Cheap Date

Joe found a BOGO Jamba Juice coupon at techbargains.com (you'll have to do a search for "jamba" at the site), so we headed downtown this evening to live extravagantly. Usually we order a large and split it, but tonight we were preparing to live it up. Tonight we were each choosing our very own flavor.

Joe ordered a Peach Perfection, and I opted for Pomegranate Paradise. The kid at the register had to check with the manager, but our coupon was totally legit. So we prepared to hand over $4.40 for the two drinks, happy that with this purchase we would still be $1.93 under budget for the week.

But wait! What is this I see in my wallet? Why, it's a Jamba Juice gift card - a Valentine's Day present from my parents. Whee! Totally FREE Jamba Juice!

Giddy with the kind of excitement that only comes from FREE, we wandered over to people watch the Batman line. That's when we discovered the Downtown Cinema was playing previews on the outside wall. So we stood there for quite a while and watched everything from Madagascar Back 2 Africa (yep, "move it move it" is still a catchy little tune and still totally inappropriate for the target demographic) to Hancock (Will Smith can make even surly seem appealing) to the opening of The Dark Night (at which point we headed home because I have remained spoiler-free as much as possible).

It was like dinner and a movie lite. One of the fun unintended benefits that striving to live within a strict budget has is that you start rediscovering what it means to have fun without spending cash.