Frugal Entertaining
One of my husband’s college buddies is staying with us right now. He’s only here for one day, and we’re glad that we get to spend time with him while he’s in town. A few days ago, he emailed us and suggested that we go to a local restaurant for dinner tonight. It’s a pretty cool place, and it has a video game arcade attached to the restaurant. So the idea is that you go for dinner and then buy a game card (I think they start at $20) and spend an hour or so playing video games. We’ve gone before with other friends, and while it is fun, it’s also expensive. Between food, drinks, and the video game card, it gets pricey.
So I suggested that I could make dinner and we could hang out here for the evening. We didn’t mention anything about saving money, but just threw the suggestion out there. Our friend was happy with that idea (he’s a pretty easy-to-please guy), and we had a great evening. I made lentil curry with brown rice, and a huge fruit salad for dessert. I had most of the ingredients on hand – my trip to the grocery store this afternoon set us back $9. And I now have enough left over curry and rice for at least two more meals.
My husband and his friend played some Mario Karts on our Nintendo 64, and we all sat around playing with the baby. It was a great evening, and it cost a fraction of what we’d have paid if we had gone to the restaurant/arcade. Feeling successfully frugal.
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Love entertaining at home – total money saver
Cheers,
Kristen
Great idea!
It can be hard to stay in budget when you have friends who aren’t as frugal-minded, like when they want to go to a theme park two hours away for their birthday. Gas, plus food, plus tickets, and honestly, I don’t like theme parks, and I like the overpriced junk food even less. Almost $100 for everything total, and the only thing we enjoyed was the company, which was free.
Our closest friends have had their hours cut at work and are really having a hard time but they are frugal so I don’t worry too much. But any ways, instead of going out we just have a cheap and easy meal at each others house. And then for entertainment we play charades. If you ever play it with just adults, it’s screaming funny to have someone act out the Karma Sutra, discombobulate or the flux capacitor(Back to the Future).
Thanks for another great post.