The other day I was talking to a friend of mine. Between exchanging news about the children and work, she mentioned that they don’t ‘have much life at the moment’.
Yep; you probably guessed right. My friend and her husband recently found out that their debt is out of control. They did what most people in their situation do: accepted that their life is not going to be drudgery for the next four-five years.
They just won’t have life.
I have been there and you can trust me when I say that not having life means that you are not going to pay off your debt either. Why?
Because having fun and budgeting for it is a neglected rule of personal finance but a very important one nevertheless. Refusing all pleasure and feeling deprived only means that you are more likely to ‘fall off the wagon’.
Being on a budget – even a fairly strict one – doesn’t mean that you should forgo all fun; it means that you will have to find different ways to have fun.
When we were in the throes of debt we stopped going to restaurants. Instead, we managed to convince our friendship group to take turns to cook dinner. It worked fine for a bit.
Anyway, during the three years of our aggressive debt repayment we entertained at home a lot. Even this can be made to be fun.
Once we had a bet with our friends that we can serve three course French dinner for £1.50 ($2.40) per person. We won. Winning took ingenuity, smart shopping and cooking everything from scratch.
Here is the menu (yep, we had a fancy menu card as well):
Let me tell you, £1.50 ($2.40) has never tasted that good!
Now the recipes.
The onion soup recipe came from the Penguin Cordon Bleu Cookery by Rosemary Hume and Muriel Downes. All you need is: 1 lb. onion, 2 oz. butter, 1 table spoon of flour, 3 pints of stock, 1 small French loaf; grates Parmesan and Gruyere cheese.
Cook the onion in the melted butter until brown, add the flour and the stock. Simmer for 20-30 minutes.
Place the sliced bread in an earthenware casserole, pour the soup and sprinkle with cheese. Place in hot oven till brown and serve very hot.
Chicken with sage and rosemary served with mashed potato and salad. This is absolutely delicious: chicken breast and legs fried in olive oil with rosemary and sage. Delicate and tasty. (The recipe came from my Nintendo cooking chip.)
Chocolate mousse and melon. This recipe came from The Guardian and is called ‘Perfect chocolate mousse’ – it is perfection and easy to make.
For two servings you need 60g of dark chocolate (at least 70%), 2 eggs and 2 tsp caster sugar. Melt the chocolate over steam; separate the eggs and whisk the whites until they form soft peaks, then add the sugar (with a hand mixer this takes couple of minutes). Mix the yolks into the melted chocolate and whisk in third of the egg white. Fold the rest of the egg white into the mixture.
Spoon in serving bowls and put in the fridge for at least four hours.
This is it! Three course French dinner for £1.50 ($2.40) per person. And we do all this as a family so I could catch up with my son’s news – you know boys, they share better when they are doing something next to you. Like beating egg whites.
Who said that people have to stop entertaining when on a budget; one can always eat for less.
I would love to hear your experience with entertaining at home.
Wow! This is great! The chicken might be the toughest squeeze for me, especially because it calls for breast meat, but it would all be inexpensive nonetheless 🙂
Thanks. Will surely try some of this out
@DebtBLAG: Well, you can use only legs. My absolute favourite is the chocolate mousse (naturally).
When we were young and broke, we used to invite people over and they would each bring something. It was a great way to get together and enjoy life on the cheap. As my friends and I became more affluent, we still did a slightly modified version. Someone would bring dessert or drinks.
@Krant: Yes, our friend brought the wine. But here in the UK we do this one anyway. Which can backfire somewhat is your friends don’t know much about wine :).
Great recipes – French Onion soup is our favourite so we definitely need to try that.
I prefer entertaining at home compared to eating out whatever your level of debt or net wealth. Its better quality and you can have better quality time with your guests.
@Moneystepper: Good point. Now that we have no debt and have started to accumulate capital fast we still prefer to have people around – problem is, we have not done it for a long time now. I find it is easier to talk and, as you mentioned, have great time.
You are right about budgeting in fun, but it is also important to sometimes redefine what fun is. Many years ago when we paid off all our debt we had small children and we found a lot of ways to spend time together and have fun without spending a lot of money. It could get awkward around some of our friends who were still spending big on credit cards and living large….but most of them eventually went through the same thing.
@ConsumerFu: Yes, I agree with the need to re-define ‘fun’. I also found that one can do the things they’ve always liked doing but doing them differently means they can be so much cheaper. Probably need to do something on ‘how to get the things you like and still have cash left’ :).
This post made me hungry!!! Were you able to talk to your friend about approaching debt repayment in a less painful way?
@Michelle: Well, I hope you tried cooking some of the dishes (the chocolate mousse is certainly worth it :)). As to my friend, I sent her The Money Principle Tools and will be chatting to her next week – it is amazing how many people seem to think that suffering with get the to their goals.
I agree. You don’t have to be a monk when you are on a budget. There are many affordable things to do. Cooking is a great way to save money and eat well.
Wow this is a great tip! Whenever my friend visits me I usually cooked grill fish and have some fresh fruits. Fish is not that expensive unlike pork.
Looks like a great menu. It is so important to have fun, no matter how tight your budget is. If you don’t, you’ll end up blowing your budget, and that’s the exact opposite of the effect that people are supposed to go for. Entertaining at home is one of my favorite frugal ways to have fun.
that menu sounds great! and its nice that its budget friendly! 🙂
I have always entertained at home during good times and bad, it just is more personal and fun that way.
Thanks for sharing thee recipes- I’m always looking for something new to try within the budget 🙂