By Deborah Devenney
I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! Up here in New England, we had some truly gorgeous weather and almost all of my siblings were home :) We love to have a good time together, but that can be tough with so many people and such a small budget. However, over the years we have gotten quite creative with how we spend our time and money. These are some of the totally frugal activites we shared together this weekend.
When people ask me to describe family events, I usually just say, "There are a lot of people, and we sit around drinking coffee and talking for hours." And that's pretty much it: we are the type of family that is perfectly content with a pot of coffee and some good company.
Thus, a good portion of the weekend was spent doing just that: first at my own house and then at my cousins' for a delicious barbeque. We also played some Trivial Pursuit and later basketball to keep the party lively!
Sunday was a day out and about: we all met at a local restaurant for lunch. It was the first time had all eaten out together in I don't know how long. My dad treated us all to pizza - which happens to be a very efficient way to feed a crowd! (There were 10 of us.)
Then we headed down to Orange, CT, where we were very excited to visit the PEZ visitor center and factory! It's not a very big visitor center, but it does have some really fun decorations and displays of PEZ dispensers through the years. You also get to learn about the candy and see the factory.
The best part?! - it's totally cheap! Our large group qualified for a group discount: $4.00/ticket. You get a PEZ lanyard as your ticket (which you get to keep) and a coupon for $2.00 to use in the gift shop. Their enormous collection of PEZ dispensers were all just $2.00 each. So, we just had to pay 12 cents tax and we each got a great souvenir from our day! They practically paid us to come.
Finally, we headed to IKEA. I know what you're thinking: how do you call a trip to IKEA a frugal outing? I always end up spending a lot of money there!
Well, it wasn't easy. I did almost buy a few things that I really didn't need. I stayed strong, however, and walked out with nothing but a $1 ice cream cone (it would just be wrong to resist that) and a smile on my face. Walking around the store and trying out all the rooms and furniture was so much fun, I didn't need anything else.
How was your weekend? What did you do? Did you spend a little more than you hoped, or come in under-buget?
