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December 23, 2011, at 6:00 am If you're new to BFS, please subscribe to my RSS feed. It shows me a vote of support and keeps me motivated to keep your attention. If you have any questions or comments for me, please contact me and I'll get back to you asap. Thanks for visiting! The following is a guest post by Kelsey @ Life Insurance Comparison, a site dedicated to bringing you tips and advice on Life Insurance.
We may all remember the early days when we had just started dating our husbands and wives: romantic meals, long evenings out, no worry about childcare or being home at a certain time. Unfortunately, your responsibilities have probably increased tenfold since those early days, and date night is pushed aside in favor of your long to-do list.
Whether you’ve been married five months, five years, or fifty years, spending time alone with your spouse is vital to keeping your marriage strong in the midst of your hectic lives. Here are some ideas for inexpensive dates you can try:
1. Take a weekly class together. Think of something that both of you are interested in, and sign up to take a class together on a weekly basis. You could splurge on official ‘lessons’ or find free classes at your local community college or community center. Here are some ideas:
• Photography. Learn how to take excellent photos—then go on photography dates to practice your new skills!
• Dance. What could be better than getting rid of your two left feet—together? Swallow your pride and laugh together as you learn to show off some new dance moves.
• Cooking. Okay, okay…this might take some convincing for your husband, but making him feel more comfortable in the kitchen can be nothing but a good thing.
The other perk about taking classes together is that you have a date on the calendar each and every week.
2. Take a long drive. There is almost nothing sweeter than a beautiful drive around a scenic, peaceful locale near your home. If it’s warm you can roll the windows down, listen to some music, and catch up with each other. This date idea is ideal if you have a brand new little one who isn’t ready to be left alone just yet; just put her in the car seat and hopefully she’ll just sleep right through your date night.
3. Have a romantic dance party—at home. One of my husband and I’s favorite home dates is to put together a mix of some of our favorite songs and have fun dancing in our living room. You can light candles and even dress up a little bit to make the evening special, and sometimes we’ll take breaks to eat dessert or just laugh together. This date is great if you don’t want to go to the trouble of finding a babysitter; just put the kids to bed and enjoy a romantic evening.
4. Take a walk or hike. Enjoying the beauty of the outdoors is certainly one of the cheapest and most peaceful dates there is. So hold hands and take a walk together for a simple, relaxing date idea. Here are some specific options:
• Enjoy a beautiful sunset. If you can break away in the early evening, find a beautiful overlook and watch the sun set together.
• Stargaze. Even if you don’t know much about astronomy, it’s always fun (and romantic) to enjoy at the night sky.
• Visit places that were special to you while dating. Maybe your husband proposed on a special walk, or you often used to walk a certain route together. Retrace these steps and reflect on those wonderful memories.
5. Become tourists in your own city. No matter how long you have lived in your current city, chances are that you haven’t seen all there is to see. So instead of planning a pricy weekend trip to a new place, do some research about the hidden treasures within your own town. You’ll probably even be able to find some free attractions that would make for a fun afternoon out for you and your husband.
6. Visit a free event in your community. With a little searching in your local newspaper, you can often find free events for you and your husband to enjoy. Concerts, plays, musicals, and art galleries are all options that are often free of charge and would make for inexpensive, enjoyable dates. Check with your local community college as well, as they often host a variety of free events.
If you’re concerned about the money it will cost to hire a babysitter for an evening out, consider swapping date night childcare with some friends. You can agree to watch their kids for free while they go out one evening, and they can reciprocate by watching your children during your date night. It’s a simple way to deal with the financial concerns, and it’s convenient that you won’t have to search high and low for a responsible babysitter.
What do you and your husband do for date nights? If you have some great ideas to add, share them with us here!
Crystal’s Comments: Mr. BFS and I have been known to karaoke to our favorites or dance in our living room. I like it when we just kid around and laugh for hours…some of our best date nights have been with a Redbox or Netflix movie and a light bag of popcorn.
December 22, 2011, at 4:00 am
The following is a guest post.
As inflation rises and job security falls alongside it, consumers are constantly looking for new ways to save money. Vintage clothes have come back into vogue and charity shops have risen in the chic stakes as we grapple rails for cheaper clothes. Second-hand is becoming an increasingly clever concept as we come round to the idea that we can have the same product for a fraction of the price if we’re willing to discount a few rips, tears or smudges.
Second-hand books in particular offer a way to spend less money without missing out on treating yourself or depleting your savings. Delving into the realm of pre-loved books can lead to forgotten words, escapism into past worlds and secret letters stuffed in-between pages from past readers.
With E-book readers on the increase, we can’t let ourselves forget the incomparable pleasure of reading an old or antique book. The imaginative daydreams that can be evoked from knowing a book has been passed down for a century can’t be recreated by technology.
Whilst getting absorbed in the dusty, delicate pages of Wordsworth or Rudyard Kipling, it’s important that you don’t get completely whisked away with the romance, but keep a level head until you leave the bookshop. If you’re a novice and feel uncomfortable outside of Waterstones, there are certain things to remember in order to ensure that you don’t get ripped off. Here are some popular phrases to impress the bookseller and ensure you leave with a reasonably priced book:
- Biopredation: this is when a book’s pages are attacked by a living matter, such as insect infestation, mildew or mould.
- Bumped: this refers to the corners or spine ends of a book when it is damaged.
- Binding Copy: this refers to the state of a book, and means it is in good quality apart from having loose binding.
- Chipped: when pieces of the dust jacket are missing.
- Foxing: this is when a book is exposed to humidity and develops brown spots on its pages.
- Rubbing: scuffing of the binding where the cover has been worn off.
- Shaken: this is when the book is loose from its binding and the pages are becoming detached from the cover.
Whilst you may interpret many of the above as endearing characterisations that simply append to the fairytale, ensure that the price is comparatively low. You may not be overly ambitious about becoming a collector of antique books, but the aim of this game is to get books at lower prices, which you should be able to negotiate if the book has more than just the inevitable evidence of being read.
One last thing to remember: if you’re not aware of the price range of second-hand books, bear in mind that they can go from as little as 1 pence online. At the upper end of the scale, the first edition of The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien went at an auction for £60,000.
December 21, 2011, at 6:00 am
Thanks to you all, the Christmas Cash and Charity Giveaway was a fun success!!!
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Without further ado, the charity with the most votes was…
I have sent them $100 on behalf of the “Supporters of Budgeting in the Fun Stuff”!!! Thank you all so much for voting and I am glad we could help out any charity together this month!!!
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And the winner of the $100 Christmas Cash was…
Commenter #16 – Michelle!!!
She has been emailed and will be selecting her prize type – either a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate or $100 in Paypal’d cash.
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Future Giveaways
My plan is to hold at least one giveaway a month here on BFS from here on out! This will be on top of the monthly giveaway that I’ve been hosting for my newsletter subscribers. So please stay tuned in here and look into subscribing to my weekly newsletter if you haven’t already! The form is in the right sidebar.  If you are already a subscriber, thank you!
Congratulations to the Alzheimer’s Association and Michelle! Merry Christmas to Everyone!!!
December 20, 2011, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post from Ellen at Fun With English, where she explores the origin of English words and expressions. In her spare time, she is on her own journey to improve her financial knowledge! She’s guest posted here before with How to Save Money on a Road Trip.
This article is specifically about my trip to Paris and how to save money, but I think at least some of the advice could apply to any big city. Later on, I’ll be doing an article on Las Vegas on a budget (sorry, can’t tell you how to make sure you’ll win big ).
My husband (then boyfriend) and I took a trip to Paris for 2 weeks about 10 years ago. Since it’s been so long, I can’t give exact numbers, but I can certainly give you money saving tips!
Transportation
We stayed somewhere central and we walked everywhere for the first week. Mind you – it was exhausting. We’d often crash as soon as we got back, then get up and eat, and go back to bed (which also saved money – we didn’t go out in the evenings!).
The second week we bought a Metro (subway) pass. If you are exploring a city – especially one with an extensive transit system – a public transit pass is invaluable. Most cities offer them for a day or a week. The Paris system is a bit confusing – the city is divided into zones, but we even managed to get out to Versailles using our pass. If you plan out what you want to do in advance, you can figure out what kind of pass is best for you.
You can find some information on passes on the Paris Metro site: http://www.ratp.fr/en/ratp/c_21894/paris-visite/
Food
Food was one of the highlights! But it’s very possible to enjoy good food on the cheap. We stopped by a pastry shop (boulangerie) every day for breakfast on our way out. Not the healthiest choice, but cheap, easy, and so tasty! Lunch we would usually grab on the go – pick up a sandwich or something, and then eat it sitting in a courtyard of something historic (eating lunch by Notre Dame is a pretty awesome experience) or a nearby park.
Some French restaurants actually charge more for food if you eat it in the restaurant, as opposed to taking it away (a emporter). We did go out for a few nice dinners – Prix Fixe or “fixed price” is often a good way to go if you want a large meal (3 courses). For all other dinners, we stayed in a small bachelor type apartment, so we picked up groceries and cooked them.
Attractions
We were young enough during our visit to get some age discounts, so always check for youth or senior discounts. Also – some attractions offer free admission on certain days. You can also buy passes which give you access to several museums. There are 2 benefits to these – the cost of the pass is far less than admission to each individual museum, and you can often skip line ups!
For information on the Paris Museum Pass, try their Web site: http://en.parismuseumpass.com/
In Summary
- Limit sit down meals. Try to pick up ready made sandwiches or other food you can eat on the go or back in your hotel room.
- Plan out what you want to do – this will help you make the most of a transport pass or museum pass
- Do some research before you go to see if you can take advantage of discounts and promotions
Bon Voyage!
Crystal’s Comments: My parents, sisters, and I visited Paris while we were living in The Netherlands in 1997. I was 15. I can vouch that it was much cheaper to walk, but we really shouldn’t have since we had to pass a 2 year old back and forth. I also can say that buying a sandwich on the go to eat in any nearby courtyard is cheap and gorgeous. We also ate in front of Notre Dame after hiking there from The Louvre and starting out at The Eiffle Tower. It was a loooong day.
December 19, 2011, at 6:00 am
Last time I wrote about this, my husband and I were thinking about hiring a personal trainer. But it was really expensive. I was leaning towards not getting a trainer and simply making sure I will even use the gym membership regularly.
Here were the prices we were quoted 3 weeks ago:
- $150 sign up fee
- $50 for a weekly 30 minute session with a 3 month contract
- $45 for a weekly 30 minute session with a 6 month contract
- $40 for a weekly 30 minute session with a 12 month contract
We turned them down at those rates, but my husband was still mulling it over in his head. I decided to simply stay accountable to all of you by going to the gym 3 times a week or more, but Mr. BFS really would like to get toned up. So he was really excited when the trainer, Tai, called a week after we said no to offer him better rates. Supposedly a “special” just started.
Here were the new rates:
- $50 sign up fee but Tai would give my husband a couple of free sessions to make up for it
- $42.50 per weekly 30 minute session with a 3 month contract
- $37.50 per weekly 30 minute session with a 6 month contract
- $30.00 per weekly 30 minute session with a 12 month contract
Well, Mr. BFS has decided to use his fun money and signed up for the 6 month contract last week. He is keeping track of all of the exercises he does, the reps, the weight, etc. Tai, the trainer, meets with him once a week, gives him homework for two more days a week, and my husband is documenting everything so that he will be able to make his own routines after the 6 months are up. He even says he’ll train me and we’ll start a workbook of my own, lol.
What this boils down to though is that my husband is now paying about $150 a month for a personal trainer. So far he loves it though. He even uses racquetball with me as his cardio program and warm up before he uses the machines or free weights. He is aiming to be “dead sexy” – at least I think that is what he said…I was laughing pretty hard…
Anyway, just wanted to update everyone. I am still holding off getting a trainer since I first want to make sure I will be going to the gym regularly as it is. But hubby took the expensive plunge and I will let you know if it pays off. It is weird that I married a geek that has ended up being way more athletic than either of us thought…I don’t think I will mind being married to a buff geek at all. 
December 17, 2011, at 6:00 am
Weekly Updates
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A couple of my Christmas presents haven’t arrived yet for my friends but we are meeting tomorrow for our Friends Christmas Dinner. I am a little sad but luckily we’ll still be friends next week, lol.
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Sign up for my newsletter (in the right sidebar) —-> to be able to enter the separate $25 giveaway that I host for subscribers only every month! Plus, I promise my weekly newsletter is good – quick, fun, and not a huge link list. I also write a little about myself every week and answer reader questions!
My Favorite Posts this Week
Guest Posts at BFS
Thank you!
I Staff Write at…
Giveaways
Blog Carnivals that Included BFS
If you are hosting a carnival that includes Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, please email me so I can include it in my roundup. Thanks!
Top 5 Referring Sites to BFS from Last Week:
- Frugal Dad
- Get Rich Slowly
- Free Money Finance
- Afford Anything
- Yakezie
Feel free to contact me if you have any suggestions. I’d love to add a few more blogs to my regular reading list or at least give a shout-out for great posts or contests.
As always, thanks to all the bloggers that teach me something new every day. Thanks to all my commenters for making this blog the community I want it to be. Thanks to all my lurkers too.
I hope everybody is enjoying this as much as me!
My Other Sites
I have started a new site, How I Make Money Blogging!
Let me know what you think!
December 16, 2011, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post.
I just finished reading the Steve Jobs biography, and it’s a great book! Here is my review.
The Life of Steve Jobs
- Steve Jobs honestly had great parents. They poured all their life savings into his college tuition fund. They bought a house which they could barely afford in a neighbourhood that had a good school.
- When Steve was young, he became a Buddhist. Here’s why:
Steve Jobs was a Catholic at birth. But one day, at a young age, he saw a picture about children dying from hunger in Africa. So he goes to his priest, and says “does God know everything?” The priest replies “of course.” Then Steve points to the picture and asks “Then does God know about this?” The priest says “of course.” Then Steve says “so why doesn’t God do anything about it?” And the priest doesn’t have an answer. Ever since then, Steve has converted to Buddhism.
The thing is, all these faiths ask you to believe in something that you don’t know if they even exist. They all ask you to believe that the world will be better, there is someone else watching out for you, etc. But the problem is, none of them ask you to take any specific action.
Buddhism is more than just a religion. It’s a way of life. It’s telling and helping you to live a better, more peaceful life, instead of asking you to blindly believe in something.
- Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were at first great friends. Woz was really great at inventing technology (actually, the word “genius” would be more descriptive), and Jobs was good at tech, but more of a great salesman. Wozniak would be the one who created the gadget from scratch, and Jobs would be the one to figure out a way to make money from the invention. In Isaacson’s (the author’s) words, “Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy just to give away, and Jobs would figure out how to make it user friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and make a few bucks.”
- From the early stages of their relationship, Jobs realized a fatal flaw in Wozniak. Wozniak was a pure engineer – he was a genius when it came to making gadgets, but he had no skills at playing corporate politics, nor the skills to be a great leader. “He believed in extreme honesty”. At first the Jobs-Wozniak relationship worked out because Woz was great at handling the technical side of things, and Jobs was great at handling the promotional/marketing side of things. But eventually, their relationship broke off, because Woz was a pure engineer. He was replaceable, as there are thousands of genius engineers out there.
- Jobs went to a great arts college – Reed College. He liked being at Reed, just not taking the required classes (same with me!). So he dropped out, and instead dropped in on the classes that interested him. “I decided to drop out, and trust that it would all work out.” The older we get, the more we need to believe in fate – that whether it be Buddha, Allah, or God, has a plan in store for us.
- Steve Jobs was clearly a genius from birth. His success is not something that 99.999% of us can emulate through hard work. There was a certain “geniuessness” in him that attracted many colleagues and friends. When he went to India on a spiritual trip, a Buddhist monk grabbed him, because the monk saw something special in him. Probably, the monk saw a man in front of him who was gifted a very, very special talent from Buddha.
My Favorite Quote from Steve Jobs
- “Simplicity is the highest form of complexity.” Totally agree. This is his best quote in the whole entire book.
Other Thoughts on Apple and Steve Jobs
- Steve Jobs has a need for perfection. This was good for him, because he made his products perfect. But people who are perfectionists tend to live short lives, because they put so much stress on themselves and those around them.
- What is one of the key factors between Apple products’ design and the product designs other companies create? Apple products are S-E-X-Y. So why is it that Apple manages to make such great looking, well functioning products? At Apple, the process of designing a product is integrally related to how it would be engineered and manufactured. When designing the product, they have teams of manufacturers, designers, and engineers all working together.
Other companies would have the designers pass along a great product to the engineers, who would scrap some of its’ great components because “that’s not possible to make”. Then it would passed along to the manufacturers, who would also scrap some of its’ great components because “what you’re asking us to do is impossible.”
So you start off with something great, and end up with something that’s average. Not so at Apple. Design, engineering, and manufacturing teams all work together so that everyone knows all the great components in the gadget are feasible to create.
Crystal’s Comments: Thanks for a review of Steve Jobs Biography - I only knew about some of this from NPR.
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DISCLAIMER I am not a professional or a financial advisor. BFS posts are informational opinions only. Please make your own financial decisions based on personal research or see a financial advisor.
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