One of my proudest moments as a parent so far was when Master Frugal spent some of his own money on some food for a homeless man who we saw in London when we were there for the weekend earlier in the year. I was so proud that he thought more of someone else’s welfare than he did of his own enjoyment (he had big plans for that money in Hamleys).
He bought a cup of tea and some muffins for the man and gave him them himself (watched closely by me) and I almost cried at the time as the man was so grateful and thanked him genuinely.
Ever since then I’ve been meaning to find our local food bank to see how I could go about donating to them but I’ve just never got around to it. Until today.
Today when I went to do our shopping, I was armed with a shopping list of things from the local food bank – things that are most helpful in providing meals to local families.
I bought tea bags, coffee, some tinned fruit, tinned tuna, boxes of cereal and some soup and I spent the grand total of £3.67!
We filled two carrier bags with things for the food bank and then got on our with own shopping. When we were done, Miss Frugal asked if she could spend the last of her birthday money on a drink at Costa and seeing as she offered to buy me one too, I obviously agreed 😉
The drink she bought herself was a lovely Strawberries and Cream smoothie type drink but as she sat down to drink it, she realised that the amount she’d just paid for the drink, was only 17p less than the amount we’d spent for the food bank!
Now at the time, I just brushed it off because she’s always very generous with everything she has and she’d already spend some of her birthday money on Master Frugal and tried to give some to me to get myself a treat so I wasn’t going to ruin her enjoyment of a treat she’d picked for herself but it did make me think.
What she spent on something that could have easily helped out a family so much – I’m definitely going to be doing a mini shop every week where I can to donate to the food bank, especially if I can get all that for the price of a Coffee!
How’s that for putting things in to perspective?
