It’s been a long week. Wednesday was a 13 hour work day (including a 3.5 hour dinner), and the preparation leading up to the day meant that Monday and Tuesday were reasonably long as well. On the upside, I did get in my run to work on Wednesday, and it didn’t even rain on me. I doubt I’ll have quite as good of luck next week, but at least it won’t be dark since the days are getting so much longer.
1. One of my son’s presents for his birthday last month (thanks to our request for experiences instead of things) was a gift card to Cold Stone Creamery. Tuesday was sunny and in the high 50s, so we decided it was a perfect day for ice cream. Amazing how after a long winter, any sunny day over fifty degrees brings out the shorts and t shirts up here in the Pacific Northwest.
Since the gift card was a present, I decided to make it extra special and we went and had the ice cream BEFORE dinner. I’m not sure if there are many things more exciting to a kid than dessert before dinner, and our kiddo loved it. We then walked over to a nearby nursery to check out some plants and walk around before having real dinner. We didn’t buy anything for the garden, but it was fun to walk around the grounds on a sunny day.
We did end up going out to eat at a teriyaki shop afterward, but the portions were huge and we had leftovers for two extra meals. Plus, we do just spend a little more on restaurants than your average frugal blogger because it’s something we value. We just make sure it’s more of a purposeful decision these days rather than because we didn’t plan anything for dinner / were too tired to cook.
2. I FINALLY mailed out some of my homegrown marigold seeds to the friend who sent me a scoby to make my own kombucha. I had way too many seeds to plant even after giving plenty as Christmas presents, and I like that I had something to give in exchange, even if it wasn’t expected. The good news is, the east coast is still under a ton of snow so I didn’t mail them too late to be planted this year.
3. We had a work lunch bought for us on Tuesday, which was good timing because I would have ended up eating a couple of my emergency packets of Cream of Wheat in my office since I didn’t bring a lunch that day. Again, when life gets extra busy, I stop packing lunches, but at least I had plans not to eat out.
There were leftovers from that lunch sitting in the work fridge (and no one else was eating them), so I had that meal two more times this week. Free for me, and I made sure that the food wasn’t wasted. Now that I’ve been focused on reducing our food waste at home, I can’t stand to see it at work either.
4. I got an Ebates referral from someone this week! I have purposefully kept ads off this blog because I want to make sure I’m writing for content and not for income, but I do appreciate the occasionally small tip for all the hours I’ve put in on this thing. Plus, Ebates is just awesome in general. I’m all for getting paid a little bit extra for doing my regular shopping.
If you aren’t using Ebates yet, use this link to get $10 just for signing up (and I won’t say no to the referral fee 😉)
5. We got our annual REI dividend in the mail this week. We forgot to use it last year, so it’s actually two year’s worth in one.
You’ll notice it isn’t a huge amount, which I think is probably a good thing because it is way too easy to spend way too much on awesome outdoor equipment and supplies. The money we spent last year was also partially on a gift card as well, so we realized double savings that way.
Thanks to Mrs. Adventure Rich sharing their adventures with snowshoeing with their toddler, complete with some awesome photos and videos on Instagram, I’ve been thinking I want to get a pair for our son for next winter. We already own a pair for each of us adults, so once we buy a kid pair we’ll be good to go. Snowshoeing is our very favorite winter sport (it’s free besides the gas to get to the trails once you have the gear), but we haven’t been for the last three years since becoming parents.
We don’t have anything else we really need for camping/hiking, so we will probably go the kid snowshoe route. Plus then once we have them we will have a good reason to make sure a few trips happen this next winter.
How was your week? What do you do during hectic weeks to make sure you don’t fall off the frugal wagon?