What you don't know can hurt you

Lately I've been spending my money without much regard for how. I try to be thrifty where I can, but ever since my counselor told me that saving up money wasn't something most grad students are able to do, I stopped paying as much attention to my budget. To my own detriment. Even if I can't save a huge amount up, I can still watch my spending. Besides, it at least helps me have a local perspective on the economy.
I noticed last night that Trader Joe's at 14th Street again had a line going out the door and down the street past some four other storefronts. They're huge now. How can it be that there's only one of them in the city?
For my part, even if the deals are good, I can't stand waiting in lines that long, especially when it's just to get in the door!
Got my food shopping done tonight at the Polish Associated Supermarket on Manhattan Ave. I asked if they had coupons. The Polish checkout girl gave me a weird look and said, "No, no coupons. If there is discount, we have it all in our heads." Good to know.
$41.37 spent altogether, mostly the basics:
$8 for two loaves of bread, Arnold $ Stroehmann-where are they coming from?
$4 on soy milk (gotta have my Silk)
$8 on chicken - trying out breasts and ground chicken, which was cheaper
$5 on cold cuts (got a lb. of the cheapest available...)
$4.79 on a 20 oz. box of shredded wheat. Cereal prices are so damn high. I've been told getting high fiber in the morning makes for a healthy breakfast. So that should help.
$3 of orange juice on sale,
$2 of eggs,
$2 on soap,
$2 on paper towels,
and $2 of some unintelligible Polish snack food that looked like it had honey- tastes darn good.
I guess the rest was tax.
I know that when it comes to following my spending, I need to adopt LITTLE habits that I can begin to accumulate.
I can start to write some of these purchases down, at the very least. I don't want to be paranoid about it, but I do want a better idea of where my money is going. It's easy to ignore this stuff, but sooner or later the money will ignore you back.