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Krystal and Alisa's Journey:
Balancing Act
After two+ years of living with a pandemic, we are mindful of the importance of carving out time for one's self-care, as well as reuniting with dear friends in person. With that said, this week's blog post focuses on the balancing act between self-care and savings.
We both have been craving in-person interaction with close friends and it just so happened that our friends’ schedules had availability in the same week. So, what we thought would be a mild spending week ended up higher than anticipated, with a smattering of eating out versus eating in and one self-care therapeutic massage scheduled after a grueling work season. Let us pause right here…does anyone else tend to feel guilty when they bulldoze their initial weekly food/beverage/fun budget and ‘splurge’ on a few nights of entertainment and/or self-care? I highly doubt we’re alone in that mentality. You know what? It’s OK to indulge a little! There’s no shame in that. Let me repeat it again, there’s no shame in that.
We’re coming out of two+ pandemic years where the world has been wonky and weird. We’re seeking ways to restock our internal batteries and also looking to reconnect with loved ones, some of whom we haven’t seen as often as we’d like. With that said, there were still some strategies we injected to try and balance out these gatherings. For starters, we went with restaurants that had a decent range of menu items to choose from, at various price points. Next, if a cocktail was had at one outing, it was skipped at the next. Additionally, while more than one cocktail would have been welcomed, it wasn’t necessary. Instead, just one that was strong enough to be sipped did the trick. Another effort that was made involved ordering a dish where the portion size was pretty big and could easily stand in as an additional meal the following day.
Looking back on the past week, the connections and conversations with dear friends added warmth and meaning, both good for the mind, body, and being. Moving into a new week, we’ll dial back our food/beverage/entertainment expenses and focus on meal prepping with what’s already on hand. Next week, we’ll report back on how we did, what we noshed on, and share a recipe or meal idea so stay tuned! Visit us at on our Facebook page to see what we come up with!