dating your spouse:

five ways to save money while finishing entire sentences (WHAT?)

An hourly occurrence at our house is that either my husband or I will begin telling a story, something that we really want to tell the other person, and just as the plot of our story thickens, we are interrupted. “Moooommm!” Typically it sounds as though the sky is falling when really it’s just a pesky fly that needs swatting or a toothbrush that needs finding. Nonetheless, our conversation is stalled, the excitement of the story has waned, and we sigh: “I’ll try to remember to tell you at nine tonight.” Like we ever remember at 9 p.m.

This reality is why dating your spouse is an absolute must. So you can laugh together like you did in the days before mortgages and medical bills. So you can sit quietly together, maybe not even saying much but simply enjoying the calm. So that you can tell your exciting stories with all the day’s plot twists without interruption (or with the only interruption being the server coming to refill your Diet Coke or bring you a meal that you didn’t have to cook and you won’t have to clean up).

Nearly a decade ago, in the midst of some struggles with post-partum depression, a physician actually “prescribed” regular date nights to Paul and I. We heeded and made a habit of regular date nights for a long time. But as you know, the calendar and the checkbook often make dating difficult. When the bills need to be paid, date night seems like an easy thing to cut, and a free evening in our family of six is becoming a rarity. Yet we know that we owe it to one another and to our kids to make date nights a priority. Here are five ways we’ve kept our dates regular yet affordable over the years.

1

SHARE MEALS. If you keep track of which restaurants serve oversized dishes in addition to free appetizers like bread, chips or popcorn, then sharing an entrée becomes an easy way to cut the bill (and the calories) in half. Plus, choosing a meal together hones your negotiating and problem-solving skills.

2

SHORTEN DATES. We realized early on that there was no reason to pay a babysitter to sit in our quiet, sleeping house; we wanted to be the ones sitting in a quiet house! Thus, we made a habit of scheduling our sitters from 6–9 p.m. Shortening dates lessens your babysitter fees substantially and still gives you ample time to converse in whole sentences (paragraphs even).

3

DESSERT ONLY. As much as we all love a nice dinner at a restaurant, sometimes that is simply not in the budget. So, enjoy frozen pizza with the kiddos before the babysitter arrives and then go out for dessert. This also lessens guilt when you splurge on the cheesecake.

4

CUT COUPONS. For years our dates were limited to which BOGO coupons I could find, meaning nearly every date was at a burger joint. (But seriously, burgers, fries and fountain pop? No complaints from us.) While basing your date options on coupons may seem terribly unromantic, sharing french fries with your best friend actually is pure romance.

5

DATE AT HOME. This is actually my favorite (and our most frequent). At least once a month we announce to the kids that they get to eat supper early and then have a “Kids Movie Night” while Mom and Dad have a dinner date. The kids think it’s awesome — a movie night without the ‘rents. But not just that. There’s a gleam in their eye that tells us they feel secure and safe when Mom and Dad spend time with each other. The kids eat and then head to the basement while we have a quiet dinner of frozen pizza or fried chicken, with our very own playlist and our very own bag of Cheetos for an appetizer. No babysitter fees, no loud people at the table next to us, and, bonus, I’m not freezing like I would be in a restaurant. And there’s really nothing like speaking in full sentences at your very own dinner table. That’s romance.