How to stay inside your budget at Target: 1. Make a list of exactly what you need. 2. Go to Target. 3. Rip up the...
Posted by Amy Weatherly [1] on Friday, September 21, 2018 [2]
Every person who enters a Target store knows that they will inevitably end up buying more than they came in for (often forgetting that one original item altogether), but no one knows the struggle of a Target trip more than a mom shopping with her kids [3]. Amy Weatherly, in an attempt to look out for her fellow mamas, shared a four-step plan for "how to stay inside your budget at Target," [4] and proves just a few lines into the plan that it's impossible, even with her tips.
How to stay inside your budget at Target:
1. Make a list of exactly what you need.
2. Go to Target.
3. Rip up the list.
4. Go home because it's just not gonna happen. You know it. I know it. The people of Target are laughing at us all behind their backs because they know it.
Amy expanded on her plan by describing a particularly trying trip with her kids, which looks a hell of a lot like every trip to Target we've ever taken with a child.
"No matter how golden your intentions may be, you will find a cute pair of baby shoes and put them on your baby right there in the store, and your son will sneak a toy into the cart," she wrote, speaking our truths. "You will walk past the clothes section and see a cute sweatshirt [6] that just happens to be your favourite team's colours. Obviously, you will need the sweatpants, because you are . . . not some hooligan who is so foolish to believe they will still have your size the next time you shop. They won't. You are too old and too wise to make that mistake twice."
Moving from the clothes and toy sections, Amy shares what inevitably happens once you've wandered towards the food aisles. "One child will start whining and you will open a box of cookies right there in the store and watch them shove them in their face just to keep them happy, and most importantly, quiet. Then the other child will complain that they want a box of cookies. Then you will realise you want a box of cookies, and kids like the most disgusting things, so you'll pick out your own and hide them in the very back of your closet when you get home so you aren't forced to share."
Amy continues, taking a jab at card companies who manage to charge $7.99 for greeting cards, which we all fall for and buy time after time, and notes that dollar section picks always end up adding "to $973,683 before you even know it." The mom also touches on self-care, because moms especially know the value of a good spa day [7], but also know that with kids, spa days aren't things.
"You will buy Biore strips and bath bombs and face masks because you can't afford an actual spa day, because you know, you just spent all your money at Target. So seriously, rip up the list. Go home. It's safe there. Plus, you won't run into anyone you know looking like a wet rat after walking around in the rain all afternoon. But look at those baby shoes. I mean, y'all . . . that's just plain cute. I don't care who you are. Target lovers/haters unite."
PREACH, mama.