Tighten the entertainment budget

Our entertainment budget used to be $30/month or $15/person/month, really. I thought that was a pretty good entertainment budget. Extremely small compared to most people.

Note: I don't count our internet bill in our entertainment budget, though I suppose it probably belongs there. That would add an additional $40/month to our entertainment expenditure on most months, though we have not paid for internet since December -- it's currently provided where we're living.

Emmanuel and I each had subscriptions to an online pay-to-play game. We each spent at least 10 hours a week playing, so it was a good value for us. It was also something that we could do together and kept us from doing more expensive things like going to the movies, window shopping, going out to eat out of boredom, etc.

When I got pregnant my all-day sickness kept me from being able to enjoy the game anymore. It was just too hard on me to sit at my desk for longer periods of time. I canceled my subscription. Without me around, Emmanuel was barely playing 5 or 6 hours a week. He has since switched to a different pay-to-play game that more of his friends/family were playing, still for $15/month. I'm about to make him cancel that, too, though, since I don't believe he's even logged in once in the past week and a half.

All that to say: Really think about where your entertainment dollars are going. How much entertainment do you get (in hours) per dollar, and don't forget to add in the cost of gas to drive there if applicable? Is it something that you find so engaging that it reduces your expenditure in other areas, as in the examples I listed above?

In my case, $15/mo was too expensive for something I was getting less enjoyment out of and that I was able to use less and less. Instead of continuing the subscription for the convenience of being able to log on when I did feel up to it, I saved myself $15 per month and looked to other activities to entertain for the few hours per month that had been freed up.

For me, that's mostly reading and online browsing (I'm a forum junkie). But there are many hobbies you can take up. Things like baking, sewing, knitting, crocheting can be expensive but they are at least fruitful - perhaps you can even sell your wares to make up some of the cost. You can take up things like walking, hiking, swimming. There are many free games you can play online or on your phone such as solitaire, scrabble, and chess. The bottom line is: You can do without expensive entertainment.