I cannot remember how it came up yesterday but somehow Will and I got to talking about our finances.  It is no secret that we are not the richest kids on the block.  We are okay with this.  We don’t mind shopping at WinCo for the cheaper stuff or opting to stay at home all weekend instead of seeing a couple of movies or going on a road trip.  We like to daydream about winning the lottery but at the same time we’re glad that it hasn’t happened because of all of the greedy bastards that would come out of the woodwork asking for loans.

At the same time it sucks to hear about friends who go out and buy a new car like its no big deal, or to talk to someone who says “it’s only a thousand bucks” like a thousand bucks isn’t any sort of huge amount of money.  And that stupid green envy monster rears its head when I read about all of the fun other people are having while I sit at home and hope that my automatic Netflix payment won’t come out until after a client’s payment has made it into the bank.

Oh yeah and we have this little thing called a wedding to pay for (but that is a whole other post).

Anyway, Will and I were sitting around the house yesterday talking about how nice it would be to be able to afford to do cool and fun stuff… and how we both want to get in shape.  At some point we started talking about how we need to grow up and not give in to the urge to go to a fast food joint because we are too lazy to cook for ourselves and how we should start eating healthier food and exercising instead of sitting on our asses on our days off, etc.

And somehow this led to the decision to purchase a grill.

Yes, I know, we have a balcony but (until last night) had no barbecue or grill?!?  What kind of Americans are we??

We were talking about how the best way for us to save money right now right here is to stop going out to eat because we’re too lazy to cook and at the same time we both started bemoaning our lack of grill status.  Will was unhappy about not having a grill because he actually likes to grill and prefers the taste of grilled food to fried or anything else (I suspect that the playing with an open flame might also have something to do with it).  I was unhappy because the weather is (finally) heating up and the idea of having to spend the hot season cooking over a hot stove and oven was wholly unappealing.  It’s why we ate out so much last summer, because it was too damn hot to cook.  Seriously, who wants to stand next to a 375 degree oven and a boiling pot of pasta when it’s 95 degrees out?

Solution?  We needed a grill.

Yes, we solved our “I wish we could afford to go shopping for fun stuff” woes with going shopping for something fun.

We gave ourselves a budget of $200 and then spent an hour driving around and drooling over the bigger grills (the three and four burner grills) that came in at $199.99 but ultimately decided on a smaller size with the agreement to “upgrade” when we moved somewhere with more space and actually started having something of a social life.  Why buy a huge grill when we never have anyone over?   We ended up at Fred Meyer.  The store was having a sale on grills and we chose a small propane grill (that I have just now decided to name Chuck which makes Will scared of ever letting me name our kids) with two burners.  It is the perfect size for our balcony and us.  It was also a good $75 cheaper than everything else we were looking at, which left room in the budget for barbecue tongs and brushes and stuff.

Also?  Everything we bought was on sale and I found a store coupon that gave us an extra 10% off of everything, so we ended up buying the grill and the utensils and the cover for $120.  I am kind of proud that we did use the entire budget that we had allotted ourselves.

Also also can I just tell you that the Fred Meyer by our house has the most god awful customer service?  E-gad with the slowness!  I didn’t know that the “oh crap a customer” attitude went beyond the borders of their deli!  When our cashier took our grill slip thing and called to the back she ended up having a big ol’ conversation about future sales before getting around to asking about our particular grill model.  Then she said “okay he’ll bring it up” when what she meant to say was “meet him at the merchandise pick up in the back” (I found this out after standing at the front for a while and not seeing a single employee come anywhere near us).  Then when we went to the back, we had to wait for the guy to sloooooooooowly wander around the back room and scan a few different grill boxes before telling us that all of the boxes with our particular model were out on the sales floor, so we had to drive back around and meet him in the sales area and it just took forever.  And nary a “sorry this took so long” to be had.

But! We have a grill!  It is sitting in its box waiting for Will to put it together and then tonight we are going to have grilled chicken and salad for dinner.

Our grill is not without some consequences.  The only way I could justify spending the money was to put a kibosh on the eating out for the summer (except for my birthday).  Our goal is to go the entire summer without going out to eat more than once a month.  Will wants once a week, but I want to recover the cost of the grill.  Do I think we will be able to do it? Probably not.  But it is good to have a goal!

Our other goal is to really get the most food and stuff we need for our money.  I have two shelves in our bedroom closet that are empty–those could be used to stock up on non-perishables when they go on sale.  I also kind of like coupon cutting and hunting for deals so I am going to do that more often (and try to actually remember to take them to the store).

I’m also thinking that we should try an experiment with our shopping.  Usually we just go to WinCo.  It’s a mile from the apartment so we figure that the money we save in gas not driving all over the place is made up for in WinCo’s regularly cheap prices.  It’s also convenient to not have to drive to three or four stores to get all of the grocery shopping done.  I’m wondering if we really are saving money that way.  I wonder if truly shopping the sales wouldn’t more than make up for the cost in gas to get everywhere.  I don’t know if I can convince Will to take part in this experiment, but it’s worth a try. Admittedly, this would be easier to do if I had my driver’s license (but more on how lame I am later).

Plus, you know, all of our new found frugality (provided we don’t toss it all to the wind in a week) will make for good blog material.

But the point is: We have a grill!