Strapped for Cash? Advice for Your Valentine’s Day

Sweating bullets over this Valentine’s day?  Do you have someone in mind who you’d like to do something special for, but aren’t sure exactly sure what that something special is? Are you also, like me and so many others, strapped for cash?

Well, let me tell you a story:

My girl and I are both Physical Anthropology students, (which means we are, and will always be broke) and she left for a field school in Belize two weeks ago. She’ll be gone until the middle of March, and we’ve only been dating for three months, so preemptive action would need to be taken this Valentines Day . There was no way I was going to let academic obligations take away our first V-Day together!

Unfortunately, I realized all this the day before she left.

My mind went immediately into overdrive: “I have no money for this!”  “How did I forget about this!?!” 

Quickly, I called her and told her that I had something special planned for the evening (I didn’t, yet), asked her if I could pick her up at 8:30, and recommended that she should dress nicely. As soon I got off the phone, I decided that an evening picnic would be both romantic, and affordable. I scrambled to the closest gourmet deli, picked up various finger-foods like macaroni salad, olives (we love em’), fancy-schmancy cheese, water crackers, gourmet cookies, and a fine prosecco (it was 12 bucks). All-in-all, it cost me around 35 dollars, which is as much as a typical restaurant dinner would be.

We drove to the location where we had first gotten to know each other, a beautiful park along an avenue of restaurants. By the time we got there, the park was empty, there were no clouds in the sky, and the moon was directly above us. We we able to snuggle on a warm blanket, and drink champagne under a moon-lit sky, and trade love letters.  She was blown that I handled the details, and most importantly, we were able to spend our first Valentine’s Day (sort of) together.

First: make it easy on her:

·         You’re the guy.  Make the plans.  Be flexible.

Second: Broke? Think about the little things that make your relationship special and work with them!