Day 31: We Did It
In honor of our last day not spending, I got creeping flox from a listing on freecycle. They'd crept where they were not wanted, so I brought them home and planted them between the hours of noon and two. So. Hot. I'm not experienced in the way of gardening so the odds may not be in their favor, but I sure hope they make it. I put them in a strip of dirt along our driveway that will one day be covered in tiny pink flowers, punctuated by upside-down tomato cages (twistied into a point at the top) with white clematis growing up them. Besides the spots I cleared to plant, it still looks like the first photo:
Our final evening was a date night and at first I was bummed because I thought we'd do something later in the week with money to spend, but then I remembered how great our dates have been and told Brian we needed to go out with a bang. We split a dish of Pesto Cavatappi at Noodles and even ordered a soda. We were eating light because our next stop was Cheddars where we had a gift card with $4.00 remaining. We each ordered a side of their honey drizzled croissants for $1.99 each. Only paying taxes and tip made the waitress a bit snickery, but I'm not easily intimidated when it comes to my thriftiness. It sure didn't take away from the warm, feather-light buttery goodness or the sweet guy across from me.
We finished the evening with a game of free bowling that Brian got somehow. Not sure the story behind those, but it was a treat and we got to watch the Olympics between turns. Without Cable, we don't get that channel at home.
So there you have it! A whole month of thriftiness, doing without, thinking outside the box, not-so-quiet desperation, euphoria and now, satisfaction. We've talked about what we want our monthly budget to look like from this point on. Each month, we'll look at the expenses we can foresee and decide on a dollar amount to spend each day. Gas and dates will come out of their own funds again, but in every area we'll keep asking, Could we spend less? Most of all, I want to remember how sometimes, quality of life goes up when the spending goes down.
We finished the evening with a game of free bowling that Brian got somehow. Not sure the story behind those, but it was a treat and we got to watch the Olympics between turns. Without Cable, we don't get that channel at home.
So there you have it! A whole month of thriftiness, doing without, thinking outside the box, not-so-quiet desperation, euphoria and now, satisfaction. We've talked about what we want our monthly budget to look like from this point on. Each month, we'll look at the expenses we can foresee and decide on a dollar amount to spend each day. Gas and dates will come out of their own funds again, but in every area we'll keep asking, Could we spend less? Most of all, I want to remember how sometimes, quality of life goes up when the spending goes down.
Comments
Post a Comment