Ugh...that is all that I have to say. I HATE bills!!!! Well, everyone does.
I love Fridays, well I love the anticipation of Fridays. My husband gets to be home for the next two days and we get to spend time with family and friends. We usually have a fantastic time, but...
This morning I woke up, checked e-mail, and logged onto our bank account. Yeah! Payday!!!! Not. After paying our rent and car insurance we have a whole $67 to spend on groceries, gas, a birthday present, on and on and on. Needless to say it is not enough money for us to make any head-way on our debt reduction plan.
I know that my husband works hard, and we have it better than some people but it is still frustrating not to be able to do the things that we want to do.
This morning my husband asked me if we had enough money to go on a date, he really is the sweetest man. We rarely go out, honestly we have probably only gone on a dozen or so actual dates throughout the course of dating and marriage. (Isn't that sad???) But, I had to say no. We don't have the money after buying diapers and hopefully enough food to get by.
I am going to tell him that when we get his check for cleaning next week we will go out. Spend the $50 or so bucks and go to dinner and a movie. I love him, and I would love to spend some alone time with him....but, it is not always in the cards. I don't think that going on the occasional date, instead of paying extra on our debt, is going to hurt us but, in fact, help us in the long run. Having a healthy relationship is key, otherwise what are you living for? Living to be debt free??? That's sad. How do you and your spouse make sure that you get enough time together? What are your favorite cheap date ideas?
I can not wait to be debt free. But, is that ever going to happen?
hhmmm we never go out alone- not that we wouldn't like to, but we only have my mom to babysit and I just try to avoid it. She tends to be a bit overdramatic and the kids are always "awful...". But I'll be honest (and hoepfully not rude :)) Where we are right now I absolutely would not take $50 for us for one night out. We tend to do cheaper stuff in general as a family- like eating out, getting movies from the library... I think we've been to the movies 2x since my 4 year old was born, it's way too expensive and I never feel I MUST see something, we just wait wait and rent or get it from the library. If we were to have a date night now w/o kids I'd probably pack us a picnic (maybe buy something a little better from the store than I would usually get) go to a park somehwhat private and have a picnic. Our aREA has a lot of free concerts in the park in the summer that we would go to - we like to do these with the kids too.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Rachel... $50 is generally too much for us to spend on a "regular" date, although we did spend that on dinner for our 5 year anniversary this year. I generally budget $50 (in cash) for a month of entertainment for us. Granted, you do need to budget and make time for dates, becuase maintaining the health of your marriage is by far the best thing you will ever do for your children, but it doesn't have to be expensive. Some of our cheap favorites: out for ice cream, the bookstore (to browse, not buy), having another couple over the play games, making a nice dinner after our kids are in bed (they got to bed at 7), watching a rented movie (we have Netflix) and occasionally (less than half a dozen since our 2 year old was born) we will go see a movie in the theatre, but we most often frequent the $1 theatre in our area (regular theatre release movies get there 6 or 8 weeks later) or we get discount tickets at the local grocery store.
ReplyDeleteIf you're set on dinner our, try looking for coupons to local resturaunts. My husband and I were recently able to eat at Chili's for under $15, including tip. We ate off their "right portion" menu, which is less expensive, drank water and used a $5 off coupon. Takes a little more planning, and a little more creativity, but date night on a meager budget it totally doable, without breaking the budget.