What I Spent This Weekend: Family Weekend In The ‘Burbs

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Haha, hey boners. Hope everyone’s Monday is going about as well as can be expected. I can already tell you that it’s a beautiful day down here in Austin, Texas, and everyone should all be in a positive mood. We got a lot of good things ahead of us. It’s Super Bowl week, the day in which we remind the rest of the world that no matter how little we have our shit together as a country, we still dominate the world’s economy and culture and you can choke on it if you don’t like it. It’s the best.

So anyway. Not sure if y’all know this about Icehouse over here, but I’m married and have a kid. So when I say “what I spent” over the weekend, yes it is technically what “we” spent over the weekend. Here’s the thing, I love and support Mrs. Icehouse. She is fantastic and deserves all the good things in life. If you happen to be a lady or care about one, you should 1000% follow her store’s Instagram. If you see something you like, DM the account and tell her I sent you. I don’t know what’ll happen, it’s an experiment. She doesn’t think I’m funny and therefore won’t be reading any of this.

The point of that entire preceding paragraph is that my expenses are… different. I don’t make most of the day to day decisions for this family, I just kind of follow the crowd. My department is more in the “food, health, shelter” realm. That sort of thing. I don’t really get a say in what we do on weekends.

This weekend, Mrs. Icehouse’s college friends gathered in Arlington, Texas (don’t ask), so that’s where we went. Below is a breakdown of a lot of the expenses, and I’d like to mention that I left a LOT of stuff out. Plane tickets, car payments, tickets to future sporting events, stuff like that. So if you want the full spectrum of fiduciary losses, just tack on like three more grand.

Friday:
What I Spent:
Tickets, food and drink at the Fort Worth Stock Show, $33.50
Dog walking service, $22.80
Dinner and drinks, $200
A charge at some boutique, $120

Several wives and kids went to the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo on Friday. I was stuck doing work for the entirety of the day, but the pictures and videos tell me it was a good time that will surely be a formative moment in my son’s life that I was not present for. We left the dogs at home, so we hired a service for the first time, and they’re way better and more reliable than our friends, so that was nice. We went to a restaurant in Bishop Arts, a trendy neighborhood in South Dallas, called Stock & Barrel. Unlike most of my trips down to that area, I’d actually go back to this place. I also got a suspicious charge from an unknown boutique. I guess Mrs. Icehouse needed a new top for dinner or something.

How I Saved:
I rummaged through a dumpster for lunch. Found some perfectly good leftover tacos. Also, one of our friends is pregnant and is a de facto sober driver, so I didn’t have to pay for a ride to and from dinner. That was pretty nice.

Where I Should Have Saved:
Not being married.

Saturday:
What I Spent:
Three bottles of wine, 6-pack of beer, $74.80
Flight Deck (trampoline place), $8
Uncle Julio’s, 36.11
Dog walking service, $22.80
Top Golf, $50

We took an Uber to Top Golf at 11 a.m., which is a pretty curious move for five guys to just leave a bunch of SUVs in the driveway in the morning. The trampoline place and Mexican food lunch were the purview of wives and kids, so I wasn’t present for those charges, but was assured they were well worth it. Again, we paid for a dog-walking service, and received text messages of our dogs happy and fulfilled. We decided to have a night in after such a big day for all the families, which is why made our ride home stop so I could buy some more booze.

How I Saved:
Other people picked up the cars to/from Top Golf, one person demanded that he pay for the pizza that night, so that was nice. One of those days where everything comes out in the wash, you know?

Where I Should Have Saved:
I think you’re picking up on the theme here.

Sunday:
What I Spent:
Whataburger, $20.61
Gas, $40.49
Drinks and Apps, $50.31
Dinner, $58.87

We had to get home. Also, Whataburger is a good place to eat on the side of the highway. Once home, a couple friends asked if we wanted to go meet up at a place in our neighborhood that had some live music going, so we went ahead and walked on down. I had gone to the gym earlier in the day and we had very little in the house for dinner, so we ended up doing delivery sushi/asian food for dinner, because I am a lazy fancy man.

How I Saved:
We drove instead of flying.

Where I Should Have Saved:
We could have not gone to meet friends in the afternoon, and I could have whipped something up on the cheap. I just really wasn’t feeling the process.

Total: $738.29

All in all, this weekend could have been so, so much worse on a lot of levels. We got to see some good friends that we haven’t seen in a while, our kids got to hang out, and the wallet survived unscathed for the most part. Let’s make this week our bitch, y’all. We got a really fun weekend ahead of us..

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Icehouse

International sailing champion and friend to most wolves. Except Larry, he knows what he did.

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