FRIDAY:
The weekend started off with a fun "mommy luncheon" at Olive Garden on Friday. Can't beat their unlimited soup/salad/breadsticks for less than $7! It's kid-friendly, and good food!
We had 6 moms and 6 kids...all except for one were under 1yr old, and 1/2 of us are pregnant. Needless to say it was nuts, we made a huge mess, ate a ton, and had a blast. I got a $15 gift card to O.G for Christmas, and it got me two complete lunches. I only paid $3 out of pocket to cover tip!
Friday night went to Madeline's Steakhouse (we had a gift card), so my hubby & I went on a date and each got a steak dinner and only had to pay a little out of pocket. If you don't have gift cards, be sure to check restaurant.com before going to ANY restaurant...it can save you a ton!
**Just for the record, steak dinners are not typically on the menu for the two of us at restaurants. They aren't good as leftovers because the steaks cook too much when you re-heat them! Plus, they are pretty pricey. But we had a gift card and steak sounded good, so hey!
After dinner was the best part! My husband and I are both on Cold Stone's email list. They are launching a new Cold Stone Club and sent us EACH a coupon via email for two FREE scoops of ice cream + 1 mix in! It's not even our birthdays, they sent them just for fun.
The best part?
We'll still get our birthday freebies in July and March. Woo hoo! So we each got an awesome ice cream completely FREE. Didn't even have to pay taxes. I did decide to upgrade to a dipped waffle cone (totally worth it!) so our total cost? $1.19. Boo-yah.
We came home and watched a Netflix DVD, then passed out from being so full.
SATURDAY:
I went grocery shopping. I used www.dealstomeals.com to price-match some great deals at Wal Mart. I got $5 bags of malt-o-meal cereal (our favorite because they are HUGE and last forever) for $2.50, I got roma tomatoes for $0.49/lb, cake mixes for $0.79 ea, got cottage cheese for $0.88 ea, and used a few coupons to get a few $$ off here and there. I'm not a big coupon-er as I've said before, so I prefer price-matching over coupon-ing any day. It only took me about 4 or 5 minutes online right before I left for the store, and I only bought things that were on my list already. My total was about $40, and I saved about $20. Not bad!
SUNDAY:
We made homemade french bread pizza to clean out leftovers in our fridge. I made some French Bread the other day (using THIS recipe) and had a few loaves leftover that I needed to use up.
I split the bread length-wise. One half was pepperoni/cheese (we had spaghetti sauce we needed to use up) and the other half was chicken/BBQ sauce/diced peppers/cheese (we had cooked chicken that needed to be used). It was delish!
Sunday night we had 5 couples + 3 kids over for a dinner party (I forgot to take pictures! Ugh!). It was a blast! It was very cost effective because everyone offered to bring something, so I only had to make the main dish + 1 appetizer for fun. I made THIS fancy baked ziti recipe (my absolute favorite!) because it feeds a crowd, everyone seems to like it, and hey, it's cheap to make! It was a hit. I also used up the last of my french bread (see above) and made this bruchetta recipe (also a big hit) using the roma tomatoes I got super cheap (see above):
Needless to say it was a fun-filled weekend that cost little to nothing!
I split the bread length-wise. One half was pepperoni/cheese (we had spaghetti sauce we needed to use up) and the other half was chicken/BBQ sauce/diced peppers/cheese (we had cooked chicken that needed to be used). It was delish!
Click on the picture to see it bigger.
Needless to say it was a fun-filled weekend that cost little to nothing!
How did your weekend go?
