Day 18 and Valentine's Day

Wow! It occurred to me this morning that Valentine's Day is two weeks away. With our new get out of debt mindset, this needs to be a frugal Valentine's Day. Now I know there are many people who don't care about Valentine's Day, they think it's a commercial holiday invented by greeting card and floral companies and they're probably right. But I love Valentine's Day, especially with Tom. I have some very fond memories of some of our Valentine's Days. The first year we were together on Valentine's Day, (we'd been dating about 2 months), I was working as a manager at Wendy's restaurant in Enid (the old one where Urgent Care is now). Tom used to come in almost everyday at lunch and so I sent him a singing telegram that came in and sang to him right in front of everybody during the lunch rush. He has sworn revenge, but it's been 16 years, and I think he's forgotten (well, at least until he reads this post. LOL). Another one was when our kids were little and we were very broke AND dieting (LOL) and a friend offered to watch our kids (her husband was gone that evening), so we spent the evening at home eating Lean Pockets and watching TV. We were an instant family when we got married since I already had two kids, so those evenings alone when the kids were little were very precious. Last year, our church had a Valentine's banquet and Tom and I went. It was lots of fun, the food was good, there was lots of laughter, and we just really enjoyed ourselves.

So...what to do this year to make it special and keep it frugal? On the Living on a Dime site, Tawra has an article about "Valentine's Day on a Dime": http://www.livingonadime.com/articles/valentine.htm
The article has some great ideas. For us, I think I'll keep my ideas to myself (so that Tom can't read them ahead of time) and I'll share them afterwards.

On other things, I ended up having to go into Wal-Mart last night. I had a check to deposit in our bank account (and got the other $20 out to put in the EF-that brings it up to $280!), and while I was in town, I went to Wal-Mart because I needed a black ink cartridge ($21 for the "low-yield" cartridge) and generic Claritin ($18 for 120) for my allergies. I spent almost $60 in there on that stuff, milk, a 12 pack of Diet Dr. Pepper (that's one vice I haven't been able to give up yet), and a ream of paper. Well, it was cash, and they were planned expenditures. I bought only what was on my list and didn't waste any time even looking at anything else. Hey, I gotta celebrate where I can!