dollar store drama

Here’s this week’s column. I am a shopping nightmare.

“I am spending money faster than a trailer park millionaire.

America is awesome. Living in the USA we completely take for granted beautiful inventions like dollar stores, Walmart, Target–many of which come super-sized to better serve the busy soccer moms among us. America is the home of big cars and big roads, we’re all about overstuffed comfort.

And how many countries are there in the world that offer thousands of mini marts selling 54 ounces of Diet Coke, straight from the tap, for mere pennies? No wonder Easter candy is everywhere, the bunny wants to live here too.

But in just about three months, fingertip shopping is going to be a completely different thing for me. My family and I are moving to Germany, and most of me can’t wait.

It will be the adventure of a lifetime; me and my not-so-subtle children traipsing across Europe, butchering the language and ruining ruins. This is going to be awesome.

However, having lived overseas for a few short periods of time in past years, my shopping bone is freaking out. I know from experience that things across the pond are simply more expensive.

My shopping motto is simple:  if it doesn’t come cheap, it doesn’t come home. I have mental caps for everything I buy, especially clothing.

My boys wear through jeans faster than a shoplifter in a fire drill, but I’m not about to spend more than $9 a pair to replace them. The bigger the size, the harder they are to come by, and I’m happy to hunt if it means saving a greenback or two.

But living in a foreign country, my money eye gets all wonky. Foreign money doesn’t seem real. I can spend euros like monopoly money, breaking bills right and left. Without Benjamin and Hamilton and Jackson around to shake their frugal fingers at me and stick up their noses at my non-essential purchases, I’m like Paris Hilton on vacation.

My game plan for this move is simple: in order to get the best deals, I need to do some serious pre-purchasing before we change countries.

I’ve got bedding to buy, area rugs, dressers, possibly a couch–do not ask me where the extra dollars are going to come from because there’s no way our garage sale is going to bring in that kind of cash. It’s a game of priorities.

Then there’s the kids’ clothing (way cheaper here), makeup, my really special hair spray; the list is endless.

I realized our bank balance was officially at shopping threat level red this week after stopping by the dollar store. I went in to buy one thing. Just one. One little gift bag for one little birthday party.

Now, we all know the dollar store is the spider’s most ingenious shopping web. Things you pay $3 for can cost a mere 99 cents at the lovely dollar tree, but things that cost 14 cents can as well.

And the moment I stepped inside that plastic infused haven, I knew: you can’t get this kind of cheap goodness where I’m going. Even if they have euro stores, that’s nearly twice the price. Looking around, I desperately wondered how many things I could fit in my SUV (aisle 5?), and how to hide it all from my husband.

73 items later, I walked out to my car, satisfied with the knowledge that I now have enough gift bags, tissue paper, and birthday trappings to get my family safely through the apocalypse.

Village living, here I come.