For the last several weeks at NorthStar we’ve been talking through the importance of prioritizing your marriage so that you go the distance. One of the recurring themes is the importance of a “Date Night”. They need to be regular and frequent.
However, if your like me and many others I know – the budget is tight and date night can be really expensive. This usually becomes an easy cop-out to neglecting the practice. The things is: date night doesn’t have to be expensive. A simple Google search will reveal 100 ideas for little or no money. I’m going to share ONE that Julie and I employ. It’s just takes a few easy steps.
1) Use the Dave Ramsey envelope system and rid yourself of plastic. Using cash helps eliminate emotional credit card spending and keeps you on budget.
2) Save all the change from you cash expenditures in a “Date Night” jar or other container. It takes about 3 months for me to fill up a container with $25 worth of loose change. I then take it to my local grocery store where they have a coin counter and voucher machine to get cash for the coins. If you’re lucky your local bank will do this for you at no charge.
3) Use a coupon deal. This $10 off coupon that came in the mail combined with the $25 from the coin collection amounts to a $35 meal at Outback Steakhouse – and it had no effect on our weekly budget!
4) Be generous and giving. You always get the blessing in the end. Regardless of our financial situation we’ve made it a priority to give generously. No matter how tight our budget is – we know that we are RICH compared to global standards! So my loose change actually tallied up to be $26.98. I rounded of the $1.98 for the Salvation Army that was collecting outside of Kroger. Several people’s $1.98 adds up to many meals and shelter for people who really need it.
I’m convinced if you’ll determine to make Date Night a priority you can do it no matter how much cash you have.
While my “Date Night” may not cost that much – NO DATE with this lady is a cheap date! She is a Prize!
– Brad
bradraby.com 