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Valentine’s Day – Was It Worth Celebrating?

02.15.2010 by Matt Jabs //

Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark Holiday

For those unfamiliar, a “Hallmark Holiday” is a term used to describe a holiday created for commercial purposes that seeks to exploit the emotions of consumers for reasons of profit.

People may argue the legitimacy of this term, but for the intents and purposes of this article we will assume it true (mostly because I believe it… and I’m the author.) 🙂

Define your own celebrations

Despite popular cultural norms, we strive to choose our own celebration days rather than letting them be dictated to us by commercial entities or anyone else.  While we do celebrate some traditional holidays, we still try to do so in a way that makes us happy rather than just following along with the spending culture we’re inundated with and surrounded by.

Per celebrating loved ones, I endeavor to celebrate my love for them daily rather than certain days of the year.  I love my wife every day and hope to show her that as often as possible.  I love my mom every day, and hope to show her that as often as possible.  I love my sister every day and hope to show her that as often as possible.  You get the point.  Rather than picking days, I think it more fitting to try and make them feel special every time I come in contact with them.

Despite the aim to always honor loved ones, I still have particular days I like to focus on them but prefer to define these days according to the personal relationship, not popular culture.

Anniversaries

Anniversaries are a big one for me.  I view them as special because they represent the loving and life long union of two people setting off to share their lives with one another.  I like to show particular admiration for loved ones on these special days.

Birthdays

Celebrating the day people came into this world is another huge one for me.  What better opportunity to focus on individuals than the anniversary of their birth.

Although both of these event types are very commercialized in popular culture, I enjoy placing the focus on the person and the relationship rather than focusing on gifts of high dollar amounts.  I typically do this by expressing my appreciation for them through words, pictures, and memories, etc… or by meeting a specific need they have.

Valentine’s Day – What we did and how we saved

Since we do not celebrate this holiday in traditional fashion, we focused on making it a great day like we do with all other days.  Initially we planned to split a meal at one of our favorite restaurants then visit the MSU planetarium, but chose to avoid the crowds and stay home instead.  If you didn’t already know, we are in debt so we limit ourselves to a maximum of one night out per month.  Also, we decided long ago that dinners out should be limited to occasions that are special to us, so we chose to save our special dinner for next week… our 5th wedding anniversary!  🙂

Rather than going out, spending money, and fighting crowds… we made our favorite dinner together – Indian Madras Chicken Curry – and cuddled up to a good movie afterward.  We saved about $20 on the meal by cooking at home (which also provided us leftovers for the week ahead) and utilized our Netflix streaming subscription to watch a movie at no additional cost.

All said and done we saved about $30+ and spent a lovingly relaxing night at home eating our favorite dish and cuddling up to a great movie.

Valentine’s Day – What did you do and how did you save?

Do you believe in celebrating Valentine’s Day?  Did you celebrate it traditionally by spending money to enjoy each others company, or did you celebrate it creatively without focusing on gifts and evenings out?

Categories // General Tags // gifts, holidays, love, relationships, valentines day

A Frugal Find – Valentine’s Day on the Cheap

02.01.2009 by Matt Jabs //

Valentine’s Day is a time that challenges even the most frugal. Luckily my wife & I both know it is not a day that deserves the accolades the world thrusts upon it, therefore we try not to hold it in higher esteem than we ought.  Instead we work on loving & cherishing each other every day of the year.  Fortunately, God blessed me with a wife who values being financially responsible over blowing huge amounts of money on temporal frivolities – one of the many reasons I fell in love with her.  As true as this may be, my wife is still a woman and very much loves to be pampered and held as precious.  To achieve a balance, we want to show special attention to each other all while working to remind ourselves and others that you don’t have to spend a lot of dough to prove your love to one another.

And so…over the course of the past few weeks we’ve been contemplating how we could do “Valentine’s Day on the Cheap” (or as she jokingly calls it…”Valentime’s Day”).  Though we’ve been lethargically tossing ideas around, we never seriously sat down to solidify any plans…until tonight.  We both knew we wanted to do something out of the ordinary; something new and uncommon to us, not just the boring & ever-so-typical fancy expensive dinner followed by a fancy expensive show.  To come up with some ideas I began to scour the Internet.  I was immediately presented with a few articles from some of my favorite blogs including “Nine Tactics for a Frugal Valentine’s Day“ & “My Frugal Valentine: Cheap Ways to Say I Love You“.  However, after reading these articles, I was still left wanting, and so decided to write a related post of my own.

Though some of the ideas presented in the previously mentioned articles were solid and well delivered, Mrs. Jabs & I needed ideas with a focus on creativity and excitement.  After the Internet searches left us unsatisfied she grabbed our local city visitor guide and we began pouring over it.  We were immediately presented with many creative, fun, and most importantly affordable ideas for our Saturday night excursion.

Here are a few of the ideas we kicked around:

  1. A lesser known play – performed by lesser known actors – at a lesser know venue. In our local visitors guide we ended up finding four theaters in our area (apart from the two well known, more expensive ones) that we never knew about!  They all presented live shows for $10 – $15 a person.
  2. A split meal at one of your favorite LOCAL (not chain) restaurants. This is us following through with one of our core principles of frugality…when you do eat out…split meals!  Most restaurants give you WAY too much food.
  3. A trip to the local planetarium. We have been wanting to visit it for years and just have not gotten around to it.
  4. Cross country skiing or ice skating (both of which are cheap and are provided by local parks).  If you live in a warm climate go in-line skating, disc golfing, kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking or hiking and have a picnic when you reach a romantic, secluded spot.
  5. A few hours visiting one of your local historic museums or art galleries. Follow this up by getting some walk-about comfort food (hot dogs & fries from a street vendor) then some ice cream cones.
  6. Dress semi-formal, use semi-formal dinnerware and cook a romantic dinner together. I actually saw this idea mentioned around the web and agreed with it.  However my wife gets annoyed quickly and is all business when in the kitchen so it would not bode well for us as a romantic experience.  🙂
  7. Go sledding then go get some hot soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, & hot cocoa. Sledding is usually free and soup & grilled cheese will set you back $25 at most.
  8. Mutual romantic, candle-light, oil massages.  Truly pamper each other by reciprocating a nice sensual massage with some great scented oils.
  9. Go to a comedy club. Most decent sized towns will have a comedy club.  Our local club has a Valentine’s Day special that includes food, drinks, & the show for a really good price.  I always have more fun at these shows than I anticipate.

After careful consideration my wife & I decided to go with not one but several of these options.  Early on Saturday we intend to either go sledding, ice skating, or cross country skiing.  Then we’ll head home for some hot cocoa & a little lovey-dovey time. Then it’s off to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, where we will split a meal.  The restaurant we chose is locally owned and uses all local & fresh organic ingredients.  (We are big fans of promoting the concept of locally produced items and love to support our local businesses).  After dinner we will head to the Abrams Planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University for a cool, relaxing, and romantic night under a starry sky!  The whole day will not cost us more than $40…and that to us is Valentine’s Day on the Cheap!

I hope you will be able to use a few of these ideas and are blessed with a frugal yet romantic evening with your significant other!  And lastly, I’ll leave you with a little history on the subject of Valentine’s Day.  Enjoy…

*Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine’s cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

An alternative theory from Belarus states that the holiday originates from the story of Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering.

*Source: Wikipedia

Categories // Money Management, Spending Tags // cheap, frugal, valentines day

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