How to Celebrate Your 21st and Not Break the Bank
Last week was an especially fun week. “Why?” you ask. Good question! It was my BIRTHDAY WEEK! Birthdays are my favorite! I don’t care if it’s my birthday or your birthday or the moon’s birthday! It’s like they’re mandated to be celebrated. So much so that for my 17th birthday, my dad sent me one of those dorky crowns and sashes you buy for 7-year-olds, and I wore it all around my college campus celebrating the fact that, yes, indeed, I was almost old enough to feel like an actual college student. My friends gave me a ton of grief, but frankly, I didn’t (and still don’t) care. It’s my birthday, I’m gonna do what I want is a saying I tend to live by.
This year is no different. And I had a ball of a time. However, since I’m married and conscious of money and stuff, we did our birthday celebration on a budget.
We signed up for all the free stuff we could. One of the best things about living in America is that we’re about as birthday crazy as I am. My husband and I spent the day tootling around town collecting free birthday gifts. It was like pokemon go, but 10x cooler! We got Dutch Bros coffee, Firehouse Sub Sandwiches, and that night, he surprised me and we got pazookis (giant cookies with ice cream on top for those of you who are unfortunate enough never to have tasted them) at BJs.
We forgot my wallet when we tried to go drinking. Yup, that’s right. My husband took me to BJs for pazookis and to have a glass of something (perks of finally being 21), but since he drove, I didn’t think to grab my wallet. This makes for a much cheaper excursion. The date was still great, though! Cos, ya know, birthdays are the best!
We went hiking. If you don’t know this about me, you should! I love to hike, and it’s a great free activity. We live right by a giant lake (the trail around it is 14 miles), and so she and I spent a few hours there just walking around and enjoying nature. Free, except for the gas, and makes for great exercise. Plus, why wouldn’t you do all your favorite things on your birthday?
We bought pizza and watched movies. On our way back from hiking, we stopped off at the local library and rented a slew of movies. It’s a great way to see new stuff (we rented Coco, which I hadn’t seen before) and it’s free! We also stopped by Little Ceasar’s for pizza because it’s delicious and pizza, movies, and champagne (she bought it for me for my birthday!) make for a great evening in!
We went to free events. My best friend drove up from LA for the weekend, props to her for loving my birthday as much as I do, and we went to the Farm-to-Fork festival that Sacramento holds every year. It’s free entrance to the event, but parking is $15. She was amazing and paid though! The festival itself was super fun, and I’ll have a post about it later!
We explored Sacramento. Since we’d already paid for parking for the day, we decided to take a moment and explore the city we were in. My friend works for the government, and we were like 10 steps away from the Capitol Building. I’d never been even though I’ve lived in CA for 10 years, and she adores all things government, so we popped in and got exceptionally lost. I think we ended up on a restricted floor. We kept following exit signs trying to find the way out, but we ended up I don’t even know where, and a concierge came and found us. She was very nice and showed us the way out. Then we walked to Old Town Sacramento and explored a million different candy shops! I love the feel of that part of Sacramento. It’s folksy and has horse-drawn carriages, which are now on my bucket list. It was a cheap way to spend the day, and I really enjoyed it!
We went to the Casino. Which at first glance seems super counter-intuitive. But since we brought only $15 in cash each, it was a cheap way to spend a few hours doing things that I was now allowed to do. There were penny slots, so we got a bunch more plays than if we had just played the larger ticket slots. I’ll be honest, though. I don’t really understand the allure of gambling. All you do is click a button and lose money. It’s not that fun. And the smoke gave me a migraine. Not sure I’d do that again, haha.
We went out to dinner. Okay, this was expensive. I wanted Italian, so we chose a local mom and pop that was AMAZING! I ordered butternut squash ravioli and a glass of wine. I could have died! It was amazing! But expensive. Between the three of us and tip, we dropped about $100 on the meal. Bites fingernails. Not something I’d do casually, but since we’d been so frugal the rest of the week, one splurge was totally worth it.
The whole weekend, I spent around $110. I pulled out cash and decided that I would only spend cash for the whole weekend. So everything we bought, pizza, coffee, salt water taffy, wine tastings, my portion of the fancy dinner, it all came out of the money I had budgeted. And if we hadn’t decided to go out to eat, the total would have been closer to $45.
For the most part, the experience was great! There are a few things I would change, though. We couldn’t get as many free things for my birthday because I hadn’t been signed up to their birthday lists. Next year, this changes! Also, I wish I would have tracked exactly where the $110 was spent. I ended up budgeting it fine, but keeping better track of receipts would help in the long run.
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[…] is my BIRTHDAY MONTH! And because I’m extra, I’m devoting myself to making one super fancy (like the ones that call […]
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[…] And being able to do something big and fancy that my hubby enjoyed was well worth the money. He did the same for mine. It’s something that makes us happy, and while our birthdays aren’t the most frugal, we make sure […]
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