Celebrating on A Budget
Friday was my handsome other half's birthday, and celebration was in order to ring in his 39th year in This World, as our 5 year old would say. Apparently, there are other worlds - we watch the news and he always asks if the things in the news are happening in This World or another World.
Of course the Gods of this World were against us initially. Kyle was on a 24 at the fire department, and we don't have an eating out budget. The solution? I had a BOGO coupon for Noodles AND a BOGO coupon for concrete mixers at Culver's and they are both within the 4 minute response time distance so we met up for a date!!! We decided to let our hair down a little, spend a few bucks by eating out - getting crazy in our late 30's!
My Aunt volunteered to take the boys and Kyle and I met at Noodles for our fancy night out and literally as our food came...he got a call. As he swooped into action I started to take out my book to eat my meal alone, as the middle aged couple at the table next to me gave me sad eyes since they realized what had just happened.
I snapped this picture below to laugh at the sad situation at a later date. Just as I stole a bite of his delicious stroganoff I was nearly busted as he walked back in to the restaurant. His buddy called him off and took the call since he knew we were out to dinner! How sweet! We enjoyed our dinner, caught up on some adult conversation and celebrated his birthday.
Total sidebar, but have you tried their Chicken Veracruz Salad? Dude. If you can't have noodles at Noodles this at least makes up for it. I mean, that bite of stolen stroganoff was great too, but that low carb life gets a little sad sometimes and this salad makes it a little less sucky.
Just as we were leaving we stepped into the parking lot and the Gods of this World took care of our No Eating Out Budget - I found a $20 in the parking lot!
The next day we had family dinner with my aunt, and I made Kyle's favorite dessert, creme brulee. I made this delicious Caramel & Coffee infused Creme Brulee, but a word to the wise, either move your rack to the way way way top to broil the sugar or invest in a torch. My sugar did not broil, so I will now be adding a torch to my Christmas list! Overall the recipe came out great and Kyle at 3 of them so I think he approved.
I did have a quick success story from last week's post on using rebates in-store. I forgot to mention I always shop the local grocery ads when I make my list and also clip their eCoupons for things I need. This week I headed to PickNSave since they had a lot of great deals on items I needed. For example, they were running a deal when you bought 4 boxes of Post Brand cereal, you got a free gallon of milk, plus I had a coupon for Post Cereal. And it's Leprechaun season so #LuckyCharms had to happen. They had Jennie-O ground turkey as a BOGO, which is a killer deal. When it was all said and done, I saved $41.19 with store deals and coupons, and I got a $2.50 rebate from iBotta, in total saving me nearly $44 on my shopping trip. I got a full week's worth of groceries for $92, which for a family of 4 is pretty awesome. Additionally, PickNSave is running a promotion for the next month where you get a free Brewer's ticket for every $50 you spend, so hopefully we can take our family to a game for free this spring!
I'm really enjoying the challenge of doing things for free and saving money, and I secretly feel like even once Kyle is working we will continue to live this way now that I see how much money we were spending for no reason before!
Of course the Gods of this World were against us initially. Kyle was on a 24 at the fire department, and we don't have an eating out budget. The solution? I had a BOGO coupon for Noodles AND a BOGO coupon for concrete mixers at Culver's and they are both within the 4 minute response time distance so we met up for a date!!! We decided to let our hair down a little, spend a few bucks by eating out - getting crazy in our late 30's!
My Aunt volunteered to take the boys and Kyle and I met at Noodles for our fancy night out and literally as our food came...he got a call. As he swooped into action I started to take out my book to eat my meal alone, as the middle aged couple at the table next to me gave me sad eyes since they realized what had just happened.
I snapped this picture below to laugh at the sad situation at a later date. Just as I stole a bite of his delicious stroganoff I was nearly busted as he walked back in to the restaurant. His buddy called him off and took the call since he knew we were out to dinner! How sweet! We enjoyed our dinner, caught up on some adult conversation and celebrated his birthday.
Total sidebar, but have you tried their Chicken Veracruz Salad? Dude. If you can't have noodles at Noodles this at least makes up for it. I mean, that bite of stolen stroganoff was great too, but that low carb life gets a little sad sometimes and this salad makes it a little less sucky.
Just as we were leaving we stepped into the parking lot and the Gods of this World took care of our No Eating Out Budget - I found a $20 in the parking lot!
The next day we had family dinner with my aunt, and I made Kyle's favorite dessert, creme brulee. I made this delicious Caramel & Coffee infused Creme Brulee, but a word to the wise, either move your rack to the way way way top to broil the sugar or invest in a torch. My sugar did not broil, so I will now be adding a torch to my Christmas list! Overall the recipe came out great and Kyle at 3 of them so I think he approved.
I did have a quick success story from last week's post on using rebates in-store. I forgot to mention I always shop the local grocery ads when I make my list and also clip their eCoupons for things I need. This week I headed to PickNSave since they had a lot of great deals on items I needed. For example, they were running a deal when you bought 4 boxes of Post Brand cereal, you got a free gallon of milk, plus I had a coupon for Post Cereal. And it's Leprechaun season so #LuckyCharms had to happen. They had Jennie-O ground turkey as a BOGO, which is a killer deal. When it was all said and done, I saved $41.19 with store deals and coupons, and I got a $2.50 rebate from iBotta, in total saving me nearly $44 on my shopping trip. I got a full week's worth of groceries for $92, which for a family of 4 is pretty awesome. Additionally, PickNSave is running a promotion for the next month where you get a free Brewer's ticket for every $50 you spend, so hopefully we can take our family to a game for free this spring!
I'm really enjoying the challenge of doing things for free and saving money, and I secretly feel like even once Kyle is working we will continue to live this way now that I see how much money we were spending for no reason before!
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