The party went really well--I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I certainly did. And the pot luck idea was really fun--a great chance for people to ooh and aah over each other's cooking. I made a big tray of deviled eggs (with scallions and chili powder), a pot of frijoles (with a smoked ham hock), and frozen margaritas. K made delicious, gooey brownies.
The extra-special benefit here is leftovers. Yesterday, I grabbed three deviled egg halves for breakfast this morning, and brought half of the leftover pepper-onion-cheddar quiche for lunch. Dinner was more deviled eggs and some tortilla chips with spinach-artichoke dip. Today, breakfast was a piece of coffee cake, and lunch will be the rest of the quiche. I also froze individual portions of the leftovers from the big, deliciously crusty macaroni and cheese with broccoli, edamame, and peas: there are five or six foil packets of the stuff in my freezer, and I'll have one for dinner tonight.
Speaking of quiche, I only just figured this out: quiche is seriously frugal food. You buy a frozen pie shell, which I would (I do make pie crust myself, but I've got none of the appropriate tools in my own kitchen--neither food processor nor pastry cutter--and would probably not want to do the whole routine on a Tuesday), here is how you make quiche: you throw leftover whatever in a blind-baked pie shell, you pour milk and eggs on top, you bake, you eat. Voila! C'est marveilleux, non? I'm definitely going to get a couple of frozen pie shells for my freezer. They generally cost less than $4 for a package of two, so it's a very low-cost dish.
In fact, I'm hoping the leftovers from the party will last us all week. I think it's a serious possibility, and that would make me and my very broke boyfriend two very happy campers.
Point is: pot lucks are great! Creativity, cooking, variety, leftovers! I'd almost like to make it a monthly affair (rotating, of course, so the leftovers-bounty and the cleaning-burden are shared).
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Pot Lucky
Friday, October 19, 2007
My Budget Birthday
For my birthday (I turn 24 tomorrow!), I'm having friends over to my apartment for a potluck. My own contributions are going to be a big pot of cowboy beans and a platter of deviled eggs (not showy, but solid and easy to make in bulk; maybe I'll decide to get fancy if I have time tomorrow--I do have this butternut squash puree in the fridge that would be great for filling homemade ravioli); K is making his (by which I mean Orangette's) brownies, which are justifiably renowned amongst all who've tasted them.
Now, this is actually more expensive for me than it would be to go to a bar, where I might expect to have all my drinks bought for me, but my suspicion is that on balance, it will be cheaper for the collective. We'll all get dinner and drinks (non-cooks will be bringing wine and beer, and I'm going to borrow my parents' mega-blender and make frozen margaritas) for what we might each (except me) have expected to pay for drinks alone. And I think it's a nice opportunity for people to show off their cooking.
I'm going to need to do a thorough cleaning tomorrow (I did one already, but...well, long story), but I'm keeping that very cheap, too. My supplies are basically a couple of rags, a couple of sponges, and a spray bottle apiece of white vinegar-and-water solution and dishwashing-soap-and-water solution. Less toxic than most commercial cleaning supplies, and way cheaper.
Then I'm just going to have to pick up disposable plates and cups (and decide whether to get plastic cutlery--I think our household supply will probably cover it, but you never know). I'll go to the dollar store for that, and hopefully keep the whole purchase under $15. Then to the supermarket: I need probably another $15-$20 for the food supplies for my dishes. Finally, the liquor store and the bodega: I need a cheapie bottle of Triple Sec and a whole bunch of ice. I have $50 set aside for the party, and it shouldn't be a big deal if I go a little bit over. (I also have a sneaky little hope in re leftovers, but let's not go there.)
And then I just have to cross my fingers and pray the whole thing comes off! I'm kind of nervous, actually.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
New York on the Cheap: The Crocodile Lounge
I spent two evenings this past week at the Crocodile Lounge. I never return to a bar that fast. And, okay, the fact that I left a bag of tupperwares there did have something to do with it, but not everything, because I didn't have to stay for two beers. But I did. Because seven bucks (including tip) buys you a beer and a personal pizza.
Oh, yes. That's right. With every beer, you get a ticket entitling you to one free personal pizza. Which isn't as bad as you would expect from a free pizza. In fact, it's quite tasty, especially if you eat it right out of the oven, when the pan burns your fingertips and the molten, gushy cheese scalds the roof of your mouth. Delicious. For seven dollars, you get dinner and beer!
Even better, go for Happy Hour (weekdays, 4-6), and get beer for $3, well cocktails for $4. Still with free pizza.
I wouldn't plug the great deal if it weren't such a great bar. It's laid-back and unpretentious and has Skee-Ball in the back room. And the music is great. And, at 14th between 1st & 2nd Avenues, it's close to the excellent and extremely free people-watching in Union Square. Which is how I wound up my Friday evening (well, that, a cigarette, a cute boy, and a $2.99 bag of Trader Joe's chocolate-covered pretzels). I recommend it.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
"Mad Money"
J.D. posted yesterday about his experiments in individual stock-picking. His conclusion? He's getting out.
But his description of his experience made me want to try it. Just in that same kind of small-time way, with a small amount of money I could afford to lose--what I've heard Jim Kramer calls "mad money." I just think it would be an interestingly direct way to dip my toes into the stock market. And I think it would be fun.
Right now, though, I don't have $1,000 to lose. Maybe once I get my Freedom Fund all nicely stocked up. Or maybe I could play around with a smaller amount of money. Say, $500. Yeah, I think $500 might be a good place to start.
I still don't have $500 I'm willing to lose, though. This may be something I'll consider adding to next year's financial goals, but the difficulty would be saving for this chunk of money. It might feel kind of futile, given that I'm going to be speculating with it. So it might be better to devote some windfall money to this.
But not until my savings goals are met.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Drink at Home. Duh.
I wanted to have a drink with a friend a couple of nights ago. But I didn't much care where we went, and I didn't want to spend a bunch of money.
So what did we do? We went to the bodega near my house, bought 24-oz. Coronas, cut up some limes, chilled on my couch with our classy, classy beer, and had a chat about King Lear (no, really, we did--and if you have any thoughts about what King Lear is really about, leave 'em in the comments).
And it was awesome. And it so often eludes me, really: wanting to have a drink with a friend does not necessitate a bar, purveyor of markups and facilitator of late-night snacks and taxi rides. A big fat $3 bottle of beer in your own house can be just as much fun. And even if you drink two 24-oz. bottles of beer, that's only $6--about what it would cost for one 12-oz. bottle & tip in a bar. Hard to argue with a 75% savings.
I intend to put this lesson into use more often in future.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Wedding Weekend Spending
Spending this weekend went quite well--the bulk of my spending was on the taxi out to the airport and on two luxurious room service meals (delivered to the startlingly lovely room K's parents got for us, bless their generous hearts).
Perhaps because we were staying in the city's official Fancy Hotel, I was disappointed in my cocktail-comparison project. Prices at the "upscale" lounge in the hotel's basement (I put this in scare quotes because to my jaded New Yorker's eye it seemed they were trying far, far too hard, and still overlooking somewhat obvious issues--for example, the fact that "lounge atmosphere" and "sports games on television behind the bar" patently do not mix) were comparable to average NYC bar prices, though certainly not comparable to "fancy hotel lounge" cocktail prices. Still, I guess I was expecting a bigger differential, and perhaps I would have seen one if K and I had made it out to the more casual bar with his sister, her husband, and their aunt & uncle after the reception.
I stuck to the free drinks (mmm, chocolate martinis!) at the reception, myself--K and I ended up skipping afterparties on both Friday and Saturday nights, pleading exhaustion (and/or disdain for that hotel bar, and/or need of foot massage in wake of wearing of very painful but very beautiful Lulu Guinness shoes). And because the meals we were eating tended to be so large, there wasn't call for more than two of them a day, only one of which cost us money.
So, I ended up spending $80 for the weekend, though I think I owe K a lunch. I'll be saving $20 extra--but I'm going to use the other extra $20 to buy myself lunch today (and pick up some groceries on the way home). Our flight got in awfully late last night.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Value of Customer Service
Netflix, in the ongoing war against Blockbuster Total Access, is investing heavily in customer service. They've opened a 24-hour call center outside Portland, OR, where representatives greet customers immediately (no for-this-press-one-for-that-press-two!), have wide latitude in what they can provide to appease or retain a customer, and are evaluated not based on low average call time but on how well they succeed in solving the caller's problem at hand.
I'm a happy Netflix member, so they clearly didn't need to do this to retain my business, but I think this might be something that would compel me to switch if I were a Blockbuster member--Blockbuster has a business-hours-only customer-service line with a phone tree, but conducts most of its customer service via email. Not that I don't feel comfortable with email--I'm a blogger, after all--but I like the immediacy of getting a problem sorted out on the phone. And I have to say, I've had very few problems with Netflix, which I consider an entirely worthwhile monthly entertainment expense (especially since I don't have a TV).
Monday, May 14, 2007
Weekend Spending
So, the good news is that I found this amazing bar in my neighborhood on Friday, with live salsa music and a patio and mojitos made with cane syrup and homegrown-tasting mint, and the other good news is that I sat there with my boyfriend and a friend from college who was briefly in town before leaving for Africa today and another friend from college who's just gotten home from a year of teaching in France and we toasted our bright academic prospects (we were all three of us English majors in the same graduating class who have our eyes on the Ph.D. prize) over shots of Cuervo and everything smelled wonderful and I could feel the summer coming, and the future too.
The bad news is that I spent $35 on drinks. Three mojitos and the aforementioned Cuervo shot came to $28, and then I picked up a drink for the friend-back-from-France (with K), and then tip...and then no money left. I had to turn down three social opportunities because I had basically zero discretionary dollars left after that. I skipped a friend's going-away party on Saturday partly because I was tired and partly because I was grumpy at the prospect of going out and not being able to drink, and I turned down a last-minute trip to Atlantic City for a friend's birthday on the same night because duh, no money, and I skipped tea with the back-from-France friend on Sunday because, um, still broke.
In general, I think I prefer to do more and drink less on each occasion, but nevertheless, I had a really lovely time on Friday, and it is nice to just go out and get tipsy with friends sometimes. I just really, really don't have the means to be out and about and spending money constantly. And sometimes that bugs, but it's a reality, and I'd rather face it and try to work around it than put $60 worth of entertainment costs on a credit card every weekend.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
My Financial Foe: Planning, or the Lack Thereof
I don't know what I'm going to be doing on Friday evening.
When I was in college, I had a standing Friday-afternoon coffee date with one of my closest friends. We met in the parking lot at four, got into her car, and went to our favorite coffeehouse, where we got coffee drinks and snacks and/or dessert, had a nice, long, leisurely chat for a few hours (it's that kind of coffeehouse), and then each went home and crashed after the long week.
The closest thing I have to that now is a tentative Friday-evenings-are-best-for-me arrangement with a friend from college who's living in the city now. My friends and I don't usually plan in advance, and certainly never at a longer range than a week away. It's a cell phone-based, flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants kind of thing, where a friend and I are having dinner (which we arranged by email that afternoon at work) and she'll call someone or I'll call someone and they'll say, "Oh, I'm at this bar with a couple of friends, come join us," and we go off to meet them.
The thing is, aside from the fact that I often wish I knew what I was doing just for curiosity's sake, not knowing what my plans are makes it really difficult to budget for these kinds of expenses. It makes it difficult to know how much money I'm going to spend on eating and drinking out, on cabs, and even on groceries (how many meals do I need to plan for?). There's a special kind of paralysis induced by lack of planning, and I encounter it often.
Yesterday, to combat this plan-vacuum, I sent out an email to some friends proposing a weekend plan. I got a really enthusiastic response, even from the people who can't come, and so now I have a plan for Saturday. I'll probably spend Friday afternoon with a friend who's in town for the weekend, and Sunday with a school friend who just came back from nearly a year in France (initially, the idea was to have High Tea at the Harlem Tea Room, but it will kind of depend on how far I can make my eating-out budget stretch). The follow-up emails sparked by this initial email has gone a long way toward helping me figure out what my weekends will look like until the end of the month.
So if you have the same problem that I tend to, from this experience I'd certainly say that I advise taking a little initiative. Try organizing an event (mine is just a potluck picnic with board games in Central Park), or even just sending out an email to all the people you'd like to spend time with that says, "Hey, I'd like to plan to spend some time with you--when is a good time for you?" It facilitates planning ahead, and that makes it easier to budget for your plans.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Dignified Quarter: A Frugal Anecdote
When I was in high school, before New York instituted a citywide museum pass for high school students, my art teachers used to send their classes to the Met to do special assignments. These assignments would usually require at least two visits to the museum: time spent finding a painting, or two paintings to compare, then sketching time, then research time in the archives. We used to try to get out of these assignments by complaining that it cost too much to go to the Met over and over again (obviously, this excuse went out the window when the city started doling out free passes). One teacher in particular was not impressed with our reasoning. The Met has a suggested donation, not an admissions fee. "Pay the dignified quarter," she would say, nonplussed.
What's the dignified quarter?
"You pay a quarter," Ms. S would explain, "and you look dignified."
(I still do this, though now it's more like a dignified $1-$5.)
