June Frugals

Nice to have you, Brooklynn!
Good work standing your ground, Kelli. I hope it all comes together for you.
Dana: Sounds like you’re doing a good job getting out and seeing folks while limiting your expenditures. Spending time with people you care about is always worth a few bucks unless you’re in the extreme destitution range, which I believe most of us fortunately are not.
Cdttmm: I’m on a chamomile tea kick at the moment. I usually drink Darjeeling, but it’s nice to have something without caffeine available so I can drink it at night without it keeping me awake. I'm far from a connoisseur though. What kinds of teas do you like?
I was off from work this week, and as far as frugality goes, we had the good, the bad, and the ugly. I believe I’ll focus on the good, and sort of gloss over the other stuff :)
I did some planned shopping with my free Macy’s gift cards, also bought plants for the garden and some potting soil. Didn’t get carried away at the garden centers, which is all too easy for me to do. Went to a local discount store and scored good deals on cards and some misc items that were all useful or necessary. I went to Whole Foods because I needed liquid castile soap, and mumble, mumble, gloss, gloss, let’s just say there was nothing frugal about that little errand! :|(
We did our one-nighter in Portland. Our room was a reward night, but we spent a lot on meals. However, they were such excellent meals that we considered it money well spent. We drank mead for the first time, and we had wonderful lobster spring rolls in rice paper, as well as other delicious things.
Cdttmm: Where do you buy the rice paper wrappers? I remember that you were trying to use some up. We would like to try to recreate the lobster spring rolls at home. I did some shopping in Portland as always, but I was pretty restrained, and most of the items I bought are gifts for upcoming birthdays or xmas. I do generally plan to do some shopping when in Portland because there are so many great stores. I would rather spend my money at cool little independent shops than at the mall.

OOOh! Rosarugosa we love Portland! One of best meals I've ever had in my life was at Walter's (I think that's the name) it was lunch on my Birthday a few years ago.

Hey Merski! I'll have to keep Walter's in mind. For some reason,we've never made it there, although I've always heard good things about it. There are just so many good restaurants and we're usually only there for a night or two, so we can only consume a finite number of meals. The place where we had dinner this time was Bibo's Madd Apple Cafe, up in the Arts District off Congress St. That's another place we've wanted to try for years, and we finally got around to it.
We're big fans of the Regency's Old Port Getaway weekend in the winter. It's about $300. for 2 people for 2 nights with full breakfast each morning. Lately though, we've been staying at the Holiday Inn by the Bay because we've been using our Priority Visa and we can get our room for between $0 - $60 per night, and the view of the bay is wonderful. It's fun and frugal to shop at Reny's too, which is near the HI. I bought a few things, including a pair of shorts for DH, and I only spent $17.00. Those are my frugal Portland tips!

Soooooo tired tonight, but I thought I'd check in. Zach had mega overtime today, which is offset a bit by the fact that I am ordering groceries to be delivered ($5 fee) instead of going to the store and we ordered a Father's Day pizza tonight, but we still come out way ahead of where we'd be if he didn't take the OT. We're having a nice evening at home. I made a pie for dessert, which we ate before dinner. If the kids all go down nicely Zach and I might hit the pool.

We were going to go out and do something tomorrow, but Cheyenne injured her foot in a bike accident, so we'll have to see. It might be sprained. If it is I think we'll just swim at home. Now that Zach has a predictable job with reasonably predictable hours and pay we are making Sunday afternoon Family Time. We're going to budget a certain amount each month. Some weeks will be free stuff, like the pool or beach or canoeing or rollerblading. Some weeks we'll spend money. If we stay under budget the extra will go into our travel fund, so that's kind of an incentive.

Speaking of our travel fund, we have hatched a pretty crazy plan to attempt to take the family to Italy for Dad's 70th birthday. Dad would greatly enjoy seeing the Vatican and Asissi (he is a Franciscan) and it would be fun for us too. Dad is 64, so we have time to save, but we also have a big family. It's going to take some cash. It's a good incentive to save.

Dad is a Franciscan? As is monk? Priest? I don't get it...

It's pretty incredible, though, Stella (as you well know) how those big goals CAN happen when everyone is invested and on board. Have to remember that for DH and I, too. I'd like to pay off the mortgages. But can we find the way to do this? Hmmmm . . .

Hope Cheyenne's foot recovers soon.

I'm glad bunnys asked, because I've always been curious to know what you've meant by your dad being a Franciscan. :D

I ended up getting the modem. Corky and I enjoyed an outing to a great dog park but it was really muddy from the rain and he is super pooped from all of it. DSis and DBiL and I went mini golfing. We also had DQ. And they brought me a carry out burger. All in all today cost me about $20. Hmm, I could have passed on the burger ($10). But the rest was so good, and so fun . . .

Tomorrow for father's day we are going to grill. This will be 1) less expensive than a restaurant and 2) less anxiety-ridden for me because of my dietary needs. Plus I can clean up my parents' porch in preparation for the outdoor dining which will be kind of a bonus gift, and free. I will head up in the morning so we can grill for a late lunch.

We're also cooking at home for father's day... the more I cook at home, the less I want to eat at restaurants, for multiple reasons... food sensitivities, ingredient quality (nothing tops our current garden-fresh produce!), time, cost, health...

DD and I spent some of our savings from not eating out at a local knitting and beading store that is, sadly, closing its doors soon and clearing everything out. They have lovely supplies and craft time is together time for us. Still.. I have to classify it as a want, not a need.. but we're already using some of the things we bought.

Our fabulous spring weather continues and we've used neither heat nor a/c in a long time.

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Originally Posted by bunnys

Dad is a Franciscan? As is monk? Priest? I don't get it...

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He is a tertiary (third order) Franciscan. It's a professed lay member of the Franciscan order. They take vows to live according to the rule, which is similar to the rule for friars except you can be married and you live in your own home. They meet with the brothers for formation (study) regularly, pray the daily office (morning prayer, office of readings, noon prayer, evening prayer and night prayer. Dad gives huge chunks of his income to various charities and spends a lot of his free time volunteering. Lots of famous people have been tertiaries. Dante Allighieri, I believe and Saint Louis Rey, off the top of my head.

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Originally Posted by loosechickens

Well, we are killing the satellite TV once again.....the "special half price deal" they gave us last year is about to run out, and we are philosophically opposed to paying full price for the basic package. So there's thirty-some bucks a month to add into the "frugality" pile. Thankfully, it runs out the week AFTER the last Mad Men episode, and while it will be hard to live without the Daily Show, I watch little else, so will hardly be noticed in the ripples of life.......

Our problem is that we kill the satellite TV, get used to not having it, then they start sending emails "we want you back and here is a special deal", and once the special deal gets down to about thirty bucks a month, we start saying, well, a buck a day just in case we WANT to watch something might be nice, and then we sign up for another (usually 10 month to one year) special deal and are off to the races again.........

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Many TV shows can be watched on the originating channel's website, including the Daily Show: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-epi...ine-zeta-jones

I no longer have cable or satellite, but I can watch Design Star on HGTV's website, NCIS in cbs.com, etc

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Originally Posted by cjones

My nephew is graduating from high school and I felt I had to send a check along with a store-bought card. Ugh. I didn't want those $50 checks for my son when he graduated from high school and don't like being obligated to send these $50 checks when my nieces and nephews graduate---no one in the family needs this money to help pay for college books, and therefore it seems extravagant to me. BUT--I do it because I know there is an end in sight and I want to keep things peaceful between myself and the rest of the family.

My other non-frugal peeve is store bought greeting cards!!! With my own circle of friends, we have an agreement to re-use birthday cards, and we have been circulating the same bunch of cards for many years now, it's a lot of fun. We just cross off the last person's name and write our own, and it's like getting a card from everyone who's signed it before. But....I can't do that with the family, they just don't get it and I still love them so I spend the $40 a year on these cards that just get thrown out a week later. Grumble, grumble, what I do for my family!!

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Dollar Tree (and probably other dollar stores) has very nice greeting cards at two for a dollar.