How much was that dinner?

Last night we went to dinner with some old friends.  We haven’t seen them for over 2 years, and it was great to catch up with them.

We had an amazing dinner, good wine, and great conversation followed by…the bill.  Holy cow!  Did we really just spend that much on one night out?  A weeknight?

Our bill was $250 for drinks and dinner.

We cannot continue to spend money like this if we are going to save for the trip, but we also need a way to spend time with good friends and still maintain a life of connections with the people we love.

We decided to set September 30 as our "day of reckoning" about the extra spending.  We have a previously booked trip on September 25, so this will give us time to close out our prior financial commitments toward travel and begin saving for the 2010 trip.

And progress on the budget started last night.  Some good friends invited us to brunch on Sunday, but we turned it around and invited them to our house.  We will likely do a lot more entertaining this way in the future.

We’ve done a strict budget before when we started the company, and I know we can do it again.