“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”- Randolf G

Thanks to A Frugal Chick for sharing this post with us

As life gets busier it is getting harder to find time to spend with my close girl friends. Kids, husbands, jobs and so many other things take precedence over just getting together and hanging out. Facebook, text messaging and e-mail make us feel like we know each other but there is no replacement for some good face time.

So about 18 months ago a few girlfriends and I decided to begin a “Dinner Club”- taking one night a month to prioritize our relationships with each other and catch up on life. We meet at someone’s house (sans boyfriends, husbands and usually kids) and take a few hours to sit down and eat a meal together. It’s a great chance to catch up on what is going on in everyone’s life.

We decided to add a challenge. In addition to setting aside some important time to hang out we wanted to further develop our cooking skills (some need more developing than others).

Whoever chooses to host the dinner gets to pick a theme. We rotate houses each month so that the burden of hosting does not always fall on one person. Everyone must prepare a recipe within that theme that they have NEVER COOKED BEFORE. So far our themes have included Chinese, Irish, Hawaiian, things that are round (that was interesting) and even a proper English Christmas meal. Some of the recipes turn out to be epic failures and some become new favorites.

At the end of these nights my cheeks usually hurt from laughing. My belly is full of good food. My heart is satisfied from having time with a great group of friends. And my wallet is usually only about $10 emptier.
So if you have been missing your girlfriends and have been looking for an excuse to get together, I recommend a great frugal activity: begin a Dinner Club.

Thanks to Jessica (a member of our dinner club) for the beautiful picture. You can check out her work here.

Luxury Living Frugal Style is sharing her new weekly series, “Men Save Money Monday” with us! 

We all know the temptation to buy lunch when we are at work because many people go out to lunch on their lunch break, but going out to lunch becomes very costly. For me it is about $10 every time I go to a place like Wendy’s or McDonald’s. A great way to save money is packing your lunch. For about $20 at the grocery store (even with out coupons) you can get everything you would need to pack your lunch for a whole week. Another great option is to bring leftovers from the night before’s dinner.

While this many not be the “cool” thing to do at work you will be the one saving money and eat a healthier meal!

Thanks to Luxary Living Frugal Style for sharing!  I didn’t post this deal, but I know a lot of other bloggers did.

About 7-8 months ago Franklin Goose ran a promo where if you wrote a review for products on their site they would give you store credit. In October they sent an e-mail that store credits would be put on hold for 6 months so that they would be able to catch up on the orders they had because they were back ordered. Now I just received an e-mail stating that ANY open orders will be closed and ALL store credits will be taken away from customers!

I personally did 8 reviews of products on their website, giving me a $40 store credit. I placed an order that I ended up canceling and having the store credits given back to me and having a 6 month freeze on them since they did not know when they would be able to fill my order. Well now they are TAKING ALL THE CREDITS AWAY! I am extremely mad about this, in December I spoke with them and they told me I would have my credits available to use in 6 months. I was annoyed by having to cancel my order because I had not received it yet (I ordered cloth diapers so that we could start that and those diapers not being here put a hold on another review I had agreed to with a company that was for laundry soap) So not only have they not sent me an order, caused a back up in a review (because they said my order would be filled with in 6 weeks), I canceled the order and got my store credits back and was told they would just be on a hold now they are TAKING THEM AWAY!

Yes I get it people posted reviews for the credits, BUT Franklin Goose as a company should have known that people would do reviews, that word of mouth would be the way that they get business and now they are backing out of an agreement that they made. Blogger blogged about this deal because it was awesome and really Franklin Goose Got FREE advertising from bloggers! It really irritates me when companies do not hold their end of the agreement, we as customers did what you asked and now because you got the publicity and your companies name out and what THEY wanted they want to say oh well we got what we want so we are taking your store credits from you! To top it off if you have an open order with them using credits they are canceling it! But they will give you a 40% off coupon code instead of your credits. Well that to me is garbage!

Did any of you do the Franklin Goose Promo for credits?