Denial

When someone asked us what our monthly food bill was, we thought for a moment and tossed out a figure like $1200. We knew it was a little bit higher (we eat a lot!), but it might be embarrassing for the full figure to come out in the open. Our fear was validated when the person asking the question gave a little gasp at hearing $1200. Their bill, of course, was much lower. Never mind that they didn't have seven mouths to feed; their bill would surely be lower even if they did.

Since no one was forcing the issue, we cruised along in self-appointed ignorance/bliss until the invention of credit card loyalty programs. We want the miles, points, or whatever the credit card companies are offering when you use their card (doesn't everyone?). So for the past year we've bought just about everything on the credit card. Even groceries (in my parents' day, buying food on credit would have been absolutely unthinkable. Now we do it routinely). But with great power comes great responsibility--and accountability.

We now have this piece of paper that comes from the credit card company every month detailing how much food we really consume. It's all listed right there so we can't help but acknowledge how much we spend in groceries and going out to eat. That $1200 was really $1800, just as we kind of suspected all along. Ah, the power of denial.

Is there something bad you don't want to face? Simple, just deny that it exists. Just tell yourself that it isn't so. Someone else might challenge such a blatant falsehood, but we are oh so forgiving of ourselves. Even the truthful among us lie like crazy to ourselves:

"I don't watch much TV..."

"I'm only going to eat one handful of chips from this bag..."

"I exercise enough every day..."

Riiiiiiiiight...And the government is here to help you. Our food denial caused our food bill to become our number one expense. Totaling it up with the help of our friendly credit card bill gave us the satisfaction of knowing the truth--so we could start dealing with it. But wait, there's more: we'd only hit the first level of denial (there are always at least two). We hadn't accounted for the food items that we had paid cash for. Generally, these are small purchases that we forget immediately, but they do add up.

Ok, so we've come clean. The real monthly food bill is closer to $1900. That means we're going to run at the poverty level this year by shaving off a full $1000 each month. We can do it--really.