As many of you know, I'm not really one who makes in a habit to splurge on many items that are for my own personal benefit or use.  I usually never hesitate to fork over some extra money to make others happy or feel extra special however.  Today I decided that since it was the last day of my vacation and it would be the only real vacation that I would have all Summer long that I would treat myself right with a nice dinner all to myself.  Since I work at a grocery store as my Summer job, I happen to know when all the sales change, it before I left for my trip I did some shopping and ended up buying myself a single filet mignon to put in the freezer for a special occasion.  I decided that tonight was as good of a night as any other, so when I woke up I took the tenderloin out of the freezer and decided that I would broil it in the oven for an early dinner later on in the day.  I decided that my special vacation dinner was going to be the highlight at focus of my day, so I decided that I would go shopping for a few things to make to accompany my steak to spice up my dinner.  I decided on a fresh green salad, a few roasted red potatoes, and a bottle of delicious spicy red wine.  Of course I did my best to be frugal about all of my purchases, including the steak when I bought it, so that I wouldn't feel too terribly guilty when I finally sat down to eat.  All in all, I think that the dinner cost me under fifteen dollars.  Not too bad, right?!  I guess that when you consider what I actually ate for dinner, it appeared that I was really splurging on my meal, but the important part was that I was splurging wisely and frugally.  This is something that I attempt to do quite often, though not to the extent of eating filet mignon and having wine with dinner every night of the week.  I try to find creative ways to take every day generally inexpensive ingredients and turn them into something delicious and relatively healthy.

It has definitely been a change since I've been back in town, since for the last several days I haven't had to pay for much of anything that I've done.  With all the wedding festivities, I don't think that I paid for a single bite of food that I ate, save the first night I was home when I took my little brother...the groom to be...out for some barbeque at one of our favorite restaurants.  After that, I was able to save my money as someone had already paid for the food, the hotel, and everything else that I needed.  My mom even gave me money to put twenty dollars worth of gasoline in the car that I had mostly been driving around.  That's my kind of good deal, since most of you know that I have such issues with the price of gasoline these days...especially since it's about twenty-five cents more expensive per gallon up at home in New York than it is down where I live in Indiana.

Anyways, I suppose that the point of my post is that even people with the most focused view on frugality and smart spending (like I like to think that I do) have to treat themselves to a little bit of extravagance from time to time, be it culinary, entertainment, or some fun shopping.  If you treat yourself to these types of special treats every so often, my feeling is that you are less likely to go out and have a spending binge.  What do you think about that?  I'd love to hear your opinions on the subject.  Why not leave me a comment by clicking below?!  You know you want to!