Café Con Monica

Meetup: Keeping it Social & Cheap

So in this quest to save money I have had to cut back on a few things, eating out, expensive weekends shopping & eating out, going to social functions that involve a lot of spending. It is hard. Since I started a meetup group back in September a lot of the planning is left to me. Until the group goes big enough that people start to host, I am stuck doing the majority of it. I love to plan, I love being social so usually it works out perfectly. Except…I need to save.

I can’t just walk away from the group so I started to brainstorm some meetup ideas that would be cheaper and so far its working out great! Here are some of the meetups I have planned/already hosted.

Meet & Greet: Cupcakes

This one was this past week and was great! Molly’s Cupcakes are some of the best cupcakes in Chicago(my opinion of course) and it allowed for a small group to come together, talk for a few hours and get to know each other over sweets! The girls really loved it, the timing was perfect (after work 6:30 pm) and we all just got to relax and chat. My cost total for the meetup was $9.00, I had a cupcake & latte!

Movies & Wine

I can comfortably host a decent amount of people in my place, I always have wine around and I own a firestick w/Kodi. So I have a meetup for Movies & Wine planned for next Friday night. Everyone is welcome to bring snacks or wine/drinks and we will pick some movies and just hang out. It seems to be an extremely popular idea and we have a wait list for it too! I don’t know the exact cost yet but if I don’t find a random reason to spend crazy then it should be Free!  

Art Institute: Thursday Night (Or any Evening Free events!)

The Art Institute of Chicago is free to Illinois residents from 5-8:00 pm on Thursday nights! Yay free admission. So I planned a meetup for the group to take a stroll around, look at some art and then get some coffee afterwards. The admission is free so should only cost me a cup of coffee!  

Sunday Brunch Party

Along those lines of hosting I also really really love Brunch as you have probably figured out by my many brunch weekend posts. BUT brunch is expensive…especially if you like Bloody marys! I have a waffle maker at home and space so tada brunch party! I set it up so everyone should bring either champagne or juice and fruit. I am in charge of location and the bacon, eggs & waffles ( luckily I always have the baking ingredients for waffles and bacon and eggs are in my weekly grocery list anyway) Not sure of the cost yet but will 100% be cheaper than having brunch at a restaurant!

Those are some of the upcoming ideas to keep me saving and still allow for a social life! Do you have any fun ideas I can steal?

TBB Asks: New Year, New You

I love doing link ups, sharing my blog with more people and getting to find new blogs I may otherwise not have found on my own. I especially love ones that ask questions that allow me share a bit about myself! When I saw this one on The Blended Blog I thought it would be fun to share.

Resolutions or No Resolutions: No resolutions for me. I am so terrible at keeping up with things like that and after years of making & breaking them I realized I should stop. I pick a theme/word for the year and go with that in whatever form it takes but importantly I make sure that I do my best to do what makes me happy every year.

Love Snow or No Snow: Noooo snow. No thank you. BUT I will take it over -30 windchill if I must. I feel like if it is going to snow I want it to dump like a foot of snow so everything shuts down and I can just go out and play in it and relax at home.

Name a New Place you want to go this year: Hmmm there are so many. I feel like my list gets longer everyday. I am really trying to explore more of the US though so Austin is next on the list of cities to visit.

Would you rather have a new hair cut or new hair color: This one is tricky. I hate cutting my hair because I ALWAYS regret it after unless its only a trim. I love having long hair but I recently cut about 6 inches off because it was touching my butt already. But I do always feel so fresh after a new color!

Name one special thing you want to do for yourself this year: I would really like to make a travel wall. I have this idea in mind to go along with a Map gift I got for my wall. Since I really don’t like trinkets and knick knacks around the house I always buy something to hang and I want to get it all together all nice.

Least Favorite Thing about January: The cold. It gets so effing cold in Chicago in January & February it makes you hate leaving the house

Most Favorite Thing about January: Everything slows down. No more holiday rush, no more something to do every single week/weekend. Its a great time to get organized and relax!

When do you take down your Holiday decorations?  I don’t take down holiday decorations until after Three Kings Day (January 6). Usually a couple days after or that weekend depending on the day of the week it falls on.

Do you diet in January: I am on a revolving diet train at all times so January isn’t much different except that I am usually so bogged down and gross from all the junk food over the holidays & break that I am happy to eat better.

What area of your home do you want to organize most: My bedroom. I have 2 closets and one has turned into a storage for all things. That needs to be fixed.

Favorite Winter Comfort Food: Easy! I love love mashed potatoes! Shepard’s pie makes my heart so happy too.

Favorite Guilty Pleasure: Are cookies a guilty pleasure? But otherwise YA books. They get me every time. I love them and I don’t care how ridiculous they are.

If you aren’t linking up tell me some of your answers!!

Monday Funday?

Nah..those don’t exist.

But I just found out that the City of Chicago doesn’t have a special trick or treating day so I might actually get to give out some candy on Halloween! yay!! (This never happens because I live on a block with a ton of apartment buildings…but thenewguy lives by houses!!)

Anyway. Was a great, exhausting weekend. So here we are on Monday and I get to blab about it…

Friday…after weeks of back and forth Thenewguy declared that he would not be going out into the crowds on his only night off of the weekend so we had a little house thing. By little I mean his roommates and me. Still dressed up and was still a good night though!

Saturday... made some breakfast and then decided to finally carve some pumpkins before relaxing and heading out to the river north area for a Halloween Bar Crawl. Our costumes were a success and I only saw one other person as Louise the whole night. I think I might finally be done with going out for Halloween though…literally girls throwing up into cups by 10 pm…10 freaking PM. Not ok.

then…that night…
We were so excited to find someone dressed as Bob!  
Another Tina…
 
Sunday…Had some quality time with my sis and neice and nephew just hanging out. Then I headed back to the city to check out The Day of the Dead in the City of Chicago event at the National Mexican Museum of Art. I took plenty of pics but I think I will make a separate post for it. 
and a quick picture of the event…
Can’t wait to read about your weekends!
 

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