The World According to Mommy

Yesterday Matt and I had a real, honest to goodness, dinner and a movie, date night. Before this we had gone out twice before without Nate, and both times Matt’s parents (and the first time it was just his dad) watched him for us. So this was the first time we went out and left him with non-family.

The wonder that is the YMCA
The week before last I joined the YMCA so that I could get back into exercising at the gym. I had joined a fancy-pants gym when Nate was three months old, mainly just so I could have a little break from him during the day while I exercised and he was in the gym nursery, but also to lose all that baby weight I was still holding onto. The cost of the gym, for just me, plus the use of their nursery (which was an extra charge) was $77 per month. I think I only stayed a member for two or three months. I thought it was just too expensive, plus around that time I was trying to get Nate on a regular nap schedule, and the gym nursery required that I make reservations for him two days in advance. This did not work well for us, so I cancelled.

But I’ve really missed exercising at the gym, plus Nate’s regular daily routine is now pretty much set in stone, so I know, mostly, what to expect each day. So after researching a little bit, I discovered the YMCA. The YMCA is terrific, and I’m so bummed I didn’t think of them sooner. I signed up for a family membership, so Matt can use it, too, for $65 per month. Now, this isn’t a whole lot cheaper than the fancy-pants gym, but this membership includes both me and Matt, plus we get to the use the nursery for free. Plus, they have so many other perks that make this $65 an incredibly great value. Here are two features that I’m most excited about:

1. One Friday a month they have Free Family Friday. On this Friday night, from 4-8 pm, you can bring your child to the nursery, drop them off, then go out and have an early date night.

2. You get 12 hours of free off-site childcare a year. You can drop your child off at the nursery, then leave to run errands, or do whatever you need to do. After you use your 12 free hours, you can pay $3 per hour after that. (You are able to use the nursery for free while you are at the YMCA exercising or doing other activities, but with this you can actually leave the building while your child is being cared for. I plan on using a few of these hours next week so I can go get my hair cut.)

A movie and a cheap burger
So last night was the Friday night we had chosen to go out and take advantage of the Free Family Friday. We knew that we wanted to do dinner and a movie, so I tried to find us some coupons to bring down the cost of our date night. I couldn’t find any coupons for the movies, but we decided to see the movie first so that we could get matinee pricing. For our dinner I looked on Restaurant.com to see if there were any good deals at restaurants near the movie theater. With Restuarant.com you search among listed restaurants and then buy gift certificates for that restaurant which are below face value. I found a burger place and bought a $10 gift certificate for only $3. But before I purchased this I went to my favorite website for online coupon codes, RetailMeNot.com, and found a coupon for 70% off. So that $10 gift certificate ended up costing me $0.90!

We went to the movies, then to the burger place that was just next door, bought two burgers, two drinks, shared a large fry, used our $10 gift certificate, and we only paid $3.64 (plus the $0.90 that I paid for the gift certificate, so the true cost for our dinner was $4.54). I was so excited! I was nervous that they weren’t going to accept the gift certificate for some reason, but they happily accepted it, and we got a great deal on our burgers.

It was a good night
We picked up Nate from the YMCA around 7:30, and I was nervous what kind of mood he was going to be in, because his normal bedtime is 6:30, but he was in good spirits, and the woman who was taking care of him said he only cried once. I was very relieved to hear that, and so glad it worked out, because hopefully now we’ll get to do this every month. Now if only I could harness my magical coupon-finding powers to score us some kind of discount to the movies... But coupons or no coupons, it was a good night.