What do I do for fun?

By
FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com
 – January 3, 2010Posted in: Life

A lot of you have expressed curiosity about WTF I do for fun and entertainment.

I hate to burst your bubbles, but I am actually really a boring person during the week or on weekends right now during winter.

REALLY BORING. You might even snore while reading this post.

I am a stay-at-home-FB mainly for 3 reasons:

  1. I don’t have very good friends here in Montreal. Er. No friends at all, really!
  2. No one visits 🙁 Only my sister and a friend on business visited ONCE.
  3. It’s cold outside. Very cold. Windy. Freezing. Icky. And I’m a big winter baby.

While BF was on contract (meaning, @ work):

He only worked for a month or two, and in the meantime while he was at work….

  • I stuffed my face with Mini Eggs and butter fudge
  • Started up another blog (The Everyday Minimalist)
  • Scheduled posts on all 3 blogs up until end of April to end of September 2010
  • Cooked a LOT
  • Applied for contracts that are supposed to start in 2010 (we’ll see)
  • Did my interim taxes (Gah)
  • Thought about the upcoming 2010 and worked out my budget #s
  • Organized the apartment (data backing up, organizing clothes, cleaning out things)
  • Did all the little errands I’ve put off (calling companies to stop sending junk mail)
  • Tweeted.
  • Read a lot of e-books.

Now that BF is off contract and with me 24/7

  • A lot of couples can’t stand to be together 24/7 but we’re quiet & independent people
  • We read books.
  • We watch a lot of DVDs and TV series together on our laptops
  • We spend time leisurely shopping for groceries and then leisurely cooking
  • We do go out occasionally to pick up little things here and there
  • ..note, it does take about half an hour for us to get to any major area using the bridges
  • Do our own independent thing: surf the net, blog, read up on corporation tax laws
  • Discuss. We can spend at least 2 hours talking about a world event or topic because we’re both stubborn-headed mules who refuse to let the other “win”. 🙂

I am out of my element in Montreal

Not being in Toronto near friends or familiar shopping areas is a real money saver.

I don’t tend to enjoy window shopping on my own. I mean, I can do it.

But if I don’t have a specific item in mind, like buying a winter coat, I don’t really enjoy wandering shops and finding items to buy without friends to egg on and enable.

If I had friends here, I’d be going out and spending a lot more. It’ll be hard when I am back in Ontario.

What about eating out or going to the movies or a club?

Oh we see friends (his friends) on occasion.

Mine are all holed up in Toronto. Grr.

And his friends have lives too. So we see them once a month. If that.

We don’t eat out most of the time – only when we travel

….because BF is such an awesome cook who loves to come up with recipes, that we don’t need to.

I am definitely finding that restaurant fare around here is overpriced!!!

Greasy, small portions, cooked badly, bad ingredients… I’ve been disappointed most of the time when I went out to eat on my own, thinking I was missing out on something amazing.

I feel annoyed when I get a simple dish like a breakfast at Chez Cora or something, and it’s costing me $7.99 for a plate of food worth $3.

I only go there when I want to meet with friends and not cook, but specifically with BF, he loves to cook so we stay at home instead.

In Toronto, I know a couple of great, cheap restaurants. Here, not so much. Pirates.

Movies are not my thing.. and thankfully not his either.

I have never liked crowded theaters, people sneezing and coughing, making comments, laughing too loud, munching popcorn like it’s the second coming…

And going to the movies used to be a $5 affair, now it’s $15!!!

That’s just craziness. I might as well buy the DVD.

We don’t go to bars or clubs — I haven’t gone since I turned 20.

I hate very loud music and would rather go to a restaurant or coffee with friends so we can talk, rather than my watching them scream drunkenly at each other (I don’t drink) while perverts try to come up and dance with them.

I don’t see the appeal.

Probably because I don’t drink. I feel like that has a lot to do with going to bars or clubs.

And if I had never found BF at work, I probably would still be single today, surrounded by my fake plush toy cats (I am allergic to furry animals), feeling like a social outcast.

We get our entertainment fix from traveling

It’s our major vice. Traveling.

When we travel to cities, it is non-stop 14 hours of sightseeing, exploring, semi-shopping, picture-taking EXHAUSTIVE-NESS (sp?).

Since we don’t have a lot of money to spend on cabs, or hotels that are smack in the middle of the city, we walk a lot and we take a lot of public transportation to save on money.

Sometimes I dread those trips because I feel like I need to work out and get in good cardio shape before going on one, with the amount of walking we do.

Then when we come back home.. home .. sweet home.. the need to go out late at night with friends or to explore the night scene makes me groan.

Even just thinking of Europe this summer is making me tired.

I have to start doing some light stretching to get flexibility back before we go.

We’re going to Paris and London for weddings, and most of his family and friends live there.

So I am foreseeing spending very late (2 a.m.) nights out at cafes with friends, because he’s going to want to live it up while he’s back home for a while.

Gah.

Generally speaking, we’re homebodies.

No TV at home, that’s true.. but we have the radio (French radio), DVDs and videos.

BF is now hooked on watching Dynasty, which means I too, am watching Dynasty and following the trials and tribulations of the (sometimes annoying) Carringtons.

Honestly, in the winter, on the weekends or during the week, I do NOT like to go out.

It’s horribly cold and I hate being cold because I don’t have a proper winter coat to my knees and a hood.

I also don’t need any more temptation to buy anything. 🙂

But in the summer…

We do a lot of activities outside.

We take long walks around Montreal, we spend 4-5 hours biking the trails..

BF is also a budding photographer so he likes to take his camera out once in a while to take photographs.

And we just enjoy the weather for the most part, and I never feel like I want to do “more”.

I feel like I am not missing out on anything in the theatres, movies, bars or clubs.

Been there, done that, kind of hate it.

Told you we were boring!

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About the Author

Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver. I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year. Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about my story here, or visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist.