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A Frugal Find – Valentine’s Day on the Cheap

02.01.2009 by Matt Jabs //

Valentine’s Day is a time that challenges even the most frugal. Luckily my wife & I both know it is not a day that deserves the accolades the world thrusts upon it, therefore we try not to hold it in higher esteem than we ought.  Instead we work on loving & cherishing each other every day of the year.  Fortunately, God blessed me with a wife who values being financially responsible over blowing huge amounts of money on temporal frivolities – one of the many reasons I fell in love with her.  As true as this may be, my wife is still a woman and very much loves to be pampered and held as precious.  To achieve a balance, we want to show special attention to each other all while working to remind ourselves and others that you don’t have to spend a lot of dough to prove your love to one another.

And so…over the course of the past few weeks we’ve been contemplating how we could do “Valentine’s Day on the Cheap” (or as she jokingly calls it…”Valentime’s Day”).  Though we’ve been lethargically tossing ideas around, we never seriously sat down to solidify any plans…until tonight.  We both knew we wanted to do something out of the ordinary; something new and uncommon to us, not just the boring & ever-so-typical fancy expensive dinner followed by a fancy expensive show.  To come up with some ideas I began to scour the Internet.  I was immediately presented with a few articles from some of my favorite blogs including “Nine Tactics for a Frugal Valentine’s Day“ & “My Frugal Valentine: Cheap Ways to Say I Love You“.  However, after reading these articles, I was still left wanting, and so decided to write a related post of my own.

Though some of the ideas presented in the previously mentioned articles were solid and well delivered, Mrs. Jabs & I needed ideas with a focus on creativity and excitement.  After the Internet searches left us unsatisfied she grabbed our local city visitor guide and we began pouring over it.  We were immediately presented with many creative, fun, and most importantly affordable ideas for our Saturday night excursion.

Here are a few of the ideas we kicked around:

  1. A lesser known play – performed by lesser known actors – at a lesser know venue. In our local visitors guide we ended up finding four theaters in our area (apart from the two well known, more expensive ones) that we never knew about!  They all presented live shows for $10 – $15 a person.
  2. A split meal at one of your favorite LOCAL (not chain) restaurants. This is us following through with one of our core principles of frugality…when you do eat out…split meals!  Most restaurants give you WAY too much food.
  3. A trip to the local planetarium. We have been wanting to visit it for years and just have not gotten around to it.
  4. Cross country skiing or ice skating (both of which are cheap and are provided by local parks).  If you live in a warm climate go in-line skating, disc golfing, kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking or hiking and have a picnic when you reach a romantic, secluded spot.
  5. A few hours visiting one of your local historic museums or art galleries. Follow this up by getting some walk-about comfort food (hot dogs & fries from a street vendor) then some ice cream cones.
  6. Dress semi-formal, use semi-formal dinnerware and cook a romantic dinner together. I actually saw this idea mentioned around the web and agreed with it.  However my wife gets annoyed quickly and is all business when in the kitchen so it would not bode well for us as a romantic experience.  🙂
  7. Go sledding then go get some hot soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, & hot cocoa. Sledding is usually free and soup & grilled cheese will set you back $25 at most.
  8. Mutual romantic, candle-light, oil massages.  Truly pamper each other by reciprocating a nice sensual massage with some great scented oils.
  9. Go to a comedy club. Most decent sized towns will have a comedy club.  Our local club has a Valentine’s Day special that includes food, drinks, & the show for a really good price.  I always have more fun at these shows than I anticipate.

After careful consideration my wife & I decided to go with not one but several of these options.  Early on Saturday we intend to either go sledding, ice skating, or cross country skiing.  Then we’ll head home for some hot cocoa & a little lovey-dovey time. Then it’s off to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, where we will split a meal.  The restaurant we chose is locally owned and uses all local & fresh organic ingredients.  (We are big fans of promoting the concept of locally produced items and love to support our local businesses).  After dinner we will head to the Abrams Planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University for a cool, relaxing, and romantic night under a starry sky!  The whole day will not cost us more than $40…and that to us is Valentine’s Day on the Cheap!

I hope you will be able to use a few of these ideas and are blessed with a frugal yet romantic evening with your significant other!  And lastly, I’ll leave you with a little history on the subject of Valentine’s Day.  Enjoy…

*Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine’s cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

An alternative theory from Belarus states that the holiday originates from the story of Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering.

*Source: Wikipedia

Categories // Money Management, Spending Tags // cheap, frugal, valentines day

Paper vs. Cloth – DFA Tip of the Week – 1/26/2009

01.26.2009 by Matt Jabs //

There are many ways to reduce costs in our every day lives, so to help do just that each Monday I will post a money saving “Tip of the Week”.

This weeks tip involves…substituting paper products with reusable cloth products

“With over 90% of US households taking advantage of the convenience of paper towels we produce over 3,000 tons of waste each day.” *

“Giant paper producers including Kimberly-Clark — the maker of Scott, Cottonelle, Kleenex and Viva tissue paper products — are forcing the destruction of our continent’s most vibrant forests…” **

Let’s see what we can do to combat this wastefulness and become better stewards of God’s money.

Paper Towels

Here are a few alternatives to paper towels.  Once you stop using them, there’s little doubt you’ll feel liberated, more environmentally conscience, and less wasteful!

  • Use sponges – Sponges are a great way to handle those “messy spills” we normally use paper towel for.
  • Use microfiber clothes – These reusable clothes from Sam’s Club have gotten rave reviews and are a great substitute for paper towels.  I am going to purchase some tonight, and will post a review after I get a chance to use them.
  • Cotton kitchen towels – Instead of using paper towels to dry your hands, simply use washable & reusable cotton kitchen towels.
  • Use homemade rags – Have some old socks or t-shirts you are about to throw out?  STOP!  Instead cut them into pieces and use as rags in the kitchen in place of paper towels.

From here forward I will be employing the above methods to save on the cost of disposable paper towels.

Kleenex/Facial Tissue

To reduce/stop having to purchase facial tissue, simply carry around a reusable & washable handkerchief.  This may seem gross to you at first; that is only because you are in the habit of using disposable tissues.  Similar to paper towels, once you make this change you will most likely wonder how you ever wasted so much money on disposable tissues.

Toilet Paper???

Who knows, after reading this post from Amelia at TheMomCrowd maybe I’ll even start using clothe toilet paper!  I’ll keep you posted on that as well, although I’m not so sure you want updates on that info!  😉

*Source:  EzineArticles
**Source:  NRDC

Categories // Money Management, Spending, Tips Tags // cloth, facial, for, handkerchief, hanky, paper, products, substitute, towel

Bone-in Chicken – DFA Tip of the Week – 1/19/2009

01.19.2009 by Matt Jabs //

There are many ways to reduce costs in our every day lives, so to help do just that each Monday I will post a money saving “Tip of the Week”.

This weeks tip involves…boneless skinless chicken breasts.

I’m not sure when they started to get popular, but I think we’ll all agree that boneless skinless chicken breast have taken over the chicken breast market & are most likely here to stay!

Thinking back as a child, I don’t remember my parents cooking with them.  Instead they bought breast on the bone.  I don’t know if this was because they were budget conscious or because that was the only way chicken was sold back then…at any rate…growing up we always ate chicken on the bone.  I tried to look up “the history of boneless skinless chicken breast” on Google but found nothing.  If you want to look it up, good luck…the search results are filled with recipes, but no history.  Not even Wikipedia had any information on the history of the boneless skinless chicken breast.

**I’ll give someone a free blog ad on Debt Free Adventure for the entire month if they can give us a decent history of this modern convenience food.**

Now on to the Tip of the Week for January 19th, 2009:

Don’t buy both boneless skinless chicken breast and canned or boxed chicken broth from the grocery store!  Save around 75% of the money these would cost and cook healthier in the process.  Simply buy chicken breast on the bone, then boil it in water with a few of your favorite spices to make your own chicken broth!

I did so today and make a big pot of chicken stew.  Instead of spending $10 – $15 on the BSCB & store bought stock I did the following:

  • Boiled the breasts on the bone, sit aside to let them cool
  • pull the meat of the bone
  • chop veggies, saute veggies
  • add everything back into my homemade chicken broth & Voila…soup on the cheap!

Not only was this meal made a lot cheaper than normal, it was also more delicious! The homemade broth was EXCELLENT!

If you use this tip, let us know about it by leaving a comment…

Categories // Money Management, Spending, Tips Tags // bone, boneless, breast, broth, chicken, on, skin, skinnless, stock

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