Last weekend was a more “normal” one than we’ve had in a while with all the craziness of the last couple of months. We spent some time with both of our families and did some more catchup around the house. The husband also pressure washed the back deck, which was needed badly after the winter storms we’ve had.
As much as I love travel and a busy schedule, it was nice to have a relaxed weekend where we had no big plans. That said, the husband is already talking about finding a weekend to go winter truck camping, so clearly we don’t sit for long.
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Friday’s Frugal Five
1. Sunday night I went out to karaoke in Seattle with some of my local blogger friends (Felicity, Purple, and Millennial Boss). Unsurprisingly, Purple found a spot for us that was half price for the whole day, so the whole evening was super affordable.
It was my first time going to a karaoke bar where we had our own room and tv, and it was so much fun. Not something I thought I would love so much, but I totally want to go back another time. Another Sunday of course, where the whole trip cost less than twenty dollars including a glass of wine and tip.
2. We had a home movie night, complete with a big bowl of air popped buttered popcorn. We almost never go out to the movies (the kiddo has never been to one), but we do eventually watch some movies at home together.
Especially at this age when the kiddo is still pretty squirmy, it’s way more fun to snuggle up on the couch at our own house and watch a movie that way. Plus, there are plenty of movies available to watch through Amazon and Netflix anyway that costs us no extra to watch. This time, we watched Mune, which was a really interesting but fun kid’s movie.
3. After my 2019 book list was published, I realized that I didn’t include any of the chapter books we read the kiddo on the list. Between his books and mine, we make serious use of our library. I do pay a small about in late fees, but we get many times that value every year.
The best part of ebooks checked out from the library is that they go back automatically, so I can’t incur overdue fines like I do with hard copy books. The worst part is that the books automatically go back to the library whether or not you’re finished reading them. This week I had to re-check out The Yellow House Mystery, the third book in the Boxcar Children series.
Luckily, since the book was written almost seventy years ago, it was readily available, and now we are almost through it. Bedtime reading is so much fun for the three of us now that the kiddo is old enough for longer stories, and I’m loving reliving books from my childhood.
4. After our trips to Austin and Iceland and the holidays thrown in in between, we’ve had to reset our eating habits again. We ate out once a day pretty much the whole Iceland trip in particular, and if we weren’t careful, we could have fallen in to old habits where we spend way too much on food.
This past week, we had two meals of leftovers though, which helped us keep our food spending down and assured that we didn’t waste any food. They also make for easy low key work night meals, which makes then more enticing as well.
5. We did have one take out meal this week, but it was purposeful. Thursday night was my second evening meeting in three days, so we made the intentional decision to order pizza.
The husband found a 30% coupon online and we had $10 in store credit for Papa John’s though, so it cost us just $30 for a pizza, wings, and garlic knots, with enough for leftovers. And we had time to just hang out and relax together before I had to leave again for the evening. Ordering take out by itself isn’t a bad thing; it only becomes a problem when it becomes a mindless everyday response.
Exercise Update
Last week was my best step count since summer (121,331 steps), but I’m on track to possibly beat that out this week, even with a ton of rain in the forecast (my Fitbit resets the count on Sundays, so the week hasn’t ended yet).
I managed to get out for a half hour run in Friday and then a two hour long walk with the dogs on Saturday when there was a break in the weather. There was a PokemonGo event on Sunday, so the kiddo wanted to do a lot of walking along with my mother in law, so I ended the day north of 23,000 steps.
Monday was yet another walk to the park. Tuesday was the bus and then walk to work – the first time in more than a month – and then forty five minutes on the elliptical in the afternoon. Wednesday and Thursday were both ten minutes on the elliptical. Short workouts were all I could squeeze in, but way better than nothing.
Do you have any frugal wins to share this week? I’d love to hear them!