T-t-t-t-IGH!

Money is tight. Tighter then than a pop tart’s booty shorts.  Yeah. That’s tight, I know.

To help make ends meet while I wait for an opening at Trader Joe’s (somebody quit, already!), I have started working from home at Amazon's Mechanical Turk. My last job was transcribing an interview. Let me just say, if I EVER say “Um,” “You  know,” or something along those lines – just SLAP ME! I’m fairly certain that out of the 2,129 words I typed, over half of them were “uh, you know, “and “um.”

Re

Dic

U

LOUS!

Anyway. Back  to your regularly scheduled blog.

Uh, were was I? Oh! Uh, I know. You know, I just love, uh, Top Ramen. {snickers} I’m done. For now. ;0)

Ok, money. It’s pretty tight right now. That  might sound pretty terrifying to most people.  But I have to say, I’m kind of enjoying it. It means we’re doing it on our own. Like real adults. It's also nice to watch God take care of us on daily basis. And He totally does. J I like that feeling.

Living on an extremely tight budget isn’t as bad as it might sound. Like I said, I’ve been picking up some work at Mechanical Turk to fill in the gaps and yesterday I made my first mini wad of money ( I stress "mini"). So I decided to take Ernie out for dinner. Now when you’re in a killer cash crunch, there’s only a few places at which you can afford to eat.

I swallowed my pride and took my husband out to the only place we could afford.

P.F. Changs.

Yeah. I know, I know. Who wants to eat at a swank Chinese restaurant when you can eat off the dollar menu at McDonald’s? It’s a rough life, but somebody’s got to do it.

I know your sitting there with raised eyebrows. “Tough finances? Really? And you’re eating dinner at P.F. Changs? And you're not using credit cards? Riiiight.” But it’s true – I swear!

Here’s how we did it. We showed up during Happy Hour (and oh happy it was after a week of Top Ramen!) and ordered these delicious chicken salad wraps. Not one order, oh no. We were splurging. (And pretty dang hungry.) We each got our own order. Yeeeeeeeeeah!  Here’s the other secret to eating out on a budget – skip the drinks. I’m not just talking about those zippy little drinks that make the room (and your date) just a little bit prettier. I’m talking about soda. Tea. Coffee. That’s usually an additional $2.50 a person – an extra FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS FOR SUGAR WATER FOR TWO PEOPLE?! I think not. Hold the sugar (and the calories, thank you) and I’ll just have water.

Our grand total, for feeding two hungry people dinner – at P.F. CHANGS – was, are you ready for this?

$10. Ten whole smackers. BOOAYH!!  Did I mention that included a decent tip?

I can so do this tight budget junk.