Thrifty Trend

We use one credit card for all our purchases, and towards the next billing date we begin tightening our budget further and further. The creditor usually sends a bill towards the 10th of the month and we usually use up most of our self imposed limit by then.

For some reason I feel a sort of a pride when we manage to amuse ourselves and feed ourselves to a satisfying way and still show a low bill. Just sitting at home listing to an AM radio would be fine if we weren’t an actual family with two kids who do need to be entertained and have some fun at the weekend.

Yesterday, on the 4th of July we had a big breakfast at home - then did some house chores and generally waste time things (like reading blogs… playing PC-Games…) until around 2pm. Then we packaged some sandwiches and light snacks onto our cooler and drove to a nearby metro park. We bought a couple of months ago an annual pass for 20$ and we go to one of the many parks at least once a week.

Yesterday we were almost alone there. We had our outdoors picnic at the wonderful weather, played some ball and then the kids played at the playground. Before leaving the park we followed a nature trail to a river. When we got back to the car it was almost 5pm. We drove through the side roads enjoying the views of farms and expensive homes along the way.

A picture taken at Gallop Park in Ann Arbor - 2007

Once we got home - the kids went out and played with our neighbors kids. I fired up the grill and flipped a few burgers. That’s my kind of fun. When the sun set around 9:40 at evening the neighbors started firing their fire works. I personally like to observe - not to light up fire works… We have a nice view from our deck at our neighborhood as well as some other more distant places. It was great fun. The only money “spent”? None, just the gasoline already in the car and the food already in the fridge. I guess if we lived any closer to main event cities like Detroit we might have drove to those… Sadly we missed the fireworks last week at our metro-park (again, would have been free with the annual pass). We usually go to our closest metro park, they have a great show and a band playing. Next year…

Today was still frugal but less. We went out to eat breakfast at McDonald’s - a family of 4 eating for 13 bucks - where else can you find that? Then we drove to our local library and looked for DVD-s for the kids and books in general. The kids always have fun and find something to do there. After that we went on to another library, an even bigger one, at another close by town which share the same “library card”. There was a farmer’s market right by the library and some music too. I found the book I wanted and the kids got glued to the computer screens. It was now around 1pm and we continued to the closest Taco Bell. Again - 13 bucks to feed a family of 4. That’s as close we can get to “pigging out” - all four of us - for a total of 26 bucks.

Now I’m back home, telling you about it, and looking at the stack of books I got lined up to read in the next two weeks.

Have a fun frugal weekend too!
P.S. Flipping burgers always means some beer as well…
Cheers!