Going to Outback for Father's Day?

If you're taking your husband or father to Outback Steakhouse on Father's Day, here' s deal you will want to be aware of! On June 15th ONLY, they will receive a $10 gift card good for a for a future visit. They can then activate the card online (not a live link until after Father's Day) and be entered in a drawing for a $100 gift card. Woo hoo!

Gift Cards

What do you do when you have a gift card? This is always a toss up for my husband and I. If we're at a restaurant, do we order something crazy and new? Do we stick with the old standbys that we know we like? Do we do something we don't usually do, like get an appetizer or dessert? We go back and forth, but a lot of times we end up getting something new. It feels better that you're not spending your own money if it turns out to be yucky.

We recently had a gift card to Outback Steakhouse and faced this question. It turns out that they have a special menu through the month of April(so hurry if you want to try it!) because of the Bloomin' Onion's birthday. The things on the menu looked mighty tempting, but we have some old standbys that we know we enjoy. We don't get to eat at places like The Outback very often, so we wanted to be sure that we got something super yummy.

We ended up going for the special menu. I had the Sirloin, Shrimp, and Scallops which was excellent. I was especially pleased with the spinach. I love spinach but don't usually eat it by itself, but whatever they did to it at Outback made it especially delicious. My husband went for a standby, and we shared our meals. So yummy. Eating out is absolutely my most costly vice, so we love getting gift cards!

What do you do with gift cards? Go with the old standbys? Go wild and order the most expensive thing on the menu? Dessert?

Keeping the House Together While Sick

So as I've mentioned in the past few posts, I've been ridiculously sick the past week or so. Thank God that's over! The roommate got as sick as I was, and my husband was under the weather as well, so we were not really in the mood to do anything but stare at the TV. Even reading did not appeal to me, as holding up the book just too too much strength. Forget shopping for bargains, or cleaning the house, or trying to do very much for dinner. Here's what got us through this:

1. The library. As soon as I decided that I was getting sick and it was not just allergies, I went and stocked up on books and videos. I also do this when a big storm is expected. It's a great way to combat boredom when you can't really get out. If you're too sick to go to the library but still want things, you can put them on hold and have somebody pick them up for you. (Check your library for their policy- most libraries I've been associated with would allow this as long as they brought the person's card.). Most places do holds for free, but my library charges .25 cents per hold unless you belong to Friends of the Library.

2. What's for dinner? Crockpots can save your sanity at times like this. So can having a built up pantry. We did not need to go to the store during this time, because our pantry is stocked. We use powdered milk, so we did not even have to leave for that. This is also a time to use those gift cards that you may have forgotten about. Most restaurants will prepare a take out order for you, and you can use your gift card. And yes, ordering a pizza to be *gasp* delivered won't kill you if that's all you can handle. As long as you don't do this every single night of a three week illness, it will be fine. Check online for coupons to pizza places. I found better deal online for Pizza Hut than their specials and the coupons I already had. I've also considered asking what the lowest price available is, but I have not been brave enough to do that.

3. Do the Necessary Chores, and ignore the rest- In my house, that is figuring out what is for dinner, the dishes, the end of the day general pick up of the main living area, the laundry, and wiping the bathroom counters/swishing the toilet each day. That sounds like a lot, but it does not take me more than 20-30 minutes of hands on time for these chores. I also use my dryer when I'm sick, rather than hanging the laundry. I let everything else go until I felt better. By keeping up on those small things, I keep the house under control but not much more. I would not be embarrassed to have somebody suddenly drop by, but I would wish that my house were cleaner. I also try to disinfect the doorknobs, faucets, light switches, etc a few times a day when somebody in the house is sick.


I don't have children, so I always gain a new and profound respect for mothers when I'm this sick. All mothers are supermoms to me, if they handle being sick *and* taking care of kids at the same time.

Combine Those Coupons With Sales!

Here's another way to illustrate how using coupons and sales and store promotions can really help your grocery budget...

Dillons paid me .87 cents to walk out the door with these groceries!

This week there is a sale where if you buy ten of any number of items, you will get two dollars off your order. There was also a pharmacy coupon in the paper this week. Bring in the coupon and transfer a prescription or bring a new prescription to their pharmacy, you get 20 dollars worth of groceries. (It is put on your Dillons card and is automatically taken off at the register.) I had a prescription that I needed to transfer anyway, so I did that today. I also did the buy ten items/get 2 dollars off thing. I also had tons of pretty good coupons and there were several good sales this week.

(Click the picture to enlarge)

Unfortunately, the two dollars did not come off as it was supposed to. I pointed this out to the cashier, who said that she thought it did not come off because my total was so low after coupons. I stood firm and said that it did not come off before I ran my coupons, as it usually does, and she called a manager over. Since I had indeed bought ten items from the promotion items, and they could not figure out why it was not working, the manager just gave me two dollars in cash! I put 1.13 on my gift card. With the two dollars the manager gave me, they paid me .87 cents to come to their store today. WOO HOO!

Frugal Friday: Using Gift Cards

I love the idea of having a set amount of cash set aside for groceries. However, in my family, it just does not work. We used to take out our monthly allotment (about 200 dollars) in cash. In theory, I was to use that for our groceries, which would make it super easy to stay in our budget. Yay! However, in practice, the cash often migrated to another expense, in bits and pieces. We really don't keep cash around at all. We write checks or put it on our cards, which we pay off in full every month. So my husband would need five dollars for some reason, and rather than write out a check, he'd pull five bucks out of the grocery money. Or I would use it. For example, last month I went to a friend's wedding in Tennessee. It seemed silly to put the museum ticket, the lunch at Wendy's, the gas for the rental car on my card. After all, each was only a bit of money...but by the end of the trip, a lot of the grocery cash was gone. I was constantly having to re-figure in my head how much we'd spent on groceries to make sure we did not go over budget. That was kind of pain, even though we do record every expense as we incur it. There had to be a better way!

Then it occurred to me- Gift Cards. You can buy gift cards at most grocery stores. Since I primarily shop at one store, with very occasional stops at a few others for super sale items, I thought it may just be easier to buy a card for that store at the start of each month. I bought a gift card for 150 dollars at my usual store, which left fifty dollars to keep in reserve if we need to make a stop at one of our other stores. I put the card on my credit card (which again, we pay in full each month) so we will even get cash back on that amount. No more trying to figure out how much is left in the grocery budget. I've also spent less on groceries since I've done this, since I am trying very hard to not go over however much I put on the gift card.

You can use the gift card idea for many types of purchases- gas stations often have gift cards. If you eat out a lot at a certain restaurant but are trying to cut back, why not get a gift card for an agreed upon amount? If you like the idea of a cash system but do not want to have cash sitting around, the gift card idea may work for you.

For other frugal tips, head on over to Crystal's blog!