Friday Night Splurge

We ate in Friday night, as is my plan from now on since we are scaling back.  That didn't mean we didn't splurge.  For dinner, we had lobster, with shrimp & crab ravioli on the side, along with a fresh garden salad.  We washed it down with champagne.  Rather than spending over a hundred bucks on a meal out, I cooked at home and spent under forty dollars.  The big spend was on the crustaceans --  but they were ten bucks a piece, frozen, from Aldi.   I wrapped them in foil, crammed them with lemon and added some butter.  They were baked at 425 for 25 minutes.  I used the carcasses and drippings to make a stock which I will use for either a lobster chowder or bisque next week.  I also logged the meal and only ended up 123 calories over budget.   It was a smart splurge!



After having worked my first part-time week so far, Friday was my day to stay at home and clean the house.  I cleaned the entire house.  Not a deep-clean, but a regular "top to bottom" job which  I hadn't had time for while working full time.  My first day started out with my breaking the washing machine.  Then I broke the steam mop.  That meant I didn't have to do laundry, but that we had to spend $$ on a new machine.  So that was my other Friday splurge.

I did price and model checks on-line and our budget of five to six hundred dollars narrowed down three possible models at two different stores.  My picks were 4.3 cu ft top loaders.  At the first store we went to, the model I wanted was sold out.  We like to buy scratch and dent, so we were not out of luck.  A 5 cu ft top loader just came in for $497.  That was a substantial savings over the regular  $799 price.  Adding on tax, delivery and installation (including the purchasing of hoses, and the removal of the old machine), we hit just a bit above $600.  So we stayed in budget.

I will not miss the old washer as I hated it and it was old.  The mop will be missed -- but it was just the floor attachment and not the steamer unit.

The house is clean, the  new washing machine will be delivered and installed tomorrow, and I now have three and a half jars of lobster stock to cook with next week.  All in all, the splurge wasn't so big and the tragedies not so bad!