Our Frugal (NOT) Family Night Out

This post could also be titled: We were almost washing dishes: What to do when you forget your money!

Last night we took the kids to see a movie. All of them. We don’t often do this as it is expensive and hard to find a movie that everyone wants to see together. But it was $5 movie night at a theater, a town away, PLUS $.40 cent wings night so my husband was the one motivated to go. It is one of these movie theaters where you eat at the theater. We were calculating about $7 a person for dinner and a movie, not counting the 2 little kids who don’t eat anything, and they baby, who they usually don’t charge a ticket for.

We walk up to the counter and the cashier says, “How old is the baby?”

Paul thinking she is admiring how cute she is, cheerfully says, “12 months!”

Cashier says, “we don’t allow anyone under the age of 5”

Huh? We did not know this, we have been here before but with the older kids. We were seeing a kids PG show, so we ask, “not at the kids show?” thinking maybe she though we were watching something R?

The cashier says she will talk to her manager and came back 5 min later and says we can bring the 1 year old in, but we have to pay an adult ticket for her. Um o.k. all the tickets were $5 anyway! Paul goes to pay and can’t find the debit card. He looks at me, “where is the card?” I say, “I don’t know you had it last”. Now there is a line waiting to get in. I tell them to go ahead and we dump out my purse and Paul’s pockets on the ground looking for the card. “Do you have any cash?” he asks, I pull out a crumpled up few bills. Paul finds a gift card we had from last year, “I think there is some money on it!” he says! The girl tries the card and IT WORKS! Yea! We had $51 on it and the total was $45.

We get to our seats, Paul and I are laughing, “she must think, wow, they have no money and are digging for cash to see a movie!”

Now, we have to order our food. I had about $30 in cash so we can still get dinner…. we hit the button and the server gets to us as the movie starts and it gets dark. Paul orders the wings and we tell the 7 year old she can get a basket of 4 mini burgers to share with the kids that won’t eat wings. Paul orders 2 drinks thinking that they are $1.25 each. We figure we should be at $20 and be able to tip pretty well.

Movie is horrible. It was (The Zoo Keeper, I don’t recommend it)

As the movie ends we get our bill. $65. WHAT?! OMGosh! In disbelief Paul and I are reading it over and over again. We ask the server if it is right. Only the bone in wings were on sale, we got boneless. I DIDN”T KNOW! Paul’s 2 drink were $2.75 each. We were looking at the kids drinks apparently. The 7 year old ordered 2 mini burger baskets not 1. It was dark and they were at the end of another row so I didn’t see them, they walked over to us to get wings. Plus, the tip was now 20% added on and $5 in tax I had not counted on! What a disaster!

I am freaking out, we only have $30 in cash on us. We can’t even go get cash as we can’t find the debit card and it is 10pm so I can’t run to a bank. We start asking kids if they have any money on them! Paul runs out to the car to see if he can find any there under the seat and the 7 year old says her wallet is in the car. OHH, please let her have her birthday money in there! I am laughing thinking about begging her birthday money off of her!

Seriously, what do you do? Are they going to make us wash dishes? Do I leave a kid and promise to come back with cash? I am just kidding. I started thinking of what friends I could call that would run me up some money, this was ridiculous. Paul comes back with the 7 year olds wallet. It has $6 in it. “Where is your birthday money?!!!” I almost yell. “You told me to leave it at home and not carry it with me.” she cries. Since when do they listen? The 13 year old has no cash on him, he is now hiding from embarrassment.

We just stand there for a minute looking at each other trying to figure out how to come up with $30 from thin air, when I see the 11 year old “money bags” wandering around. “Hey, do you have any money on you?” I ask as if she didn’t know what was going on. “I might have a little.” she says. “Can. I. Borrow. Some?” I ask her trying to be nice as she can clearly hear what is going on. She pulls her wallet out and has no less then $120 in it!!!!

“Are you kidding me?! When were you going to tell us you had money!!!” I ask. She has watched us scrounging for money for 10 minutes. Did she want to see us do dishes?  “I don’t know” comes the standard kid answer. “Well, can I borrow $30?” I ask. “I guess” she replies painfully.  We pay and leave. I am still sweating.

As we get in the car, we are still shaking our heads, our frugal family night out has cost us $110 to see a horrible movie. Everyone is also hungry still. What a waste, Paul and I are sick about it, but the kids had fun.

This morning I get up and walk into the kitchen, on the fridge door is a note: “You owe me $30” it was from “Money Bags.” Sheesh, now I just need to find my debit card!