Date Night Dilemma: Have Fun or Save Money?

Relationships

by Lamar Tyler | on December 17th, 2009 | 6 comments

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by Tara Pringle Jefferson

My husband and I recently sat down to discuss our 2010 goals. I tend to be very detail oriented and focused on the minutiae, whereas he is easygoing and laid back. We had our own ideas about what we should strive to accomplish but one that was on the top of both our lists was a desire to have a weekly date night in 2010.

Now we have date nights now, but they are more of the sit-around-in-our-sweatpants-and-nibble-on-pretzels-and-popcorn-while-watching-the-same-movie-for-the-1,456th-time. We were in a rut and not ashamed to admit it!

But in order to afford these nights out (another 2010 goal was to save more money) we need to figure out some different, fun, affordable activities.

Any suggestions? How often do you have a date night? How much is a reasonable rate for a babysitter? What does the average date night end up costing you?

Tara Pringle Jefferson is a freelance writer living in Ohio with her husband and two children. Visit her blog, www.theyoungmommylife.com, to read more of her observations about life, motherhood and love.

About the author

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler are the creators of the award-winning blog BlackandMarriedWithKids.com . They also are behind the Amazon.com bestselling DVDs Happily Ever After: A Positive Image of Black Marriage, You Saved Me and Men Ain’t Boys that explores manhood in the African American community. The Tylers are also the proud parents of four children.

http://www.blackandmarriedwithkids.com Ronnie

In the summertime you can look for concert series in the park….a lot of those are free. I know in Atlanta one of the Museums has a little jazz concert weekly…I am sure your city might have something like that too.

I read this in Rev. Run’s book…he and his wife like to spend time together on Saturdays going to open houses. They got decorating ideas, they were able to plan for what they wanted in the future and they spent quality time together. You could do that followed by a nice affordable lunch.

Babysitting is too expensive. We pay our sitter $15 per hour and if we are out more than 2 or 3 hours the babysitting fees get expensive!!!

Find a spot that has like spoken word or live bands and go for drinks and /or appetizers…as opposed to an expensive dinner.

Find another couple to hang out with..you can have them over to the house or visit their home …..an evening with good friends and great conversation is always enjoyable. You can put the kids to bed by 8 PM …have the friends over…break out a movie..put on some wings… fun fun fun..
http://www.cisterspeak.com CS

I agree with Ronnie about the outdoor concerts. Philly has them at the Penn’s Landing waterfront over the summer and some are really nice. Plus I like museums and different things like that.
I don’t have to deal with babysitting yet, but my sister’s babysitter is the same price as Ronnie’s. Or I’m the babysitter for them sometimes.
.-= CS´s last blog ..Hair Steamer on Sale =-.
Anna

What expensive babysitters for date night. My BFF would have to buy her kids different take out and different DVDs just to bribe them to be babysat for free by their granny. LOL. It’s not like they did not like going over their grannys, they just knew how to take advantage of their parents “date night”. Date night should not always consist of staying in and watching a movie. Taking a stroll in the park, it’s especially beautiful in the Fall. Going to a Art Museum. where I live many times a year they have free admission show casing our local talent. Going out to eat is fun and I am no longer ashamed of the buy one meal get one meal free/half off coupon and I am not talking Mickey D’s . LOL. Date night should not cost a “arm and a leg”. My kids are older and for Christmas last yr. the oldest did give us each a gift but aslo gave each of us a $25 gift card. Hubby and I combined our gift cards and used it for “date night”. Date night for me and hubby can sometimes get to $80 we no longer have to pay a babysitter and bring home dessert from the menu for the kid that was at home when we left, and we always have left over (appetizers, great bread , etc. I will add that going to the movies is fun, but can be costly. I hope the “movie police” are not lurking in the room”. When we go to the movies I grab my “big” hand bag and fill it up with snacks(goobers, chocolate mints, hot tamales, doritoes, chips, chedder cheese and butter popcorn, bottled water, juice. I can’t afford the food there. Our tickets cost less than two ppl visiting the consession stand. I love “Family Dollar”.
http://www.execumama.blogspot.com Execumama

We pawn our little ones off on grandparents (we’re blessed to have both our parents nearby), and we do inexpensive things such as sightseeing in the city (downtown/midtown Atlanta), renting movies, ordering take-out and wine, and chilling at home, or we find new restaurants to try out. Wow, sitters are expensive, but another option that we use at home is date night even when the children are in-house. If you put them to bed by 8ish, you can still hang out at home with new movies and simply pretend they’re not there
.-= Execumama´s last blog ..Alicia Keys Disses Jay-Z for "Better" MC! A Fall-out-laughing Friday special!! =-.
http://www.ajadorseyjackson.com Aja

I’ve learned to get really creative in finding free or almost free things to do and we are fortunate enough that his parents normally watch the kids. I found 99 cent bowling coupons for one date night and a free wine tasting for another. A couple weeks ago we were supposed to go out but it ended up snowing so we just made some drinks after the kids went to sleep, turned on the Wiii and played against each other in all the different games and had a ball. It takes a little more effort than if we went out for a nice dinner or something, but its better for right now because at the end of our fun we aren’t upset that we just blew our budget.
Tiffany

My husband travels a lot for work, so our date nights only take place about once (maybe twice) a month. It’s usually dinner, a movie or going out for drinks. Sometimes we’ll buy a DVD, order some take out and just enjoy the evening at home. We live in the suburbs outside of Atlanta so while there are a lot of cool things going on in the city, we don’t always want to drive an hour or more in traffic to get there. In the new year I’m hoping we’ll both be motivated enough to use our Wii Fit that’s been sitting in the corner since February lol.