Green and Frugal Weekend

Spring has sprung and it's been busy, busy, busy at our house. I've been slacking on the blog lately. My apologies. ;-)

I think you'll get a kick out of last weekend's activities. It was all about being green and frugal...

Garage Sale
First on the list was a garage sale. The kids are quickly outgrowing their toys and clothes. Plus, we have leftovers from last year's garage sale. We live off a busy road, close to a highway. Instead of placing (and having to pay for) a newspaper ad, we strategically placed signs, posted an ad on Craigslist and let the Freecyle board know that there would be freebies after 3pm.  In the end, we made $160.

Date Night
Our goal was to make enough money to go out for a nice dinner and get a babysitter for the kids. (Not too much to ask for, right?)  Bistro 55, a South City Grill spin-off, was the game plan for dinner. It's a seasonal kitchen with a varied menu of incredible dishes. Dinner cost $75 and the babysitter cost $60.

Shopping at Lowes
No date night is complete without a trip to Lowes. It's difficult to shop with two small children. We needed to return a ceiling fan that we had bought nearly a year ago. (It ended up not working out for what we needed.) We also wanted a 8x10 rug for our newly renovated porch. It has hardwood floors, but we wanted the kids to be able to sit on the floor and play. Best of all, we had a 10% coupon and a $100 credit after the fan was accepted as a return.  While we spent $300 on a rug, we saved $100 with our coupon and $100 from our fan credit.

Pit-stop at Dunkin Donuts
Instead of having dessert after dinner, we opted to stop at Dunkin Donuts for a post-dinner coffee. Armed with a coupon and a gift card, it was one less item to spend money on. Cost = $0. :-)

All in all, it was a fun weekend. We had fun getting rid of stuff at the garage sale. (Although we plan to have another one in May since we didn't get rid of as much as we'd hoped.)

What do you like to do on your green and frugal weekends?