That is what happened to me the past two weekends.
Some background…
I am mildly always concerned about money. I worked as a waitress in highschool, raking in the big bucks with tips, but yet I would save most of it for school. Yes I would splurge now and then (the yearly music department trips were really just a shopping spree) but I have always been conscious with my money. Spending large amounts of money makes me really nervous, even though I know my budget. Prime example of this was when I went to IKEA and bought everything I needed for the apartment, as the cashier was ringing in each item and the total was going up and up and up (still way under the max I had set) I almost had a full blown panic attack. The BF can attest to that.
Anyway back to the point, even though I have a good paying job, I am living in an expensive city, and my budget doesn’t have room for a whole lot of lavish splurges. My dreams of graduating university and buying a whole new wardrobe and a fancy smancy camera were slightly unrealistic.
So the BF and I have been trying to save money as much as possible and that includes finding some cheap/free stuff to do on the weekends. The counter argument to living in an expensive city is that there is a TON of free stuff to do.
2 weekends ago was our cheap weekend…
Friday Night-
· Ontario Place- Free admission-thank you CTV for sponsoring a summer of free admission at OP)
· $5 each for a log flume ride at Ontario place.
· Free Sloan concert- part of the free summer concert series
Saturday-
· Movie Matinee- Cheap tickets since the company I work for has a corporate rate with the movie theatre! $8.50 each
· Snacks- Ok this wasn’t that cheap, movies are way more expensive here than in Halifax
· $3 each subway ride to Taste of the Danforth
· Free entertainment- walking around seeing the quails.
· Not so free- sampling the food, and having a greek food supper, buying 2 shirts at a sidewalk sale. Still cheap though!
· $3 each subway ride back home
So compared to that weekend-this past weekend was a BIG OLD SPLURGE
Saturday was CITY CHASE which has its own whole post coming up next. That was $150 total, and worth every penny. It was amazing…see the post below.
And Sunday was the Rogers Cup. The BF loves Andre Agassi, and he was playing in the legends cup before the women’s finals. So we went! I don’t know how much the tickets were but they weren’t cheap, but it is kinda a once in a lifetime thing for Mike to see Andre play, so we had to go!
We had good seats, we saw two great matches – the first (the legends game) was funny and more laid back, the second was Serena Williams vs. Sam Stosur, and was SUPER INTENSE. Fun to watch!
And even though it was threatening to rain the whole time, it held off until the end, and we were drenched with a thunder storm on the way back to the car. Unfortunately because we were there all day we had to buy food there and that was whole bunch more money. Water was 5 dollars a bottle blech.
Definitely couldn’t spend like that every weekend!
As much as I hate spending money, there are some experiences that were totally worth it (Trip to NYC, Rogers Cup, Travelling to visit family etc). I almost didn’t do city chase because of how much it was, but I would have totally regretted sitting around on Saturday, knowing that I could have been out there having fun! I guess that is why I save, so that I always have enough money to have the opportunity to do stuff like that and not be stressed about paying off my credit card at a later date J
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