Budget Nights Out: How to Have a Great Time Without Breaking the Bank

We all love a good night out. We love to spend time with friends and family, we love to attend parties, and we enjoy meeting new people to socialise with. It’s part of our human nature to engage with others, so it’s understandable that we spend a lot of money each week on nights out to buy alcohol, food, and even gifts.

However, it's a cost that can add up and make huge dents in our weekly budget. Drinks cost incredible amounts of money at fancy bars (or even your local pub) and the food is even more expensive. Add in the cost of entry fees or taxi fares, and you’ve got a weekly expense that’ll leave your wallet crying. Instead of splashing out all the time, take a look at these money-saving tips to help you get the most out of your money.

Image Source: Pexels

Set a Cash Limit

Instead of carrying your card with you, carry cash. When we carry around our credit or debit cards, it’s easy to lose count of how much we’re actually spending and we could easily go overboard. With cash, you have a set limit and you can’t go beyond that. Just keep in mind to save money for the journey home—you don’t want to be stranded in the middle of the city!

Split Taxi Fares or Designate a Driver

Getting to and from the venue can be expensive. The best way to avoid extortionate taxi fares is to drive there yourself or split the cost with your friends. However, just keep in mind that you should never be drinking and driving.

If you designate a driver, then make sure they don’t touch a single drop of alcohol before they drive. If you plan to stay at the venue for a long time, then the driver can have a few drinks—just make sure to let the alcohol’s effects fade before leaving. There are excellent DWI resolutions available if you ever get caught with driving with high blood alcohol content, but it’s best to make sure it never happens in the first place.

Image Source: Pexels

Have a Few Drinks Before Going Out

The most cost effective way of getting into the mood is to have a couple of drinks before you head out. The idea is that you won’t need to buy as many drinks to get tipsy (or drunk) when you’re our. Buying alcohol from a supermarket is far cheaper than the expensive venues that charge ridiculous prices You’ll be making huge savings by having a couple of pre-drinks. Just make sure you aren’t completely wasted before heading out—you might as well stay home at that point!

Stay At Home Instead

Speaking of staying home, how about not heading out at all? You could have an excellent night in with friends and family, some takeaway pizzas, and a movie or some video games. You won’t meet anyone new (unless you throw a party instead!) but you’re going to get the same fun as heading out to an expensive bar. You’ll save loads of money by providing your own entertainment, and you can buy lots of drinks at the supermarket for the same price of a cocktail in a club.

DIY Mosquito Control Methods

DIY Mosquito Control Methods

Mosquitoes can breed in just an inch of standing water, meaning that they can stay in many areas around your home. When there are many mosquitoes in your compound, you need to get rid of them. Here are several ways to do that at home:

Remove empty containers

Start by cleaning out the empty containers in your yard and storing away buckets that are not in use. If your dog must have water in the backyard, make sure that you change it at least once a day. Do you have other containers that must stay outside? Make sure that you punch holes in them to drain water.

Cut your grass and trim your bushes

During the day, these annoying little creatures like to rest in tall blades of grass or in shrubs found in a warm, shady area. When you trim your grass, you will be depriving mosquitoes of a resting place. Moreover, you should rake up any leaves that fall down.

An overturned leaf has the ability to hold enough water for mosquito eggs, giving them a place to wait it out.

Check your rain gutters

As branches, leaves, and other debris often plug gutters, water usually accumulates in them instead of draining out. To avoid this, you should clean your gutters regularly in the summer. If you leave water standing in the gutters for more than a week, mosquitoes will end up laying eggs in them.

Look after your pool

You should keep your pool water clean and chlorinated. When not in use, make sure that you drain and cover your pool – the same should be done for collapsible and wading pools. Any decorative items such as ponds or birdbaths should be refilled with fresh water at least once a week.

You can also choose to stock your pond with fish that eat mosquito larvae.

Fill in low-lying areas

Any depressions in your yard can hold water when it rains or after you water your lawn. Without the right drainage, water will stay in these depressions and give mosquitoes a chance to breed. You should consider installing a drainage system or just add sod and dirt to the depressions.

There is no guarantee that cleaning up the breeding sites will keep mosquitoes at bay. They can always choose a different breeding ground and fly into your yard. Because mosquitoes only feed several hundred yards from their breeding ground, the above measures will certainly help.

Natural mosquito control

If the DIY mosquito control methods do not work for you, you can use biological means to get rid of them: predatory fish, bacteria, and plant repellents. Here are some of the animals that you can keep:

Mosquito fish

Fish such as The Gambusia are surface feeders that will eat larvae and mosquito eggs by the hundreds. If you have 48 surface feet of water, a dozen Gambusia will do the job of getting rid of mosquitoes. This breed of fish is hardy and can survive in stagnant water.

Dragonflies

Although dragonflies may look scary to humans, they are only dangerous to mosquitoes. Their larvae usually feed on mosquito larvae while the adults feed on adult mosquitoes. If you want to attract dragonflies to your compound, create a safe and comfortable environment for them.

You can create a small pond that is deep at one end and shallow at the other, with vegetation growing out of it and flat rocks encircling it – this will work for attracting dragonflies. However, if you do not want to get your hands dirty, contact a mosquito control New Jersey based company to get rid of the mosquitoes for you.

5K Runs and Walks in Kansas City: Westport St. Patrick's Day Run March 11, 2017 #StPatsRun

YES! A race right up our lazy homeschooling Irish alley! My family of 7 has been looking for a race we can walk together and this one might be it ... with a start time of 10 a.m. instead of the usual butt crack of dawn like other races, you just might find us there!

Here's the deal: before I was the homeschooling writer mom of 5, I used to love to walk all the time as a stress reliever and to stay in shape. Walking is something you can do as a parent anytime, but now that my youngest is 7 and my oldest is 15 (and driving!), it's a lot easier for me to fit in time for my own fitness. Over the winter I walked some at the gym on the treadmill and track. Now I can walk the neighborhood or the field at the school by my house if my danged IT band is not making me cry. For now I walk in my OOFOS sandals because they are the most comfy thing I have ever worn and work perfectly for summertime. When it's cold I walk in my Brooks that I get at Elite Feet in Leawood. Mention my name and I get a $10 credit!

Here's the info on the upcoming Westport St. Patrick's Day Run.

What: 39th Annual Kansas City Track Club's Westport St. Patrick's Day Run

When: Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 10:00 a.m.

Where: 4050 Pennsylvania in empty restaurant space, Westport in Missouri (Irish Mecca)

Check the link (above after WHAT) for more info!

P.S. I get my info from the fabulous KC Running Company website.

On a personal note, here's my walking story for National Walking Day a couple of years ago with an update.

When you're all done, you'll be hungry! Grab a copy of my Tater Tot Casserole Cookbook and whip up a batch of happiness for dinner!

Get $5 When You Sign Up For #Swagbucks in December!

 

 We've reached the Holiday season, and if you haven't begun already, now's the time to start shopping for the Holidays! Since this time of year in particular is a good one for having some extra money, Swagbucks is offering a $5 bonus to people who sign up through me this month!

Swagbucks is a rewards site where you earn points (called SB) for all sorts of things you're probably already doing online, like shopping, discovering deals, taking surveys, watching videos, and more! Then you can turn your gift cards in to PayPal cash or gift cards to places like Amazon, Starbucks, and more!

Here's how you get your bonus:

1. Sign up using this link.

2. Earn 300 SB total before January 1st. You'll get a $3 (300 SB) bonus for it!

3. When you do your holiday shopping, spend at least $25 through Swagbucks Shop* and you'll get another $2 (200 SB) bonus on top of the cashback you'll get from shopping.

That's it. It's super easy, and Swagbucks is for real. I use it myself, and I've earned $366 in Swagbucks since I started. Sometimes I get gift cards and sometimes I get PayPal cash. It was nice to have this year for Christmas gifts ordered online!

*You must receive your shopping SB before February 1st.

What Really Goes Into Your Job Satisfaction?

Like almost everyone, you’ve probably had a number of jobs from your teens onward. Some were probably great, some might have been okay, and some might have been absolutely terrible! Many people find it a little confusing that as they’ve “moved up” in their career, they’ve become less satisfied with the work they’re doing. Here, I’ve written a post on the main factors affecting an employee’s job satisfaction.

Working Conditions

Image: Wikimedia

This is the most obvious and immediate factor that’s going to affect how you feel at your work. Because we spend the majority of our lives at work, the conditions we work in are going to have a pretty profound impact not only on our job satisfaction, but also our overall mood outside of work. Things like how spacious or cramped our working environments are, how adequate the lighting is, and how comfortable our workstations are, can all be big deciding factors in how happy we are in our jobs. The social atmosphere, and the overall lifestyle tied to our job title, can also have a huge impact on our moods as employees. If your boss isn’t providing you with the environment and productivity tools to create good working conditions, then it may be time to start job hunting again.

Opportunity

It’s been proven time and time again that employees get more satisfaction out of their jobs when they can see a clear path to rise through the ranks of the company, and eventually land in a position that interests them more, or simply has more benefits tied to it. Many companies take steps to actively encourage their workers to gain more advanced skills than they already have, and aim for higher positions. Others, however, simply let things carry on as they are. In these businesses, the upper management are typically too wrapped up in the next big marketing campaign, managing the company’s assets, and various other things to pay attention to their employees’ career progression. If there was some talk about advancement when you first sat down for your interview, but you’ve heard very little about it since then, then there are probably better jobs for you out there.

Workloads and stress Levels

Image: Pexels

Having to come into work every day and deal with workloads that are far too large, or deadlines that are near impossible to meet, can be a strain on someone’s job satisfaction for obvious reasons. Obviously, companies have targets to meet and orders to fulfill. However, a company is not a person! If someone is being pushed too hard by the demands of their job, then it’s inevitably going to take a toll on their mental and physical health. Furthermore, if the work is so demanding that the worker begins to miss deadlines or submit sub-standard work, it can create conflict with their managers and co-workers, piling on even more stress and causing them to become even more dissatisfied with their work. It may be a route to your dream job, but pushing your body and mind too far is rarely worth it in the long run.