I know, I know. It's important. But so is not getting overdrafts from the bank. And with us taking on the huge expenses that come from opening a business while Brian simultaneously cut his take home pay by almost half, well, paying $60 for a sitter for a short evening had to go by the wayside.
However, Saturday night we actually got to have a date. Kind of.
The big boys had a sleepover, so Eli was with us. So it was a three-way date night. But a date night all the same. I mean really, he's easy and he likes us 99% of the time. Think of it like having a cute two and a half foot tall cheerleader along for the ride.
So we finally did something we had talked about for a long time: Gift Card Date Night. What you do is gather up all of those gift cards you have been accumulating and make a date out of it. Let the gift cards dictate where the date takes you. And in doing so, you stay within your means but you "treat" yourselves like you might not normally do.
Nothing extravagant or crazy. But fun.
We started off at OfficeMax (like I said, not crazy, but it was fun). We needed a chair for our desk in the basement. And had a gift card we had earned through their MaxPerks program. Eli loved watching me roll myself up and down the aisles in the chairs. The model Eli is sporting won.
After that, we hit, well a couple of stores we didn't have gift cards to. But I had a return at Marshall's, was looking for a complementary decor piece at HomeGoods (and found it) and we got sucked into the incredible clearance deals at Lands Inn Inlet (8 items for less than $50).
From there it got really good. We had two mystery gift cards to Williams Sonoma. Mystery as in we had no idea what was on them. Brian (who, yes is a very good cook) had been coveting an Emile Henry pan like this for awhile. We decided to "splurge" and get it. The total was something like $82. And the gift cards, we discovered, were for $75. Nice.
We went to the Gap with a check we had been issued for a return in 2006. Yes, 2006. Amazingly, they honored it. And all shirts were buy-one-get-one-free. So we got about $300 worth of stuff for less than $80 out of pocket.
Finally we hit Big Bowl to use an eight-year-old gift card. Which yes, did work. But the best part is we got out of the house. And had fun. And treated ourselves. Things with opening a business and working too many jobs and parenting three busy kids that we don't do very often.
We got out.
And enjoyed shoving rice in our faces (or at least Eli did).
We talked, relatively uninterrupted.
We taught the little guy how to do a fist bump.
We ate with chopsticks.
Successfully (okay, so they were set up for success, but still!).
So if you have that pile of gift cards sitting around, make a date of it.
I highly recommend it.
Have anything you're guilty of? Head over to my friend Cop Mama's blog and link up your story.
