Great Deal for Date Night

Last night, Wes wanted to help me relax and decided to treat me to a dinner out without kids. We looked through our Entertainment Book for specials on places we haven't been before. Nothing was really appealing to us. Then I remembered that I had a coupon code in my email from Coupon Mom for 60% off of a Restaurants.com gift certificate.

After surfing through the available gift certificates, most of which we decided against because they were too far away, we found The One. We decided to go to the Cigar Pub, less than 5 miles from home, and have a couple of drinks and dinner. With our coupon code, we spent $4 on a $25 gift certificate. BONUS! We got our entrees for free with the gift certificate. Essentially we only ended up spending money on our drinks (beer on draft!) and I even bought Wes' Father's Day gift for less than I expected.

While not an entirely frugal night, we did spend considerably less than if we hadn't done our legwork first. Lesson Learned! Always do your research before just heading out for the evening. You can definitely save money on normal every day things in return for 5 minutes of your time.

Making your Staycation into a Vacation

I've been on vacation from my full time job this week. Since we're watching our pennies, we decided not to head out of town. From all reports, many families have made that exact same decision. After we decided to have a "Staycation", Wes received a week long contract.... for this week. Now, it's kind of a bummer to be the only one on vacation. It feels more like I am a SAHM for a week instead of getting a vacation. NOT that there is anything wrong with being a SAHM. I think it's a wonderful career if that's your preference. It's not mine.

So far, on my vacation, I've washed 18 loads of laundry, reorganized the book shelves, developed a website, wrote some more on my book, locked myself out of my car in a 90 degree parking lot while grocery shopping, and worked diligently on paying bills and handling taxes. (Honestly, I don't know how you SAHM's do it!)

So, exactly how do you keep your Staycation from being just another day at home to do chores and errands? I read an article at Fine Living this morning that details quite a few ways to have a relaxing vacation at home. While I can't see doing some of the things they recommend, like hiring a chef to come cook at your home for you, or hiring a cleaning service so that you don't have to clean the house while you're on vacation, they did have some great ideas.

For the four days I have left on my vacation, these are the things I'm going to do to turn my vacation into..well.. a vacation!
1) Drink my coffee on the front porch every morning.
2) Read a fluffy mindless book just because it amuses me.
3) Have a date night with Wes.
4) Play in my square foot garden!
5) Have a mid-day nap.
6) Stay up late and watch the 2nd season of The Tudors. (totally have to do that after the kids are in bed!
7) Have a glass of wine at 2:00 PM... just because I can.
8) Turn off my cell phone.
9) Read blogs, leave comments, and Tweet as much as I want to!
10) Tease and romp with the kiddos.

Some other tips for making your Staycation something RELAXING:

• For those of you who just enjoy that kind of thing, make your home town a tourist destination.
  
• Go to that museum or restaurant you've always meant to go to but never got around to it.
  
• Watch all of those shows in your TiVo that you never have time to watch, but really want to.
  
• Take walks in parts of the neighborhood you haven't been to.
  
• Learn a new fun craft.
  
• Invent new games with your kids.
  
• Cook that food you have wanted to make for months, but it takes half the day to do.
• Is it raining? Grab that line-dried blanket you just washed and wrap up on your front porch with a cup of coffee and a good book. If that doesn't relax you, you need more than a vacation!

Ok... I'm going back to my Staycation folks! Don't call me, I'll call you :)