Valentines Day?

lifeonthehill · February 2014

I feel like V Day is a money pit. Flowers die, chocolates are over priced and you go out to a restaurant that is over crowded. We have never done anything besides one Valentines day lunch when we first got together. I don't think we even wished each other a happy Valentines day last year!

H and I finally got our 6 months(more like 16 right now) saving completed! We were not doing anything for V Day because we were so focused on saving money. Now that we finished almost 3 years early H decided we needed to do dinner. We are going to applebees with a gift card left over from our wedding. So MM of us!

What are you all doing?

Xstatic3333 · February 2014

I totally agree about it being a money pit! We are going away for the weekend, but that's more a function of it being a long weekend than it being Valentine's Day. We are staying a friend's condo (cost of a thank you gift card) and will make all of our meals except for dinner at a favorite restaurant Saturday night (fun budget for this pay period). Overall not too bad! Though I have to admit, I LOVE getting flowers. Love it. But usually that's as far as it goes for us.

Alyssa congrats on funding your e-fund so quickly! You guys really are a good example of sticking to your goals.

emily1004 · February 2014

I agree with you! It gets too out of control, for what I like to call a "Hallmark Holiday". I absolutely hate going out to dinner on Valentines Day. The food is never that good because it's being turned over so quickly and the service usually sucks. It's just too crowded.

We will exchange a small gift. This year I got H the blu-ray of Scarface. He loves that movie and we don't own it. We'll go out for dinner but most likely it will be tomorrow night or Wednesday and we'll call that our V-Day dinner.

lifeonthehill · February 2014

emily1004 said:
We'll go out for dinner but most likely it will be tomorrow night or Wednesday and we'll call that our V-Day dinner.

This is a great idea! Now I wish H had a different night off this week! Haha.

Xstatic3333 said:

Alyssa congrats on funding your e-fund so quickly! You guys really are a good example of sticking to your goals.

Thank you! This is the first time H has been jumping up and down with me over a financial goal. We are back to SL with our next paycheck so he will be sad to see the money go again. I love checking this baby bucket list off.

brij2006 · February 2014

First off, great job with checking another item off your baby bucket list. :-)

I'm heading to San Diego Wednesday to stay a week with my friend who's husband is stationed there. So I'm actually going to watch their son while they go out for Valentines day. I'll likely call H and tell him happy V-day, but that's the extent.

The only time we really "celebrated" was the year we got engaged. H bought me diamond earrings, a single rose, and chocolates. He was super sweet about the way he gave them to me, and I wear the earrings every day. Yeah, I got him a DVD that year. lol. He says he knew I really wanted simple earrings to wear everyday, and they had a nice deal on them for V-day. So that's why he bought them.

Otherwise we usually just try out a fancy recipe at home.

SmrBrd2012 · February 2014

H and I don't really go crazy for v-day either. We've never really gotten presents for each other other than a necklace he got me the first year we were together. Usually we go out to eat or make a special dinner at home. I'm actually not sure what we are doing this year. There was some talk of going out the day after to avoid the craziness.

smbenevides1989 · February 2014

Our first Valentine's Day as a couple (we hung out for Valentine's Day as friends) he went all out and bought me this gigantic bear, gigantic, card, chocolates, then took me out to dinner. But after that, it has been a surprise with what he will do each year. He always takes me out to eat, sometimes buy me flowers, sometimes chocolate, but we usually agree to it before hand.

This year I asked that neither of us buy each other gifts to keep on track of the debt payments. The only gift I'm giving is a small box of chocolates to DD (the $1, 4 chocolates heart box). He is taking me and DD out to dinner, which this year is a complete surprise. He refuses to tell me.

jessica490 · February 2014

I agree. I told H that if he wants to plans in buying me flowers/chocolate like he does every year, not to buy until Saturday afternoon on his way home from school when everything is marked down 50% and flowers aren't $40+ a dozen! I plan on buying him something on Saturday as well.

Friday I will be cooking us a nice dinner at home though to celebrate.

vlagrl29 · February 2014

I thought I would surprise DH this year. There is a new bed and breakfast downtown that I just found out about back in Jan. I booked one of the rooms for us that night. I feel like i need a night away with DH kid-free. DD will be with the grandparents for the night. Dinner will be paid for by a gift card we have been saving. I'm going to get DH some new cologne samples and all I asked from him was to finish up editing our honeymoon footage from Hawaii 4 years ago. He is great at making videos.

Wulfgar · February 2014

I got MW a card and chocolate. I gave them to her yesterday when I got home. The chocolate was from our son to her. We are planning to go to one of our favorite restaurants tomorrow instead of Valentine's Day itself. We usually do that for dinner, go either the weekend before or after to avoid the madness. We don't go over board like.

mana8503 · February 2014

I could care less but H always tries to do something nice for me. Usually a card and a nice dinner.

Last year he took me to a wine pairing dinner the day before valentine's day. This year there's no way I going anywhere besides bed on a Friday night haha. We might go out to eat Sunday night since we are both off work Monday.

VadersValkyrie · February 2014

My husband and I basically do the same thing every year: have dinner wherever we can, and then go see a movie (preferably in 3D). We did this our first Valentines' Day dating, and the only variation is if it's a weekend we might go to a museum or something first.

maple2 · February 2014

Back when we were young and child free we tried to come up with fun at-home Valentines' themed activities like playing strip poker or making a dinner full of aphrodisiacs. These days we try to plan a fun family dinner followed by chocolate covered strawberries or something. DH and I have never been into spending lots of money or exchanging gifts on Valentines Day. DH absolutely hates it as a "Hallmark holiday," and thinks people should just act lovingly all year round. I don't see anything particularly horrible about setting aside a day to tell people how much you love them (I even think it's a good idea since people get so wrapped up in other things that they forget on a daily basis), but I'm too cheap to take part in any of the traditional activities like flowers and dinner out. It works for us.

orangehills · February 2014

I got DH a card and a little box of candy. I bought myself a necklace for $30, that is from him, lol. I think we are just going to make dinner in and have some wine!

I did spend $40 splitting a bouquet with my brother for my mom. Our dad died and he always got her something, so we split it now to get her something. That's where most of my Valentine's money goes!

CuriousKiddosMama · February 2014

We probably aren't doing anything other than going out for dinner on Saturday or something like that. I will probably be setting up for a garage sale that night, so won't want to go out Friday night and have to get up early and run the sale on Saturday.

HoneyBee973 · February 2014

I am off from work on Friday. I will make a nice dinner for us.

We usually don't go out on Valentine's day. As mentioned earlier, restaurants are usually crowded and over priced.

ToastieSimons · February 2014

We're on our last credit card of debt so we're not out of the woods yet. We have 2 little ones and it's such a pain to get a sitter, too overcrowded, etc. So I make a special dinner. It was supposed to be seafood lasagna but I won't have the ability to get fresh seafood because of the snowstorm coming. So I'll make shrimp scampi, so garlic bread, and rent a movie. I got DH a bar of fair trade chocolate ($3) that I know he'll enjoy.

KatieCutie05 · February 2014

Movies with a gift card I got from my credit card rewards left from before I cut it up. And our favorite restaurant at 930 because if we eat late we get a free appetizer and a free bottle of wine. Oh and we have a 10 dollar coupon. It will still probably be a 70 dollar night but we go out only like every other month and its budgeted so I don't mind.

short+sassy · February 2014

Our very first Valentine's Day together, my then b/f (now H) said he really hated going to restaurants for Valentine's Day because they were overcrowded and the food and service were usually sub-par because of it. He asked if he could make me dinner instead. I agreed and he had a table set up in the moonlight next to the pool. He went into his kitchen and brought out each course. It was really sweet and romantic!

When the entree course came around he told me we were having Tequila Lime Chicken Breast...and a light bulb went off in my head. A few weeks earlier he told me how much he liked the Tequila Lime Chicken in the prepared foods section at Whole Foods. I started laughing, gave him a look, and said, "Ah ha! You got everything from Whole Foods didn't you?" To which he looked a bit sheepish and said yeah, lol.

But 14 years later, that is still our tradition every year. We go to Whole Foods, pick out whatever yummy foods we want in their prepared foods area, and then plate it at home and have a romantic meal togehter.

Mom987 · February 2014

I also told DH not to worry about flowers delivered to my office because I'd rather spend that $100 together out to dinner or something. Which we never do.

strickland8052 · February 2014

I completely agree about V-Day being out of control financially. We never get each other any gifts, because we'd rather save our money together. Tonight we are going out to eat with a gift card that someone gave us.

blondie42107 · February 2014

We're not consistent with celebrating Valentines Day. I think this is the first time we went out in 4 years. Dh got me a card from him and the kids, an organic chocolate bar (inexpensive splurge) and then took me out to dinner. Dinner was nice because it's pretty rare that we eat out. We went to a small but nice restaurant. They have a perks program and when dh gave his debit card to pay, the waitress returned saying his dinner was free since his birthday was less than one month ago and that we actually had a credit on file (from over three years ago). So dinner and a tip was actually very affordable!

moonprincessd · February 2014

We normally don't do anything, but I won free tickets to see Shen Yun so that was pretty awesome, and then we went to applebees after for half off appetizers. Pretty good valentine's day.

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