Brown Baggin' It

Oh how I long for the warmer days. It's right about this time of year...the holidays--aka drunken distractions--are long over, and the lengthening daylight and clear blue skies tease us into thinking it's NOT barely 15 degrees outside...that I get a desperate itch for summer.

In all honesty, for many years I really liked winter, and I abhorred the summer. Summer is Wisconsin, is, er, was (I'll get into that in a sec) blazenly hot and sticky and gross, and I'm not a fan. "You can always put on more layers, but you can only take off so many," I used to claim to my friends who looked at me with absolute shock and pure disgust when I'd tell them Winter followed closely after Fall as my favorite season.

I'm done with that now. Perhaps it's my ripe old age of 30, but I just can't handle the winters like I used to (I recall wearing sandals to high school in January). Or maybe it's the cockamamied global warming the kids are talkin' about these days. Summers in Wisconsin are no longer that hot and sticky. Long gone are the 100+ degree heatwaves of my youth. Not to mention Wisconsin winters...for awhile, it would be rare to have a white Christmas and snow days were unheard of. This year has been relatively mild due to El Niñ-something. But the past few winters were most definitely full of city-crippling blizzards and sub zero temps. Long story short, I'm over it.

Now there's a Love on a Budget post in here somewhere, um, ah yes, summer. So late last summer, on a particularly comfortable evening, the BF and I took a walk around his neighborhood. We stopped at a liquor store and bought a couple of 16oz Sprecher beers, each placed into a concealing--yet obvious--brown paper bag. We cracked open those bad boys and continued our constitutional to the lakefront beach nearby and took in the sweet summer breezes and dazzling distant city lights. Now, clearly this may or may not be an illegal activity. Of course I didn't specify that it could or could not have been Sprecher's famous, and delicious, Root Beer. Either way, the activity was romantic, slightly adventurous (oh that zany root beer!), exercise, and--most importantly--cheap.

For many of us warm weather is insanely far away, and recalling this particularly lovely night just drives me even more Cabin Crazy than I already am. In the meantime, however, I guess I'll just uncork a bottle of delicious red wine (LOAB Holiday Gift #11: Alcohol of any kind, even cheap alcohol, makes a great birthday present), stream The Reader from the Roku, and enjoy the electric heat from our fake fireplace. Bottoms up Wisconsin Winter.

Swagbucks

Clearly I'm obsessed with Starbucks and even if you don't know me, you know it because I'm just that obsessed. I've been waiting patiently to write this particular post...two months to be exact! Two months ago I googled "Free Starbucks Gift Card" and found the following ehow site where #1 is:
"The easiest way to get free Starbucks gift cards is to use SwagBucks. This is a search engine that rewards users with credits. Once a user has 130 credits, a $10 Starbucks gift card can be redeemed. If you use the site enough, you can earn 2-3 gift cards a month."

2-3 gift cards a month, eh? Yeah. But before I get into that, here's my personal SwagStory: Aside from the free Starbucks gift card, I wanted to experiment with this concept so I could pass along the info to you, my fellow bloggers on a budget. So basically, I wanted to go about this as a very average user. There are some Silly for Swag people out there who go nuts over this stuff, with all the little hints and hunts (more on that in a bit). All in all, my effort in this endeavor was somewhere between bare minimum to mild interest.

Like ehow describes, it works as such: Sign up for an account. Download the SwagBucks Toolbar (and it 'installs itself' into the top of your browser). Then, instead of Google, you use the SwagBucks search engine, and every once in awhile ('once in awhile' being the operative phrase here), "SwagBucks" will pop up and drop into your account (as long as you're signed in). Usually it's just a dollar, but they say you can stumble upon $5, $10, etc. There are many other ways to get SwagBucks too: there's SwagHunts where you have to put together clues to get a code that you type into the main SB site. You can shop and earn SwagBucks. You can donate money to causes and earn SwagBucks. Basically anything short of prostitution will get you a SwagBuck (and even then I'm sure there are people out there...)

So you'd think these things would pile up, and you would, indeed, get yourself all kinds of gift cards for absolutely free. Well, as I said, it took me two months...two months to earn a $10 Starbucks gift card (aka: 130 SwagBucks). When I first started searching, I was earning about 3-4 SB a day. They tend to give you one in the morning, afternoon, and evening. With the holidays in there, though, I wasn't at work (um, where I may or may not be on the internet often?) so my SwagBuckery was at a lull. I also don't get all insane about it and look for the special codes or take part in the SwagHunts every time.

I'm a Google maniac and look stuff up like 387356283 times a day (um, not at work?). This is another reason why, initially, I thought this SwagBucks thing was gold, Jerry, GOLD! But I'll tell you...the SwagBuck search engine is pretty slim pickin's. "Who was that guy in the Goodwill commercial?" "Was Jeff's hat on Today's Special tan colored?" "Why is the music in Cadillac commercials so hip and awesome?" These are things you can NOT look up via SwagBucks' search engine. So usually what I'd do every day is look up the same very basic things: Facebook, Yahoo Mail, Blogger, Flickr, You Tube, etc any time I needed to get to those sites (as opposed to a. using my bookmarks or b. just typing the site into my browser).

So now that I've earned my $10 Starbucks gift card, will I continue this whole exSwagaganza? On the one hand, free is free, and typing in a word or two every few hours is really no skin off my back. If I don't really care too much about the whole thing, I'll keep on earning these guys and eventually get a gift card here and there. On the other hand, the whole thing is like an annoying itch that won't go away. That toolbar is always looming up there reminding me to Get My SwagBucks and I know it'll be forever till I get a measly $10 gift card*. Like putting pennies in a jar to try and get that bright purple bike sitting in the local shop window.

To make a long story even longer, my conclusion in all this is that I must be at a point in my life where I feel that getting free things should be easier...and that's not good! I should probably go back to earning my Starbucks coffee the old fashioned way...working...um, where I may or may not be on the internet often.



*a $10 gift card to Starbucks is the absolute opposite of measly and something I would love to have all day every day!

[Ed. note: I finally received my Starbucks $10 gift card in the mail yesterday! (2/17) So it really only took about five weeks...not so bad! Yay Starbucks and yay Swagbucks!]

Wise words from a wise-ish man...

Whilst catching up on my other blogger friends' holiday posts, I stumbled upon a most excellent composition about the importance, and *inexpensiveness*, of letting your loved ones know that they are the bomb.

And I quote:

"A lot of people are under the impression that being romantic involves flying your lady around the world, buying her pink diamonds, pouring Cristal Champagne all over her naked body (how wasteful), but all you have to do, and listen carefully, male readers, is remind her all the time that she matters to you. You could do this most every day, and it doesn't cost a thing."

I particularly love that this is coming from a dude.

Please do yourself a solid and read it all here at The Gancer. And do yourself an even bigger solid and make it happen!

Holiday Gift #10: Thrift Store Finds

When you pay $2.50 for some hockey skates, it's going to be a great holiday. Way back in the day, my boyfriend played hockey for awhile, and was even drafted to the NHL although never officially played for the league before he called it quits to pursue "the arts." Meanwhile my stepdad got his stepdaughters totally obsessed with the sport back in the mid '90s. I still have binders full of hockey cards and an old Sabres jersey in my closet. No lie, I used to dream of meeting and marrying a hockey player. Obsessed I tell you. Well here I am dating an ex player and here in Milwaukee we have an official US Olympic training facility, the Pettit National Ice Center. It's a match made in heaven.

Well the magic doesn't stop there people. At the Pettit it costs $10 for public skating and that includes the $3 skate rental. Now this might not sound like all that much, but I'd love to go more often since it's fun, romantic, and a hell of a good workout for my ass. So right after Christmas, my boyfriend discovered that a local thrift store, Value Village, put out a bunch of used ice skates. He wanted to get me a pair for Christmas, but obviously a new pair is very much out of budget range. Well we scurried on over there and I found a pair of hockey skates that fit for $5! Oh it gets better! It was Half Off Wednesday, so a dull rusty pair of $2.50 Bauer Chargers were officially mine, thanks to my boyfriend and his sweet belated Christmas gift.


I'll probably revisit the awesomeness that is thrifting again and again in this blog because it's a fantastic resource for cheap gifts, and cheap fun altogether! My boyfriend is a huge Dokken fan, and last summer he took me to see them at the State Fair. (CLASSIC right?!) Well a few weeks prior we were on one of our thrifting adventures and I found his favorite Dokken album on vinyl and surprised him. You probably had to be there, but trust me it was pretty stellar.

Ok back to the skates. As I mentioned public skate with rental is $10, but now that I've got myself my own pair of skates, the cost comes down to $7 and I think I can handle that. Because sometimes you have to spend money to save money, right?

***

So yeah! That will officially conclude my Ten Fabulous Holiday Gifts on a Budget. Coupon books, memory journals, and wallets full of goodies. Homemade planners, coasters, and cake cookies. Scavenger hunts, Blurb books, and enough decoupage that will get you high off the glue. I think the list provides a vast array of quality ideas that can be utilized throughout the year for really any occasion. So treat your husband, your girlfriend, your brother, and your best friend to some of your sweet creativity. PS my 30th birthday is on Wednesday. Just sayin'...

Holiday Gift #9: Memory Journal

Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa semi-belatedly! And a fabulous New Years Eve to all! Yeah yeah, I wasn't able to squeeze in all ten gifts before the celebration of gift-giving officially ended, but in my eyes it's STILL the holidays and it's never to early to plan for next year!

And speaking of next year, here's a good idea: start a holiday journal! My mom started one a billion years ago (I kid, mom)...but really, it was before my time I think (thirty long long years ago). Anyway, each year she started with Thanksgiving and worked her way through the holidays, describing events, meals, Christmassy outings, gifts, etc.

But Katie, I'm like twenty years into my marriage, what's the point of keeping track now?

A holiday journal is a pretty snazzy thing to pass down from generation to generation, I say! Just think of the time capsule-esque capabilities! "Wow, look here, in Christmas of 1994, you got all sorts of Magic the Gathering stuff...where did all that end up?!" It's always fun to remember what kinds of gifts people asked for, what sorts of odd phases they were into over the years. It's also fun to look back and laugh about the things that went wrong! Like when the family hamster escaped into the crawl space and died, but no one noticed the smell until Christmas morning when dad forgot that he had hid mom's new blender in there.

But Katie, I don't want to stop at just a holiday journal! What more can I do?!

I'm glad you asked! This year my sister undertook QUITE the endeavor for one of her boyfriend's Christmas gifts. She kept a relationship journal all year long, documenting their dates and various day-to-day moments. They started dating in September of 2008, so the entirety of 2009 was the majority of their relationship. So basically a sort of Year One memory log. Indeed, as I said, quite the endeavor. But maybe kind of a fun idea for those of you who love to write. It doesn't even have to be an every day journal, but just important dates and memorable moments. Like when he surprised you with a love note on page 189 of the medical text book that put you guys in the poor house. Or when she decoupaged a nightstand with Hitchcock posters for your birthday. The receiver of this relationship journal will get to look back on all that fun stuff and ways in which he or she really made you happy. On the other hand, you could also use the journal to discuss times when perhaps you got into an argument over where to keep the paper towel roll, but you solved the issue in a loving and appropriate manner. When you write about problems, it provides a constructive place to hash them out and often gives you more incentive to solve them too. Obviously you may not want to bash your wife on paper and then give it to her on an anniversary, but if you're constructive and positive and discuss how you solved the issue in the aforementioned loving and appropriate manner, it'll be a great tool to use for the future. Orrrrr maybe it'll just rip open old wounds, I don't know, I'm not a psychologist. Just write some stuff down, be funny, be cool, be generous with your kind words, and be grateful for the great moments you share.

Holiday Gift #8: Rad home stuff

Just when you thought it was over, I thought I'd throw more DIY craftiness at you! This time it's personalized and creative stuff for the home, like coasters, for example. Take a look at the particularly lovely situation going on at stylemepretty.com.


Plain white square ceramic tiles from somewhere like Home Depot or HOBO are super cheap. Obviously by now you're a decoupage pro, so you can make these bad boys way cool in no time at all.

And speaking of being a decoupage pro, maybe you should considering making a set of artistic glass plates! Ok it sounds sorta doilyesque, but imagine how awesome it would be to have a set of personalized skull and crossbone plates?!


Here's a pretty easy tutorial on how to really tackle this project. All you're really doing is gluing some sort of image to the back of a plate, followed by a few steps to protect it. Plain glass plates can be found in all sorts of places like craft stores, Target, and even the Dollar Store, but save-on-crafts.com is a good spot to buy in bulk. Get funky and purchase some cheap vinyl albums from Goodwill, scan in the covers, print out the images, and get your decoupage on. You've got yourself a set of Pink Floyd plates, who knew that was possible?!

How about magnets? Fun magnets can be created with pretty much anything...



and everything...


Grab an object and slap a magnet to the back. You are done my friend. But to get a little more doily about it,


check out this lovely tutorial.

This kind of stuff is like my porn, I'm telling you. So, ironically, once the holidays are over, I'd love to take a few of these projects by storm, at which point, I will pass along my own personal tips and results! I know, you're all so freaking excited, I can feel it through the binary code flowing through my fingers.

Holiday Gift #7: Wallet Full of Goodies!

Completely disregarding your sense of morality, imagine finding--and keeping--an average person's lost wallet or pocketbook. Now imagine the contents of said wallet or pocketbook and what types of things might reside inside, things that would be fun to use. Gather all this information and turn it into the coolest gift ever!

Purchase a cheap wallet or pocketbook. Fill it with all kinds of gift cards and cash, maybe a receipt for a lovely Gap sweater that's hiding in the closet, anything papery and worth a little something. Done. While seemingly expensive, this gift doesn't have to be. Goodwill works well to locate the container of choice. And as for the gift cards, think about the aforementioned average person who has like $4.58 left on his Starbucks card. Or what about a restaurant.com certificate...$25 for only $2 on 80% off days! Perhaps your local city has cheap, or even pay-what-you-want shows. Here in Milwaukee, we have a couple venues that offer $10 tickets for up-and-coming bands and artists. (Be the coolest person on your block and Facebook about seeing the latest rad indie band that came into town.) You could throw in a check that hasn't been cashed that just so happens to be written out to the giftee from the gifter. Maybe toss in a couple sticks of gum.

This type of gift spans all kinds of relationships too. You could do something like this with a purse for a bachelorette gift (omg just think of the naughty possibilities), or even a baby shower gift (throw in a pacifier and some Ibuprofen). You could place the wallet on a park bench real quick before your husband passes by. If your wife gets off on shoplifting, perhaps you should place this the purse amongst the other purses at a nearby mall. All kinds of totally legal adventures await you with this fun holiday gift!