Date Night on a Budget

Budget for Date Night (or lack thereof)

Recently I’ve been extremely bored. The type of bored that makes you feel like you have cabin fever. I kept complaining to my boyfriend that I needed something to do. Of course, being the thoughtful boyfriend that he is, he offered to take me out on a date to a restaurant. This obviously piqued my interest.

Like most people in this current economy, our budget for date night has been pretty tight. Actually, we don’t even have a budget for date night because we are barely scraping by. Most of our budget is going to bills and putting about 300 dollars to our debt.

Normal Dates

Normal dates for us look like going out to a restaurant. We spend a minimum of 50 dollars when we go to a restaurant. Now, it’s kind of unfortunate, but we are really fast eaters. No matter how much we try to slow down, we typically finish our food within 20 minutes. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me to spend so much money for a one time experience that will be over in less than an hour. So when my boyfriend suggested we out on a date, I had mixed feelings on the matter.

Exercise as a Date (As If)

Remember how I said that I felt like I had cabin fever? Well, I think that was because we’d literally been home all day. It doesn’t help that I work from home too, so I really am home most of the day. I needed to get some fresh air, move my body, and maybe do something that required me to think. This would explain why my suggestion for a date was…tennis. My boyfriend and I are not the type of people who exercise regularly. Aside from running with my dogs (see previous posts), I don’t do much exercise. So why would I suggest tennis?!

Cost of Tennis

I knew the cost to play tennis would be an investment up front. In total we spent 65 dollars for the tennis equipment. That cost included tennis rackets and balls. We don’t have to pay for a club membership since we play at a local park. In total, we spent pretty much what we would spend out on a restaurant. Except the thing is, we could play tennis over and over again without spending any more money.

Romantic?

I’ve never been good at tennis. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to hit the ball within the court. I didn’t have high hopes that we’d have fun playing since we’d spend more time trying to retrieve the ball. I was pleasantly surprised that we actually had a lot of fun playing. Were we able to hit the ball more often than not? Nope, and yet we laughed so much after missing. We’d poke fun at each other’s form and how I jumped with my whole body and still missed. According to Phycology Today there are a lot of benefits to working out with your significant other. These benefits include increasing your emotional bond and happiness within the relationship. Afterwards, we felt happy overall and giddy. So I’d say it scored a 10/10 on the romantic scale.