I am a Saver

The main bank that I bank with recently changed from ING to Capital One 360 and I discovered that they do a Question of the Month to us savers about how and why we save. 

     March Question of the Month is: "It's Springtime, so we want to know: How do you make your savings grow?"

      Spring time means sunshine, flowers and spring cleaning! It’s time to sort through old clothes and toys and all that STUFF that is taking up room and ask “do I need this?” I know I have been asking myself that question a lot lately. Ever since I came home from college last year, I feel like I am constantly sorting through old things that I never use. Living in a small dorm room can really change the way you look at materialistic items that you have and never use. So rather than having the items sitting around, I have sold some items for a profit and other items have been donated. By selling old items, not only was the balance in my bank account going up, but also I would feel less stressed, because I had less clutter. Less clutter means more happiness, less stress and maybe a little more room for something new.

Now that spring is here, bikinis and shorts are coming out in all the stores for summer and winter clothing is on sale. I used to find it to be strange when people would purchase a winter jacket in spring, but now it makes more sense because it is cheaper. When it comes to buying clothes, I typically wait until I have a coupon or know of a sale going on. Between the sales and extra discounts, I usually end up saving at least 50%. I get so excited when I get my receipt and see how much I have saved. My boyfriend usually just stares at me like I am crazy because of my obsession over coupons and sales. He gets over it quickly though, when he realizes how much I saved.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to start cleaning and jump into spring savings!

St Patrick's Day ( a week late)

Wow, I can't believe it's nearly the end of March already and almost Easter! Last weekend was St Patrick's Day and I wanted to share some photos of things I did to celebrate. I think, to most people, St Patrick's Day is all about drinking and well, I don't drink, by choice. I am just not a fan of alcohol and believe me, my friends have tried to get me to like it, though I feel like forcing me to try something only pushes me farther away from wanting it.
          Anyway, my celebration of St Patrick's Day was wearing green and spending a few hours in Chicago. It started with the Potluck of the Irish at work on March 15th. I wanted to make something for the holiday and so thanks to Pinterest, I got the idea of making Green Mint Chocolate Chip cookies. I basically just made my usual chocolate chip cookie dough and added green food coloring and mint chips instead of chocolate chips. I don't work with food coloring usually, so I wasn't exactly sure how much to use. I put in a few drops to my dough and it seemed like enough as it was a nice green color, but when they baked, the cookies looked normal on the bottom and slightly green on top. I definitely think I could have used more food coloring. I'll know for next time. Either way, they tasted great and my co workers enjoyed them too!!

my sister called these Shrek cookies

YUM

       On Sunday, St Patrick's Day, I went into downtown Chicago with my friend Kristin so that we could see and take pictures by the Green Chicago River, a Chicago tradition. I have only lived next to Chicago my whole life and never been downtown to actually see the green river, so I thought it was finally time to do that and with St Patrick's Day being a Sunday, it worked out well, since I didn't have work. It was a really cold St Patrick's Day this year, still below 32 F, while last year was in the 80s! However, it was still nice to see the river.

Me and Kristin in front of the green river

bridge!

green river view from Michigan Ave bridge

     Kristin and I then walked along Michigan Ave, got some tea to warm up for a bit and then went shopping. It was a fun Sunday afternoon and St Patrick's Day!

Time With My BFF And My First Bulls Game

      Yesterday was probably one of the best Saturdays I have had in a long time! On Friday night, my BFF, Mercedes texted me that she was in town for a day this weekend. She lives in Michigan and while it's only a 2 hr drive away from my house, I don't get to see her often because of work schedules and just being busy. I  missed her over Christmas since I was away for Christmas and so I hadn't seen her since September. It was great to see her and her husband. I went over to her parents house in the morning and we had French toast for breakfast and talked for a while about what is going on in our lives right now. Then they invited me to join them for lunch at Bravo, an Italian restaurant.

       We met up with Mercedes' sister and nephew while we were there as well and I hadn't seen them in almost 2 years, so it was great catching up with them as well. For lunch I had a turkey avocado bacon sandwich and a salad. It was really good. I've been loving avocados lately.

     

To drink, I had a strawberry basil lemonade. The drink looked so pretty and tasted so good that I needed to take a picture of it of course. I definitely need to make this at home sometime this summer.

me and Mercedes

    After lunch, we walked around downtown for a bit and then headed back home. Mercedes and her husband had to catch a train back to Michigan in the afternoon and I had to get ready for the evening.

      About a month ago, my department was invited to go to a Bulls game. It took a while for us to hear back on which game we were going to, but we finally got the tickets for Saturday March 2nd. I was so excited to go to my first Bulls game and go to the United Center for the first time. Also, there is no better way to go to your first Bulls game than to have box seat tickets and be with all your co workers (I enjoy my co workers). There were about 20 of us, the accounting and HR department. I car pooled with Rintu on the way there and we were the first ones to arrive. To add to my bridge pictures, I did a bridge outside in front of the Michael Jordan statue. 

       We then headed inside and found our little suite and box seats. There was tons of snacks, food and drinks and it was all included! Then it was time to take tons of pictures of the court and all the people there. There were over 20,000 people!
     Shortly after me and Rintu arrived, the other members of our department arrived and it was time to get the party started! We got some food and sat down ready for the game to begin. I had some chicken fingers and chips.

   Not too long after the game started, the dessert cart arrived. OMG it was insane! I was already full. I had already had 2 breakfasts and a decent sized lunch and snacked on some pretzels and ate chicken fingers for my dinner and now there were these HUGE cakes ( I wish I had taken a picture). There was a 6 layer carrot cake. 6 layers!!! It was insane. I decided to get a chocolate chunk cookie which was the size of my hand and I'm not kidding.

   I did manage to eat all of it after kinda picking out some of the milk chocolate, because I'm more of a fan of dark or semi sweet chocolate in my cookies. I'm pretty much set on dessert for this whole week now. It was pretty good though.

    The game lasted about 2.5 hours and was overall pretty entertaining. I loved that it was Latin theme night and the dancers were amazing. I also loved the gymnasts they brought in doing tricks with jumping rope, which is really tough. I can't even double dutch and I was never really all that good at jump roping either.
    The game was exciting towards the end as the Bulls were in the lead. I can't say I'm a fan of sports or that I follow them at all, but, of course, being at the game I was routing for my home team. The bulls ended up winning so that was super exciting and then we got a group photo all together before heading home for the night.

    I had a great day with my friend and then a great evening with all these wonderful people from work :)