I have been married for 7.5 years and one of the greatest lessons I have learned since having two children is this:

the investment with the best return is the the investment in date nights!

Early on, my husband and I were discipled in the area of finances and that included budgeting. There hasn’t been a time when we weren’t counting our dimes and assessing where they needed to go. Something we neglected to set aside money for, however, was babysitting. Now, with two beautiful boys completing our family, we see that no matter what, there has to be room in the budget to hire help! (*If you can’t hire help, consider swapping babysitting nights with friends! Take on their kids to they can get out and then they can do the same for you!)

Well, if pennies are going toward hired help, there’s less flexibility for traditional dinner dates so we’ve gotten creative!

  1. Park/Beach/Vineyard/Living Room Picnic Date {FREE}.  Make your meal, pack a blanket, and bring a deck of cards! Take whatever meal you were going to eat that night at home and just pack it to go.
  2. Coffee Shop Play Date {FREE – $7}.  Head to the local coffee shop and hunker down with your honey & a game of Scrabble. Grab a cup of coffee, tea, or cider and don’t forget to play. It really is fun to add a bit of “youth” to your night out.
  3. Dessert Date {$2 – $10}.  Going out to your favorite restaurant is fun, but the bill never is after meals and drinks! We started having dessert dates to still give us the going out feeling but cut the bill big time! We eat dinner at home with the kids & grab dessert without them.
  4. Sharing A Love Journal. Something we started doing only last year was month by month writing down the praises and prayers of life. It has been amazing now that we are in our second year, to look back at where we were a year ago and see how far we’ve come and where we are now headed. Grabbing a frozen yogurt and having the chance to talk with intention is a great (and inexpensive!) date!