This weekend was my best friend (and her twin)’s 24th birthday.
Every year we do something really fun with the three of us and like 65 of their closest cousins, there’s so many of them 65 isn’t that far off.
Usually, I’m working part time while in school. This year, though, because I’m an RA I just don’t have time to get another job. AKA I have no income, $0 for anything. If you haven’t been paying attention: I’m broke.
My big idea this year was to come up with a GroupOn adventure. My friend’s favorite thing in the world is beer. I don’t know why she inflicts pain on herself like that because beer is gross, but I try not to judge. Within like one second of looking on GroupOn, a deal for Man Skirt Brewing in Hackettstown came up.
It was two flights for $21 (down from $34) so I paid for her ticket and one of their cousins paid for her brother. That’s technically 5 beers for like $10 so I was living for the discounts. YAY BDAY!
It was really great. I mean, again, I hate beer so I didn’t enjoy the part where I had to drink them but we all had a really good time and I’ve always wanted to try a beer flight so that was cool.
We went to dinner after that at this all-you-can-eat sushi place near our hometown that I’ve talked about to literally every person I meet and also in this blog before. The sushi is so good and fresh and it’s unlimited for $23. You know I’m there whenever I’m home so it’s a good thing we all like sushi cause we were going there regardless.
After the 93 pounds of sushi, we went to Brunswick Lanes in Fair Lawn. It’s $15 per person for two hours after 10pm. When I was able to take a break from kicking everyone’s ass in bowling, I gave my BFF her bday present.
Sticking to the theme of “I’m Broke so Here’s What I Could Manage,” I made her a scrapbook of all our cutest and ugliest pictures from our adventures over the years.
The book itself was $4 at Five Below and I picked up a couple of sticker pages from there too. Printing pictures at actual photo places is super expensive so, because they were going to get glued to a page anyway, I decided to print them at the Rutgers computing labs. The payout is pretty similar because I think it’s like $0.29 per picture at Walgreens and a standard printout of two pictures in the lab was like $0.25. But, I always end up wasting so much printing money every year that I have to pay for in tuition fees anyway. At least this way I wasn’t paying any money out of pocket.
The scrapbook was really cute and turned out not as cheap looking as it was which was really nice LOL
Please don’t hate me but I didn’t take pictures of it cause I wasn’t thinking BUT TRUST ME it was mad cute.
The night was really fun and yeah, we all wound up spending some serious cash, but nowhere near as much money as if we went to the city all night like last year.
The point is, though, you can have a ballin’ time and not feel like you’re totally cheaping out without waking up the next morning to a sad, dusty wallet.
Try this out with your friends on their next birthday, and bring other people! The more the merrier… and the less you each have to pay.
xoxo broke birthday b*tch
Ballin' on a Budget 
This was a fun post to read. I love your idea of gifting your friend a scrapbook for her birthday. That’s a gift that’s both meaningful and fairly cheap. I always see Groupon advertisements but I’ve never actually used it. After reading this post about the money you were able to save, I’m definitely going to start using it!
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I really enjoyed this post. I was adding up the money though lol. But compared to the birthday festivities i have been on, you went on a good adventure for cheap! and groupon for the win!
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groupon is such a life hack this event seemed like it was super fun. i ❤️ beer and sushi
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I’ve always wanted to try getting deals on groupon because I always hear about them but i haven’t actually tried it. I’m so sad you couldn’t add a picture of the scrapbook! I was looking forward to that. But anyways I thought the scrapbook was a great idea especially because I NEVER know what to get my friends for their bday so I just end up giving them money, which can get very expensive especially if their bdays are all on the same month.
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All of these are such cute birthday celebration ideas! I love sushi, drinking, and making a fool of myself so it actually sounds like a perfect day lol. It’s impressive how little money you spent on the gift too, going to the Rutgers computer lab was genius. Love this post, and I’m definitely going to use these birthday hacks:)
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This was such a great post I loved it! This gave me the perfect present for a close friend of mine since im broke too lol. But I wish you had included a picture of the scrapbook you made! It would have been great to see how it turned out.
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Loved reading this post! It was so fun and interesting to follow along on your adventure this past weekend! I too recently had a birthday last week (my 21st!) but I literally did nothing to celebrate so far because of life and midterms. Now after reading your post, this gives me a great idea to celebrate and to be ‘ballin’ on a budget’ at the same time! I’ve heard of GroupOn but never bothered trying it but now I think I will.
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BEER IS SO GOOD! There are soo many brands, if everything fails try apple cider, good substitute. I wish you had taken pictures, I would have loved to see the 65 cousins. For the post, I would have liked for you to include the name of the sushi place, like more information about the things you did and went so I could do them if one of my friends wanted sushi or something like that.
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Man ballin’ on a budget made you really good at math lol. You must always be analyzing your financial situations like a computer. Groupon is honestly so convenient though and can help you save tons on events that would usually cost a lot of money. Your friend’s birthday sounded really fun too!
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I enjoyed reading this post i never knew beer flights were a thing and i found it pretty interesting. I actually want to go on one too, i love beer and ive done whine testing before it was so much fun. I always enjoy reading your posts i think its pretty cool how you count every little thing for your budget which is very efficient.
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