bob's Red Mill polenta or hormone-free butter)

4. Accidentally observe that the Nutella is on sale.  Super sale.  Two jar kind of sale.

5. Throw in a few discount Alessi products for good measure.

All the Stuff I wasn't Supposed to Buy