Thursday, February 24, 2011

Budget Blowup

Four days left in No spend February and I cracked.
And when I crack...I really crack.
The good news is that most of my expenditures were covered
by gift cards. It was actually a lot of fun.
The most....well, really the only fun I've had all month.
This was the sick month.
It was really all Michael's fault.
He called me at the end of the school day to ask why don't
I join him at Starbucks, the one at the Chapter's store?
I thought...ok...I haven't been to Starbucks all month and I still have
about $15 on my card so it won't cost me anything.
(HA! Famous last words...)

I sat like a good little girl with my chai tea latte slurping off
the foamy bits before I put the lid on as is my habit.
I managed to sit with my laptop for a good hour or more before
the call of the book sirens wound around the synapses of my
cerebral cortex and I floated on over to the sales racks and
lovely 50% off displays.
Oh...the temptations they were many...
One book that I MUST have is
"and I shall have some peace there"
by Margaret Roach who also has a gardening blog called
"A Way to Garden".
Margaret left a corporate job in New York to live in
the country and follow her first passion - gardening.
I allowed myself to purchase only one book today, however,
and it is the one shown above -
"Better Homes and Gardens New Garden"
which I am anxious to delve into as I spend the next
few years planning my PEI gardens.

By the time we left Chapter's it was heading towards
7:30pm and we were ravenous - book browsing
always makes me hungry for some reason - so we decided
to use our Christmas restaurant gift card and went to Swiss Chalet
where I feasted on chicken wings and spicy seasoned french fries -
a real pig-out!!


And of course we washed it all down with a lovely carafe
of merlot - pretty tasty! Our waitress was lovely - she bent a few
rules to get us what we wanted and gave us great service.
Conversation was lively and centered around future plans in Pei, especially
around the IBC (Islanders by Choice) alliance group that
has formed on Facebook to welcome newcomers, creating a social network
for people to meet whether they were born on the island or are "from away".
What a great evening:)
But now it's almost 10:30pm and I must get to sleep.
Last night I fell asleep at 9:30pm, I was so exhausted.
Tomorrow is Friday - yippee - and casual day so I get to wear my jeans.
One last weekend of No Spend February!
I KNOW I'm going to make it to the end with a wee bit of $$ leftover.

Dear God: please don't let me be struck down by lightening...

9 comments:

  1. But most of it was on gift cards right? .....so that's ok :) :)

    Sounds like a lovely evening; enjoy your Friday!

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  2. No lightening coming your way Jane.

    Is,nt it funny to think that your trip to Starbucks was an expensive night out, just goes to show you how far you,ve come, this time last year you would,nt have given the expense a second thought.

    Can,t wait for all the results of our Challenge to come in, good luck.

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  3. Sounds like you had a great time. Those wings look delicious. Man, now I want chicken wings.

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  4. I'm back! I'm looking forward to seeing your garden grow on PEI because I'll be [probably be] garden less for years in Portugal!

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  5. Oh, we have a similar passion in gardening! That book you bought looks like a great read.

    Good for you for finding a great way to spend some gift cards (hey, you can't take 'em with ya) and enjoy a nice evening with Michael.

    TGIF

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a lovely evening you had. I just love gifts cards for these long Feb, March ,and April months when you can browse through the stores with money in gift cards. I can shop at Costco,Winners,Value Village,Chapters,Marks,Empire theaters, and Tim Horton's when ever our little hearts desire.So far I haven't even been bothered because of the bad weather, but it nice knowing I can.
    You can get free coupons by visiting Swiss Chalet web site.

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  7. Jane, if anyone can forgive you for buying a gardening book it would be me! I'll find any excuse, why just the other day I ordered hubby a present from Amazon and added a gardening book to the order just so I could get the free shipping. I'm a lost cause. There's only a couple days in February left, you'll be done before you know it.

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  8. Yum on the coffee and the wings! Sounds like a fun evening... muchly needed after being down with the flu for so long...don't feel bad :-)

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  9. You can easily find hundreds of New free coupons on this web site
    Coupons ready to print I saved money and time on that site

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