After therapy tonight, Emmett and I hit the store to pick up some groceries. Taking Emmett can sometimes be challenging because of how he views the world in such a literal way.

I always try to take advantage of teachable moments and grocery shopping is one such moment.

We’re not even close to being financially independent but we’re no longer on food stamps and that feels amazing. That said, we’re on a tight budget and need to make it stretch as far as we can.

I’m using the concept to teach Emmett about maintaining a budget.

When we go grocery shopping, I give him a number that we need to stay under. Today for example, I had a $200 budget for groceries and I had him bring his tablet so he could keep tabs on how much we’d spent so far.

This kinda thing is right up his alley because he’s crazy good with numbers and he’s very ridged when it comes to rules. He looks at a budget as a rule.

I’m going to lovingly refer to Emmett as a budget nazi because my goodness, he’s hardcore.

When I’m keeping tabs on how much we have in the cart, I usually round everything up because that keeps me on track. If something is $4.50, I count it as $5.00.

Emmett wouldn’t have anything to do with that because it’s inaccurate. He insisted on using the actual numbers, down to the decimal point.

It was rough going at first because he’s not very forgiving when it comes to numbers. Eventually, we got to a point where we’re were able to agree on whether we would round something up or round it down.

In the pictures below, you can see Emmett in action. He’s bagging groceries and checking the receipt against his calculations on his tablet. ☺

By the time we were done and we left the store, the difference between Emmett’s calculations and the actual cost was less than ten dollars. He did an awesome job and I’m really proud of him.

With his help, we were $25.00 under budget and that’s a good thing.

Part of my goal is to teach him the necessary life skills but also help him to be a bit more flexible because sometimes we need to be.

Anyway, while we were there, we picked up a cheap grill. We haven’t had a working grill in awhile and while this is small, it’s good enough for right now.

We were able to cook some burgers and a couple cheap steaks. Emmett was insistent on watching the Cavs game with me tonight and he thought cooking on the grill would make it a special night. Boy was he right… ☺ 💙

It’s nothing glamorous but we make due with what we have.

That cheap grill cooked a nice dinner and we all spent some time together cheering the Cavs on.. ☺