It’s Friday! Hooray! This is the first day I don’t have a job to go to, and it is kind of nice. I love getting an extra hour of two of sleep and not having to get up and rush somewhere.
Thank you to everyone who has inquired about how Wes is doing. He is still struggling with the pain but said he is about 30% better. He will get an MRI this morning just to rule out any chance of a fracture and then he has another appointment later in the afternoon to try to get adjusted again. Keep your fingers crossed! Every morning we wake up and hope that he will feel better.
Yesterday soon after we got up we headed to the gym to spin together.
It was nothing special. Pretty long and boring, but it felt good to get it in before heading to work for the rest of the day.
After Wes picked me up from work we headed to the dollar store to pick up a few things we needed at home. We have really had to tighten up our budget lately. It is probably the tightest it has EVER been so it is making things a little bit more tricky. We now go to the dollar store to get some items that we need. Some of the greatest finds at the dollar store:
-Cards (I found a birthday card I needed for my dad)
-Deodorant
-Snack Foods
-Paper Towels/Toilet Paper
-Detergent
-Dryer Sheets
We are able to save a good amount of money by buying the things we can there.
Since we are on a tight budget, I’ve been brainstorming some ideas for Valentine’s Day. Of course, it would be great to go out for a fancy dinner and enjoy some time out but it is just not in the cards for us right now. I thought a great topic for my Friday post would be Five Ways to Enjoy Valentine’s Day on a Budget.
1. Romantic Movie Night at Home
We have always loved watching movies together. Get a few romantic movies together, get your favorite candy, and spend a night snuggled up under a blanket watching movies together.
This is something we do almost every weekend together.
2. Memory Night
Spend the night reminiscing about times in the past:
-Watch your wedding video
-Look at your wedding album together
-Go through old pictures
-Talk about your favorite memories
This was a picture from our very first Valentine’s Day together back in 2005.
3. Cook Dinner at Home
Go to the store and pick up your favorite meal.
On Valentine’s Day get in the kitchen and cook together. Cooking together can actually be very romantic and it is great quality time spent together. Light candles, poor a glass of wine, turn your phones off, and enjoy a dinner without an interruptions.
4. I Love You Because…
In college I made a poster with 10-15 reasons that I loved Wes for Valentine’s Day. I wish I knew where it was to take a picture, but somewhere between all the moves I think it eventually got thrown away.
A simpler way to do this is take 10 notecards and write down one reason on each why you love your significant other. Then you can sit down and read them to one another.
I try to think of creative ones that my husband would never think of!
5. Go for a Drive
This may sound strange, but my husband and I have done it several times.
We usually will get in our “comfy” clothes and get in the car and just drive. Not very far from where we live it turns into back country roads. We love just go drive out there in the evening to relax and talk. There is no better place than to have some great conversations than in the car together.
This was from Valentine’s Day in 2010 with our cat Gorman before we headed out to dinner. I am really starting to miss my bangs.
The key for a low-key Valentine’s Day is just to spend time together. Remind your loved one just why you love them. The most important thing to me is to spend time with Wes and enjoy a quiet evening just the two of us.
Remember, you can do any of these things any day of the year! Don’t wait for February 14th! Always let those you love know what they mean to you.
Do you have any Valentine’s Day plans?
What is your favorite thing to do with your significant other?
Don’t forget to enter my Thought Blossoms giveaway! You have until Sunday night. This would make a great Valentine’s Day gift for a loved one or yourself!
Our plans are definitely low key and low cost. Before we got married we would do things for each other, and after our wedding we had a couple of ‘arms race’ years, weekend trips (Captain Daniel Stone Inn in Brunswick Maine, highly recommended 🙂 ). But as we were saving for a house, and then especially after the kids came, we wanted to change things up …
And really it is easy for things to get out of hand quickly – to lose focus on WHY we are celebrating, instead going ahead and spending $80 for the same flowers I could buy for $20 today. It is nuts. When the kids were younger we had a couple of non-traditional dinner spots that were ‘family Valentine’s night’ spots.
Now the main thing is … time together. There is always so much going on, so much focus on the kids activities and looking forward to college, and work and whatever … that time to just BE together is so important. And that – TIME – is perhaps the greatest gift. That, plus wine and cooking dinner together 🙂
Yes Time together is our main thing as well! Dinner and wine really sounds PERFECT to me! 🙂
These are great ideas for Valentine’s Day on a budget. We are definitely on a tight budget this year with a wedding coming up. Have a great weekend!
Ashley, Married to the Game
Love the first picture of you and Wes!! Honestly, my favorite thing is just to stay at home, cook dinner together, and enjoy each other’s company … pretty cheap! Dinners out are nice once in a while, but sometimes the cheapest things are best!
My hubby and I dated all through college so our budgets were always pretty tight. For birthdays, anniversaries and holidays we always got creative with gift and date ideas. One year on our anniversary we decided to write each other something as our presents, he wrote me a letter and I wrote him a poem. That letter he wrote is still really special to me because how often does someone put their feelings for you into writiing? So beautiful. This year we’re keeping Valentines day simple too. I work for our church so we get free entrance to the marriage conference! So we’ll probably eat a special dinner at home and then spend the rest of the evening at the conference learning about marriage! 🙂
I love your ideas! Great ways to spend time together and show your love. Rick and I are really low key when it comes to holidays. For Valentine’s Day we are always on a trip because my Birthday is the day after and a trip is all I ever want to do! An experience we both get to enjoy. I am much more about experiences than material items for sure! If we weren’t traveling I am sure we would make a special dinner at home and open a nice bottle of wine. Not to save money necessarily but just because we tend to not go out when the masses are going out so we would find it more relaxing to be at home (plus we could both have a drink and not worry about driving).
Good luck with the MRI. Hoping Wes gets some better news today!
Happy Friday, Sara.
Those are all great ideas! I personally love Vday and it kinda makes me mad when ppl hate on it for commercial reasons. It’s only about the gifts if you make it, otherwise it’s about being with someone you love 🙂
Agree 100%! 🙂
love the last one. my favorite times are those spontaneous moments– everyday things that you don’t overthink, just enjoy for what they are.