Sunday, December 4, 2011

Seagull Living: Week 4

My coupon-clipping, Groupon-buying, leftovers-scarfing journey through November continued. While the Thanksgiving feast ultimately blew our tight budget, we still picked up a lot of deals and freebies along the way. Here's the final round up:

Nov. 22: I took the rest of this holiday week off and spent much of it sleeping in and catching up on projects at home. By staying in my pajamas all day and not leaving the house, I managed to not spend much money.

Nov. 23: We recently started renting a storage unit for our business and received a coupon for a free pizza at Il Porto with the new rental. Cashed that in tonight. Il Porto is a hidden gem on the far north end of Washington Ave across from the Navy Yards. Try the "Navy Yard" pizza with pesto, sopresatta and mozzarella, or the veal scaloppine.



Nov. 24: Thanksgiving! Mr Homewrecker made a beautiful turkey and all the requisite sides. I made a cauliflower, pear and hazelnut dish I saw in New York Magazine, plus clementine cranberry sauce and my first ever pumpkin pie. Yeah, the fixins cost a bit, but it's freaking Thanksgiving, and besides, we're going to live off the leftovers for the next week.

Nov. 25: Saw the delightful new Muppets Movie with a Groupon for $9 admission for two + free popcorn at Alpine Cinema in Bay Ridge. We have rarely gone down to Bay Ridge, and it seemed like "real" Brooklyn to me. Not Cosby show, hipster, stuff-white-people-like Brooklyn where we live. Also instead of Black Friday, we effectively did "buy nothing day" by using this deal and living off turkey leftovers.


Nov. 26: Small Business Saturday. American Express was offering this awesome deal where you register your card with their website and spend $25 or more at any small business that accepts AmEx, and BOOM you get $25 credit on your account. We had a wonderful brunch at Bogato Latin Bistro in Park Slope. Plus, Bogata has deals on Facebook and Foursquare where you get a free side of papas criollas on your first check-in. Scored that too. After brunch we went to Staples and got a Black Friday deal on a paper shredder. Originally $80 -- $20 after the mail-in rebate.


Nov. 27: I'm way into Scoutmob deals now. Tried a cute little Mexican place in Park Slope called El Jalapeno and got 50% off our meal.

Nov. 28-30: Coasted into December eating nothing but those Thanksgiving leftovers.

How did we do? Well, we blew our ambitious $600 food budget big time, but that included a Thanksgiving feast, and still we only spent our usual $800 a month and scored lots of little extras like free coffees and treats. Hardly enough to save our budget, but enough to make each day a little more enjoyable.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This series of "seagull living" posts has me cracking up. You got any leads on good food deals in the Chicago burbs? You always seem to find the best offers!

homesweethomewrecker said...

@Jen -- check out http://scoutmob.com/chicago/subscriptions -- dunno if they extend to the burbs, but all the NYC deals I've found so far have been super awesome, and hassle free. Also I just learned that the AMEX Small Business deal is being extended, and that's good nationwide: http://blog.foursquare.com/2011/12/05/spend-10-get-10-more-ways-to-get-cash-and-support-local-businesses-with-foursquare-amex/

If all else fails, ask my mom. She's always got coupons for Chicagoland. I learned from the best.