The #1 Way to be a Thrifty Stay-At-Home Mom

Being a stay at home mom comes with many challenges, like how to explain that even though you don’t have a job anymore you still cannot find a way to clean the bathtub. Another major challenge is how to maintain a social life on your diminished finances. I cannot help you with an answer to the first challenge, as I myself just continue to bathe in a filthy tub. But I can help you overcome the second and more pressing hurdle.

I recognized immediately that I would need to find a way to still go out with my friends regularly, lest I run the risk of becoming overly mom-ish. In this most perilous scenario you find yourself just a little too often at Michaels or JoAnn’s Fabrics, or even worse Bed, Bath and Beyond with so many 20% off coupons that your purse implodes. No, this could not be my fate. I needed to be able to go out to places that don’t sell yarn. The problem is that going out requires money, and I now have less of it than I had when I worked someplace that isn’t my house.

Before settling on my own strategy I did some research, and found that The Humbled Homemaker recommends skipping both Girls Nights Out AND Direct Sales Parties if you are on a tighter budget due to staying home with your kids. This may be sage advice, but The Humbled Homemaker also offers up ideas on “How to Make Your Own Celery Powder” and “7 Ideas for a Resurrection-Focused Easter Basket,” so I suspect that she and I may differ in style.  Also I have no idea what “Direct Sales Parties” are, so I shouldn’t have trouble cutting those out of my life.

So anyway, here’s the basic game plan, Liz style: Your task is to accompany your friends to dinner, but not actually order dinner. You are still going to need to eat, which is an entirely separate matter, and this is where I can help. Also if you are me you are going to need a drink or two, and this is where you will need to allocate your precious funds. Very critical to the success of this plan is that you have zero pride. This was not an issue for me, but it may be for you.

I want to pause here to highlight a story from my past, for the sake of historical context relevant to this plan:

When I was young, maybe 25 or so, and single, I was out on a date one night at a BBQ restaurant in Somerville called Redbones. My date and I were talking about getting some fries, and I was headed up to the bar and said I would grab some. As I was waiting for my beer I began chatting with two random guys, who were themselves eating a plate of the fries. I asked how they were. The guys said they sucked. I said let me try one. They said sure. I thought they were totally acceptable fries, not amazing but nothing to reject either. These guys had eaten maybe a third of the fries, over which they had doused ketchup. They kindly offered for me to take their shitty fries, since they hated them, and instead of declining on account of that being gross and weird, I was all, “Jackpot!” and I took the partially eaten fries back to my date, who seemed slightly repulsed. That was our only date, but I sure enjoyed those fries.

Now, with that in mind, back to the main lesson of how to get mama a feed!

The key is ordering a LOT of bread whenever you go to a restaurant, so that you can “get dinner” with your friends without actually ordering food from the menu. Actually, the key is having one of your friends, who is presumably a paying customer, order a lot of bread for you. You look like a real beggar asking for additional bread baskets and, in the next breath, telling the waiter that you’re “all set” when it comes to ordering a meal. Of course you are a beggar, but that’s not the point. Your friend is not a beggar and therefore the more socially acceptable person to be asking for the rolls. This strategy is highly effective, but it’s only part of the story. There is more to it than just bread; if it were this easy, all the moms would be doing it.

Butter Graveyard.

It is also essential that you eat all the butter on the table. You must eat a shit ton of butter, because the bread alone is just unsatisfying. If you can find the restaurants that give you the fancy butters, tasting of sweet almonds or the like, you have hit pay dirt. Do not be shy to eat 6 or more packets of butter at a go. In the above photo, taken at the Cheesecake Factory the other night, I ate so much butter my hands were slippery.

Also, it is really smart to order beers with fruit on the glass, and encourage your friends to do the same. If they don’t mind passing on their fruit to you, it’s like you ordered a fruit salad as an appetizer! In fact, you can see my orange rind mixed right into the butter graveyard in the photo. Delicious and healthy!

It’s also very important to look around – know your environs, lest there be some scraps about to be discarded that you can grab. Quick hands are key, here.  You need eyes in the back of your head and hands ready to make a rapid lunge at a stray dollop of mashed potato. These are skills moms pride themselves on anyway, they just haven’t been employing them in this most useful setting.  It sounds kind of like I’m kidding, I think, but I’m not. This works great! You might be thinking, yeah, I guess it works, but it makes you look like a loser.  And you would be right! But at least I’m not a hungry loser! At least the highlight of my day isn’t buying stencils for an overzealous Pinterest project!

You should be aware that your friends may feel bad for you and offer to split their meals. I say “no thanks” to this at the onset, because I hate when I have to split my own meals with others and do not want to inflict that burden on someone else. That being said, I loosen my standards when my dining companion states at least three times (not twice!) that they are not going to finish their meal and that it will be tossed. Then I will “help out” and have a small bit. Now, one key detail here is that if it’s a good friend of yours you may be ok taking a few bites here and there throughout the course of the actual meal. If it’s an acquaintance I like to wait until the waiter has actually come to bus the dish at the end (that way I know that they really were not planning to take home the leftovers). At this point, if I see a perfectly good slice of pizza on its way out, I will grab for it. This does not work as well with soup, but is perfectly effective with half sandwiches, potato skins, and buffalo wings, etc. Spaghetti is questionable.

Here is an example of my friend’s leftover Thai Chicken wraps. I was able to salvage this last bit for a satisfying and economical mouthful.

We are almost done, but mama still hasn’t had dessert! Tell them it’s your birthday, especially if you’re at the kind of fake-fancy chain that celebrates birthdays via a singing wait staff. This works even better if you hear elated birthday singing more than twice while you have been eating; it indicates a certain lax standard of vigilance that will benefit you when you make your play for sweets. I learned this tip from my friend Pammy, who was kind enough to let our Cheesecake Factory waiter know, when I was in the bathroom, that I had fallen on hard times and that no, it was not technically my birthday, but that I could really use a pick me up. I think you will be pleased, as I was, at what resulted:

Fake-Birthday Treat

It’s kind of hard to tell from the photo, but what is really awesome here is that they didn’t give me the legit cake slice that they give to people on their actual birthdays. Instead they gave me some pity-scoop of either ice cream or whipped cream (I couldn’t tell and didn’t care!) and threw some imitation sprinkle shit on top and bam! Dessert!

We have come to the end of the meal.  If you have performed correctly, you will have enjoyed a nice evening out with your friends for the cost of a few drinks. You should be gracious when the check comes and throw in a few extra dollars for tip, on account of your pathetic display over the course of the last few hours.  You will know you have succeeded if you are pleasantly full (you do not need to undo the top button of your jeans, as I often do at Indian buffets, to show success here.  You will have to settle for comfortably full rather than overly stuffed. Be reasonable.) I hope these tips help to enhance your social life, as they have mine. Now, off to JoAnn’s, I have a little knitting I’ve fallen behind on.

Wingman.

{Note: the plan will not work if the entire group is comprised of broke stay at home moms (Or dads! Where is my sense of gender equality!) You need to mix and match here. Be smart, people.}