Being Social On A Budget

It’s not easy, unless you know what it means to socialize

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - $1,000 Home Cleaning Shopping Spree

The Ultra High End - $150 Escape Room Gift Card

The Superpremium - Evergreen Lodge

The Premium Core - Groupon Gift Card

The Accessible Core - Being Social On A Budget

The Affordable Luxury - Prompts For Contests

The Everyday Luxury - Recent Winners

The Bespoke

Sorry for the late release this week. I am recovering from an upper respiratory infection and I have a lot of sick kids staying home for the last week so I’m a bit behind. I was able to get them back into daycare today so I can catch up on work. I will be back with the normal release schedule starting next week. Now let’s move to the exciting stuff!

Bespoke Winner Announcement! May’s Bespoke Contest winner of the 75’’ 4K Smart TV is… HOA from DALLAS, TEXAS! She won with this submission for “something that you must have for the summer”:

Let’s take a look at some of the other submissions I received for May’s contest:

I know I say it every week, but I just love making these collages. They reflect the fun and interesting lives the members of Ducky Tran live and brings to light all the amazing moments we have in life.

With the suggestions from last week’s polls, I present to you June’s Bespoke Grand Prize: $1,000 Home Cleaning Shopping Spree!

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $1,000 Home Cleaning Shopping Spree [ARV $1,000]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Shopping Spree

• Contest Period: May 29, 2024 at 10 AM CST to July 2, 2024 at 10 PM CST

I couldn’t pick to give a product or a service prize, so I’ve decided to allow you to decide. The way the prize will work is:

1. First you need to submit and win.

2. You will select products or services related to home-cleaning, that add up to $1,000 (before tax). This can be a cleaning robot, this can be broom and mop, this can be a house-cleaning service, etc. But you get to maximize it and customize it yourself!

3. Send them to me, I will purchase them, and send them to you.

4. You enjoy the prize and commemorate it with pictures of how clean your home is!

Not only do you get to make it your own, but you get the products or services that will best fit your needs/wants and save you the most time!

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner of Issue 27 contest is KEVIN from ARLINGTON, TEXAS! Here’s his submission for “your favorite hobby”:

Congratulations KEVIN, I hope that the 18-piece Airtight Food Storage will save you some time finding your favorite snacks!

Check out some of the other submissions:

Everyone has very fun and creative hobbies, I hope you and your friends can get together and enjoy your hobbies during this Summer!

This Week’s Contest

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $150 Escape Room Gift Card [ARV $150]

• Odds: For every 100 Ducky Tran premium members by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Gift Card

• Contest Period: May 29, 2024 at 10 AM CST to June 4, 2024 at 10 PM CST

This week’s focus is social wealth and what better way to socialize than to be locked up in a room with some of your friends forced to communicate to escape! I’ve completed many escape rooms and each one draws out different attributes of different friends I’ve completed them with. I found out someone I knew for 4 years was actually color-blind so he couldn’t see a clue that hung in front of him for 30 minutes.

Escape rooms aren’t the cheapest of activities, so I will be giving a $150 gift card to any escape room near you that you would like to try out with your friends. This should cover all or most escape rooms for about 6 people. This may be a good birthday gift to someone that have a few close friends and want to do something together. Plus, who wouldn’t want to be stuck in a room with 5 other sweaty people in the summer!

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is Evergreen Lodge. This place is very dear to my wife and I; we love nature, food, camping, and Yosemite National Park. This place brings it all together. This is our secret getaway before kids, but once the kids get older, we’re definitely taking them to experience the wonders of nature with the amenities of “glamping”. (If you didn’t already know, I have 4 princesses and a queen, this is as close to nature as it will probably get.)

Evergreen Lodge is not easy to get to, but that’s what makes it perfect for “glamping” in nature. It’s location definitely deter too many from visiting, but they’re still booked out all the time. Get reservations early, like a year early!

Evergreen Lodge has tent sites, cabins, a bar, a restaurant, activity center, bike rentals, pool, and so much more. They definitely make sure if you’re staying a weekend or two entire weeks, you have enough to do. Being with nature, everything is just slower, conversations are more involved and seemingly more meaningful, and my favorite thing is the food is amazing!

Surprisingly, for being in the middle of the woods, they get shipment pretty frequently and have very fresh seafood, meats, and produce. We could cook for ourselves, but the food at the restaurant was so good I didn’t really have to think twice about it.

You wake up to see the sunrise at the edge of their property that overlooks thousands of trees. You head back to grab some breakfast and coffee. After morning breakfast, you can take a short drive to Yosemite National Park. You come back for lunch and then go for a dip in the refreshing pool. You rent some bikes to go for a bike ride in the woods before heading back for dinner. After dinner, sit by the smores’ campfire they set up at night. Then you head back to your tent or cabin to stargaze until you doze off from the perfect night breeze.

Doesn’t that sound amazing! If you want an amazing adventure in nature or need a “glamping” experience, this is the perfect place for it. Yes, there’s Wi-Fi near the main site (not at the tents and cabins), and yes there’s hot water to shower.

The Premium Core

To help everyone hang out with your friends without breaking the bank, I am providing a discount on the discounted deals from Groupon. You’ll be able to bring more people, do more things, or eat more food with this deal. Or do all of those things together!

There’s more information about Groupon in Issue 24 since it was a prize for the Ultra High End Contest.

Deal #1: I’m offering a discount on a $25 Groupon Gift Card at shop.duckytran.com. It is normally $25, but the deal is only $15. There will be 10 available so get it while you can.

If you order more than 1, I’ll send you multiple $25 Gift Cards not a larger amount in case you want to give it to others.

The Accessible Core

Being Social On A Budget

In our modern time and as proven by the polls from last week, being social has become expensive. According to Merriam-Webster, another way to define socialize is “to take part in social activities.” So, from this we can see that social activities are becoming more expensive and therefore make the idea of hanging out with our friends more expensive.

A lot of this is due to “social pressure”, which is the influence our peers have on us to conform to the norm. This includes the appearance of having a good job, having money, having nice things, having a good life, and doing the right things. It’s almost sound counter-intuitive, to be social but then be forced to do things or conform to things that are a bit self-centered for social affirmation. The unfortunate truth is, this is one way to identify your “friends” versus "your “peers”.

A friend shouldn’t have any strings attached, instead should be a pillar for you to lean on, a confidant to hear you out, and an equal that respects your circumstances. Your peers are just people in your similar age, status, or grade. Many times, if we feel that socializing is too expensive, it’s because we are trying to fit in to our peer group and not actually spending time with our friends. When you spend time with your friends, spending money or not, it generally will not feel expensive because the value you get from it is greater than what is being paid for. That being said, you have friends with more money and they don’t know how to hang out without spending money, that doesn’t mean they don’t have the “friendly” attributes. Maybe, you just haven’t given them a chance to hang out without spending money. Reach out to them to do things that don’t cost much for you, and you will see if that person is your friend or just a peer.

I don’t want this article to become a shame-fest for your friends/peers. But the reality is, if you can’t spend time with someone with little to no money or when spending money to hang out feels expensive, then you shouldn’t be hanging out with them. Here’s a few examples in my own life:

1. My favorite memories with my friends were always on a football field throwing a ball around. It didn’t cost anything, but our time. We spent hours every week and even now when I’ve moved away and have a family, those friends are still some of my best friends.

2. When I go out to eat with friends, I try to buy appetizers and drinks for everyone. I want every at the table to know that it’s not because it’s expensive for them or because I have money, it’s because I want to show them that their time and friendship is more important than the cost of the food and drinks and I want to spend time with them. I get asked about this all the time, I always say “I know it’ll come back some way.” What I mean is friendship, I don’t actually expect anyone to buy me food.

3. My wife and I often throw parties for our family and friends, we are constantly told not to spend so much money on the food. To us the hundreds we spend on the food is a bargain to spend time with the people we love the most. We work our entire lives to spend time with the people we care about, what more can we do for them than to treat them to the best foods and conversations.

So, remember it only feels expensive when there’s no real friendship; but regardless if you need to spend money or not, a friend will feel priceless every time you spend time with them.

Now some activities you can do with your friends on a budget:

1. Board, card, or table games.

2. Have popcorn, a movie, and some drinks at home.

3. Exercising or playing a sport.

4. Take a morning/evening walk.

5. Wonder around Target and look at all things you don’t need but still want.

Realize that even though it doesn’t cost a lot to do the activities listed, you can do things that cost money. It just comes down to if the cost is more valuable than the time spent with the friends or not. I hope this puts a new perspective to friendship and socializing for you.

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 27 Community Poll Results

This last week’s poll results were more interesting than I expected it to be:

1. No one voted “No” for dining out alone. Everyone dines out alone often or rarely, but I would think there would be at least someone that doesn’t

2. About 90% voted that having a social life is expensive. I definitely think it’s a change in mindset when it comes to “hanging out”, but it doesn’t have to be. Review today’s Accessible Core topic for some ideas.

3. It was an even vote for cleaning device like Roomba, home cleaning service, and other; however, the ones that voted other didn’t give me feedback, so it looks like some form of cleaning service/product. That’s why I chose the home cleaning shopping spree, to satisfy the majority of the votes.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

(The referral program is only viewable on the email version of the newsletter.)

Check out some of the previous winners and their prizes:

Some of you may not have noticed already, but you don’t always have to take the prize offered, you can take the cash prize, which is in the form of a VISA gift card at half the ARV of the prize.

Visit shop.duckytran.com with the weekly password: escape