Those of you keeping up with my blog might know that in September my man and I were competing to see who could spend the least amount of money. I lost, but not by much. On the last day of the month, I “had to” buy a fire pit from a dude on Craigslist for $55. I had no cash on me and there wasn’t a SunTrust atm on the way, so I stopped at Target and bought a $16 item for the cash back. They could only give me $40 per transaction so I bought my boyfriend a popcorn for the additional cash back. If I hadn’t spend all that so close to the finish line, I would have won by a few dollars! Still, I’m pretty impressed with myself.
This month, I’m not faring as well… It’s October 11th and I’ve already spent 73% of my budget for October. I mostly blame my cat. Last weekend I took him to the vet for his senior blood work, in addition to buying a two-month supply of his medicine. There went a quarter of my budget for the month! I’ve also spent over $200 on food/drinks. I’m not sure where the rest of it went, except for a smallish makeup run, $100 that I owed my man for bills, and another $165 that has inexplicably drifted away.
With that thrifty spirit in mind, my man and I were driving back from the Knightdale farmer’s market yesterday afternoon when he saw a sign for a free Sunday BBQ. Google informed me that some church in Knightdale having a 10-year anniversary, and though we have no business near a church (awkward place for Jew-Pagans), we decided today it’d be a nice, cheap date to bike to this church and eat said free food.
This morning we biked to the church in Knightdale — gorgeous ride, and it turned out the free lunch was at a town park, much less awkward! We parked our bikes among the army of SUVs and pickup trucks. There were probably 400 people there on a beautiful fall day, but we were the only ones on bikes. It was a casual church crowd — my hoodie and yoga pants fit right it. But our bikes, not so much. We fit right in shoveling bbq into our faces, but as soon as we got on our bikes we got some odd stares!
I felt much more in my element once I got onto the Mingo Creek trail and started passing Sunday bikers… Those are my people.
ADDENDUM: We continued the cheap date into the night! We went downtown and used our Stealz Apps to get free food after walking past the food truck rodeo (1/2 mile of food trucks!) We laughed at people who were spending $9 on a baked potato and $6 on a Bud light in a plastic disposable cup! No wonder our country is so much in debt!
Take advice from me and you will be free of debt in no time. I’m learning to live on 1/2 or less of my income. Many other can learn to do the same! 🙂 Yay, Aldis!