Yesterday, my brother came to visit me and I am always excited to see him. We both ended up with the day off of work and it always makes me happy that he would choose to drive an hour each way and spend gas and toll money to see his big sister. We thought about going Christmas shopping, but knowing that neither of us had much money to spend we decided to go to the Orlando branch of Amnesty International’s 2010 Write for Rights Write-a-thon. We spent two hours having snacks and learning about people around the world who were prisoners of conscience. These were people who had been stripped of all rights and freedoms, often without explanation. We wrote letters to government officials in the hopes that they would not be forgotten and we also wrote letters to the prisoners themselves trying to give them hope. We left having learned about people who were fighting for the freedoms we take for granted every day. All it cost us was a little bit of gas and toll money and it made an impact on our lives a lot more than spending money going Christmas shopping would have. If you would like to get involved or learn more CLICK HERE.

After, we had spaghetti for dinner. A year ago we would have gone out to eat or gotten take out but being broke teaches you to be resourceful. I had spaghetti sauce, pasta, and a block of cheese that I had gotten for free/almost free couponing. We stopped at Walmart and got ground meat and garlic toast. I now know that you can make garlic toast with garlic powder, butter and salt and I will make it myself next time to save even more money. I grated the cheese myself to go over the spaghetti with the cheese grater I got for $1 at a thrift shop (a year ago I probably would have bought shredded cheese). Dinner cost a little over $4 and it was way more than enough to feed the two of us and my boyfriend. I now have food cooked for at least the next couple of days and cooking with my brother while we watched the latest episode of Hoarders (the epitome of waste) was a lot more fun than sitting in a restaurant.