An enjoyable long weekend

No photos for this one as I don't have anything in particular to show. I might go and take some tomorrow for a garden update.

This Monday was Labour Day, which means little to me except that we got a long weekend out of it. I do enjoy not having to get up for work on a Monday morning!  We fit a lot into it, too.

Friday night - Operation Entertainment Book dinner out with Skry in the Flying Burrito Brothers. I haven't done these calculations for a while and there's a backlog, so bear with me:

+ 41.10
+ 30.00 (Mud House Winery lunch a few weeks ago)
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$ 71.10 total saved

+ 71.10
+ 30.00 (dinner with Skry in Simo's restaurant for my birthday)
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$ 101.10 total saved

+ 101.10
+ 24.00 (FBB dinner)
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$ 125.10 total saved

Alright, so that's the Operation Entertainment Book update out of the way!

Labour Day is traditionally when NZ gardeners plant out their tomatoes and peppers and other frost-hating plants. We did not realise that apparently we should have waited for the actual day, and planted ours out on Saturday, on a lovely hot sunny afternoon. Eight hours later, we had rain, wind, and hailstones! Our poor tomatoes :(

Oh well, the rest of the weekend was lovely, and today was an absolute scorcher. I planted some rose bushes and a swan plant (to attract monarch butterflies) and sat on the deck watching the chickens while Skry was off watching some wrestling match at a friend's house. It's all good.

Operation Entertainment Book

I'd planned to stop blogging about the Entertainment Book once we covered the price of it, as everything from now on is a saving, but I've been asked to keep it going. I'll try, anyway!

Dinner in the Bog on Friday night with Fiona and Richard - saved $19, and I thoroughly enjoyed my steak melt. That's the end of our Bog vouchers but I'm sure we'll be eating in there again.

$ 3.10
+ 19.00
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$ 22.10 total saved

And lunch in Speight's Alehouse today with Phil and Lou - saved $19 again and we were all stuffed afterwards.

+ 22.10
+ 19.00
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$ 41.10 total saved

This one was out in a shopping centre in Addington so I went out afterwards and bought some woolly jumpers and (surprisingly) some The Sanctuary shower gel and body cream. I was most surprised to find quite a range of Boots products for sale in Postie+. I guess it's all end-of-line stuff that didn't sell in the UK, but that won't stop me buying it!

Operation Entertainment Book

Dinner with Skry in a wine bar/restaurant called Infinity. Service was slow but the staff were pleasant and attentive, the food was average, we saved $23, and the Entertainment Book has now been fully paid off. Everything else we use it for from here until June 2009 is pure savings!

- 19.90
+ 23.00
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+ 3.10

Operation Entertainment Book

Dinner with friends in the Bog on Friday night. I had a lovely steak melt, Skry had lasagne, and we saved $20.

- 39.90
+ 20.00
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- 19.90

Operation Entertainment Book

During the week we ate out twice, courtesy of vouchers from last year's Entertainment Book which were given to us by other people. Although I can't count those towards savings produced by our own book, they are still worth noting. People tend to give away lots of vouchers at the end of the book's year when it becomes clear that they won't use them before they expire.

Domino's pizza - saved something like $9 on a BOGOF deal. However, one pizza was covered in dollops of raw garlic which was not very pleasant to eat, so we won't be hurrying back for that particular selection. I always loved Domino's pizza when we lived in Northern Ireland, but it does not seem to be made to the same standard here, and based on personal and reported experiences so far I will be switching allegiance to Pizza Hut.

The Flying Burrito Brothers - saved $20, and had an absolutely fantastic meal too on our weekly dinner date. I love that place and look forward to visiting again. We wouldn't normally have Mexican food two weeks in a row, but my chicken burrito was well worth it, and the service is always great there. It is my favourite Mexican restaurant in Christchurch.

Operation Entertainment Book

Dinner at Alva Rado's Mexican restaurant on Worcester Street (a fine meal, by the way, and I took home enough leftovers for my lunch tomorrow). Buy a main course, get another free, saving us $17.50

- 57.40
+ 17.50
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- 39.90

Operation Entertainment Book

We're starting small. Lunch for two in Subway today, total saving $7.60.

-65.00
+ 7.60
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-57.40

An excuse to eat out more

Through our workplace, Skry and I got a copy of this year's Entertainment Book for Christchurch. This is a book stuffed full of vouchers and special offers for restaurants, local services, and entertainment. For $65, we get a huge array of offers for buy-one-get-one-free main courses, or money off bill totals, so I think this will be a great excuse to go out for dinner more often. The two of us are already going out for dinner together once a week, and the place we had in mind for this week is in the Entertainment Book so that's a saving straight away. Of course, we can use the 25% off vouchers for more than just the two of us, if there's a group going out for dinner, so that's good too.

I wonder how long it will take us to recoup our $65. Let's find out!