Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time there were two married bloggers who got very, very busy and turned into terrible, horrible, no good, very bad bloggers...

Clearly you've figured out that story is about us. We haven't forgotten about our blog at all, we just can't seem to find enough time to sit down and share our exciting news with you all (no, we are not pregnant, calm down). Between school ending, two vacations, multiple jobs and snuggly kitten cats, we don't even have five spare minutes (okay, fine, maybe we have five, but we need more)! But, we're back from the good ole southern lowcountry and pinky promise to update this week. Stay tuned.

You Can Get Anything You Want At Annabelle's Restaurant

As should be obvious to everyone, we are trying to buy a house, and thus trying to save money. It's one of the reasons we started this blog in the first place (even though I am a bad blogger and have been neglecting our creation of late). As part of this search for our own home, we've been spending a LOT of time looking at properties. Sometimes this happens on a weeknight, and by the time we're done it's almost 9pm and the concept of cooking dinner is a nightmare - even more so than it is for me generally.

This confluence of events, and a handy-dandy Groupon, led us to Annabelle's in Hyde Park last month. This is a relatively new place as they just opened in 2010 and that newness is evident as soon as you walk in. The whole building is clean, modern, updated and open, providing a very welcoming atmosphere for a meal. They have ample seating both in the sizable bar area and in the rest of the restaurant, with TV's interspersed throughout the venue (which was key for us me this particular night, as I was able to catch the end of a Bruins playoff game while we ate).

The food here was very good as well. They advertise themselves as serving "traditional New England fare" but they have something for everyone, along with some interesting twists. Basically, they have a standard American dining menu, with everything from sandwiches to seafood and many cultural foods as well. Hard to not find something to eat when you dine here and more options are a plus in my book (though not necessarily going to get the Restaurant Impossible seal of approval, with their penchant for one page menus).

Sweet & Spicy!

About those "twists" on the menu.  One of the specials was Chicken & Waffles the southern-style staple. Liking both chicken and waffles, and never having had them together before, I obviously took the plunge. I was not disappointed. A delicious, flaky Belgian waffle was topped with crispy, succulent fried chicken with sides of maple syrup and hot sauce. While putting all these things together in one bite may sound odd, the flavors and textures all melded really well together. I'm sold on chicken and waffles and may need to explore other southern creation. My only beef is that one of my pieces of fried chicken was essentially just batter and bones though, which was disappointing.

Kendra got the wild salmon with jasmine rice and baby spinach over greens with a vinaigrette sauce, but in typical fashion subbed in rice pilaf for jasmine rice and added a side of asparagus. I had the leftover rice pilaf and it had excellent flavor, which was a nice surprise. The vegetables and salmon seemed to be good as well, as they didn't last long on the plate. Also of note, they bring delicious fresh baked bread before your meal, which melts in your mouth [not pictured due to the speed with which we devoured it]. It was like the peasant loaf of Joe's American Bar & Grill but we didn't share it amongst friends.

Now, given our Groupon, which was worth $35, we ended up paying about $7 bucks for the whole meal including tip. Not buying beverages goes a long way to keeping costs down. All in in, it was a nice dinner out at a new place that we'll likely go to again sometime. If you ever find yourself in Hyde Park, we'd recommend checking out Annabelle's - IF you can score a coupon. No sense paying full price for anything.

Free Money (Literally!)

April was a busy month for us. With a combination of Groupons and gift certificates we've been hitting up restaurants left and right. You're probably wondering where we got all these gift certificates since it our birthdays and anniversary (first one!) are still months away. Sad day. But, luckily, we have two magic websites to thank for that free money: E-Rewards and E-Miles. Both of these websites are pretty similar; they're a way to do online surveys to earn points. Those points can be redeemed for lots of things, one of which is a Restaurant.com gift certificate. We've already earned and used 3 $25 gift certificates, with one more on deck itching to be taken out! Not only is that a free $25, but earning them is so. freaking. easy. We can sit on the coach watching TV and do quick surveys that only take a few minutes. With the Restaurant.com gift certificates you have to spend a certain amount, which has been about $10 over the $25 but since all that money was free it's a CHEAP meal. If you love going out to eat and saving money, I highly recommend you check it out. What do you have to loose besides free money?!

House Hunting Hoopla

Daylight savings weekend seems to be the unofficial start to spring, and in that spirit we went to our first open houses on Sunday. The weather was nice, despite the recent dump of snow, and it seemed a lot of people had the same idea we did. Some even had the same routes planned. We saw a range of houses: some without finished walls (or any walls at all for that matter) and some that were so updated they looked like an IKEA showroom in Dubai (if you saw the house this would make more sense). Because of all of this grown up "fun" we've been having, I thought I'd share our reflections on the home buying process thus far.

1. Every bank assumes you can't actually afford a house, have the worst credit on the planet, and are up to your eyeballs in debt.

We've talked with 3 banks so far and the conversations always start off the same. Here are a few highlights:

• "Your debt ratio can only be 41%."
• "Unfortunately you need good credit in order to qualify."      (Hey now, we have excellent credit!)
• "You're a teacher? So you make what? 30K?"
• "That'll put your monthly mortgage payments around $1800." (We pay $1640 in rent and it goes up to $1795 on 6/1)

After we establish that we are actually competent, rationale adults things proceed much smoother from there. But it's not over yet so I kind of want to make a T-shirt online with our financial stats. Thoughts?

2. People have terrible, crazy taste. I mean terrrrrrible. 

This one, let's be honest, is no surprise to anyone. But it is staggering how much junk people accumulate and how little people "design" their homes. Has no one been watching HGTV? You've got to stage, buddy! I can't imagine myself living in your house with a picture of your round, hairy, shirtless man circa 1984 on the dresser. It's March: your penguin Christmas decorations are distracting me!

3. Houses priced correctly sell FASTER than you can schedule a tour. (Literally!)

I've been saving houses we like on Redfin for open houses or future tours. Every day I log on I have to delete at least 1 house that now has a sale pending, just days after appearing on the market. How did they even get their paperwork together that quickly? Does everyone have a fairy downpaymentmother? Is there anywhere I can find one? 

Overall, it was exciting and overwhelming to look at houses, but we saw one we liked which was encouraging (we'll see how long our luck holds out). This is all just in time really, because our neighbor's "performances" are reallllly getting old.

Anyone have an entertaining house hunting stories of their own?

Kicking Butt & Taking Savings

As January came to a close, I thought it might be a good idea to look back over the month's finances and see if this whole saving money thing was actually working. I will save you the boring details of how I went back to each of our credit card statements and totalled up all the food costs for each month back to September. Well, I'll save you most of the boring details...

Anywho, for our purposes here (so people will still read the blog!) I'm just going to stick with a one month comparison: December. In December, we spent $477.47 on dining out. And by that I mean all food and drink purchased outside of grocery shopping. DO YOU SEE THAT NUMBER?! You don't even want to know about November. Or October. Or September. Suffice it to say that we seriously needed that resolution. Suffice it to also say that I was a tad bit seriously nervous to calculate January. I mean, it felt like we were doing a good job, but it also feels like we don't watch too much TV and eat healthy (ha!) 

Ready?

This is where an HGTV show would cut to commercial.

Good thing we haven't gotten picked up for a show... yet. Alright, enough drama and stalling. I'm proud to report that our January dining out spending was just $109.58! DO YOU SEE THAT NUMBER?!! We. Are. So. Awesome. And rich. Or at least not poor. Basically, the lesson here is that we are dominating this resolution and with all the hundreds of dollars we're saving each month we'll have a house in decades years! 

Let Them Eat Cheap

With the New Year brings a flood of resolutions: get skinny, work out, save money, blah blah blah. Most of these only see the light of day for the first few weeks in January before they fall by the wayside. So obviously we've made all three of these resolutions, but we aren't delusional enough to think that we'll actually stick to them all, especially when our couch is so darn comfortable. Sigh. That being said, we are serious about buying a house this year. So we can stop living on top of other people. And have enough space in our closet so that we don't have to unpack everything just for a new roll of toilet paper.

Saving money isn't hard if you're a recluse and never do anything. Unfortunately, we have a (small) social life and enjoy doing things. One of our big weaknesses is that we love to go out to eat. It tastes delicious, you don't have to cook it, and it cleans up itself. What else could a person want? But if you recall our resolutions from above (that we almost just talked ourselves out of writing this last paragraph) that plan doesn't make our wallets fatter or our waists thinner. Hence this blog. Beginning with this new year, we've challenged ourselves to put our couponing skills to good use and cut back. The plan is to go 365 days without dining out...

...without some kind of coupon/Groupon/discount/deal. (If you actually thought we were going to give up restaurants, you have way more faith than we do). We figure blogging about it is a good way to stay accountable. And who knows, maybe someone will actually read it? Feed us? Make us famous? Solve the whole money problem once and for all? But until that happens our scissors are poised. Bon appetit.