Central Pennsylvania Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Depressed about the economy
Who isnt right?
Well my husband is back working which is great news. However the past few months of collecting just unemployement are catching up to us. We have no $ so we stay in every night. We feel like we will never catch up again, with the debt we have. We dont use our credit, just pay on it. But still, there will be no vacation this year or going out for us for a long while. What can we do that is special and fun to lift our spirits?
Re: Depressed about the economy
I second a game night with friends (we love Wii nights and Guitar Hero competitions). Invite friends over for dinner and a movie, or even coffee and dessert...if you like wine, hold a wine tasting where each couple/person brings a bottle for everyone to try.
Hang in there! Lots of people are in the same boat and it's scary and nerve wracking but life goes on.
I totally understand how you are feeling, my husband and I were talking about that this morning. We are trying really hard to save as much as we can for a down payment on a house plus pay down debt that we have so after that is done there is pretty much nothing left.
We have started to let ourselves do one 'fun' thing a month (a movie or dinner out) just so we feel like we are getting out a little. I usually try to pick something really special so I will look forward to it and not focus on staying in the rest of the time.
DH and I paid off our debt in the first 6-8 months of our marriage.. It sucked, but looking back now I am so glad we did that and we are so much better off now for it. My mom helped me coupon shop for groceries and get sales which helped a ton. We used our Discover card for all our purchases and then would use the cash back to get gift cards so we could go out to eat. We also budgeted money for us to be able to go out to eat at least once a month together. We also went to a yard sale and sold some things so we earned about $300 that way that just helped us get ahead at the time.
Here are some of the inexpensive activities we did. We took walks at a local lake almost every weekend with our dogs and it was fun, I kinda miss that place we haven?t been there in over a year. We cooked affordable meals together at our house and drank leftover wine from our wedding. We also would wake up on weekends and cooked a nice breakfast and ate it out on our deck in nice weather there was always a horse show going on across the street for me to watch from my deck as well. I am lucky that my grandparents bought me two horses and keep them on their property for me and feed them for me as well. So on weekends we would go over and I would ride and he would do odd work on the farm for my grandparents. We visited family often and had fun days with them and took a vacation to my parents? cabin. We volunteered for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life and that took up some weekends.
Hang in there, it will get better!
DH and I were doing "theme" nights for a while. Every month or so, we'd pick a theme. Our first one was Hawaiian Luau (since that's where he proposed). We cranked the heat for a while, put on tropical clothing, played Hawaiian music and ate Hawaiianish food (found a recipe for Polynesian chicken online, rice, pineapple and then had water ice for dessert). You could do Italian night, Spanish night, Movie night, etc. It's fun to do in the winter months when you don't want to go out in the cold!
Once spring comes, you can do picnics, parks, go for a drive, etc. The important thing is hanging out together and enjoying the time spent with each other. We're going through this now that we're strapping our budget down to prepare for our house....
Good luck!
I agree with pp about getting together with friends for games, dinner in, wine night, etc. Everyone can bring a dish too, even cheaper! : )
DH and I go to Barnes and Noble every once in a while just to grab coffee and read. I'm a huge bookworm and he'll look through travel mags or grab some books related to his field of work that he is interested in. We also take our dog out to parks or walks, and that takes up time. Do you have a dollar theater near you? We have one that costs $2.25 per ticket that we'll sometimes go to. They have new movies, just not brand new relased ones.
HTH, hang in there and I hope things get better soon!?
I hope things get better for you soon. The economy is definitely tough right now and we have had to be creative too. I agree with the suggestions of previous posters. We spend time together by going for long walks, going to the park, hanging out with friends just watching a tv show together, playing poker, or watching a movie at home.
Also, we tend to use coupons a lot, especially for little things to do together. For instance, we'll have a coupon for buy one get one free for ice cream and we'll make that into a night together getting out.