Last week's date night

Since I'm behind in my posts and this week will likely be date night free, I'm playing catch up.

Last week we had a lazy (relaxing) date night.

I picked up a treat at the grocery store while doing my weekly shopping. That night I sent bentobaby and hubby out for soda, and a redbox.

Sorcerer's apprentice redbox rental $1
Box of brownie bites $5
2 liter of coke $2
Total $8

The brownie bites were a bummer. Hubby and I had a few but saved most of them. We've been slowly nibbling on them all week. Hubby made my coke special by adding a splash of (sugar free) vanilla syrup. Yum! He even put my coke in my favorite reusable Starbucks tumbler. What a great way to make a regular coke more special without spending a penny.

Expensive date night

Hubby and I were lucky enough to be able to sneak away for a date several weeks ago. Bentobaby was sleeping under Grandma and Grandpa's careful eye. She didnt know we were gone! :) Hubby and I headed streight for the movies.

Two movie tickets $21
candy, soda, bottle of water $13

Total $34! OUCH! It would have cost more if we had to pay for a baby sitter.

That makes my (usually) $10 or less dates look wonderful!

Date night, candy tasting

One day hubby and I were driving for a few hours. We had a box of chocolates in the car without the paper telling us which chocolate is what. We had the best time laughing and eating these chocolates. Hubby thought another box of chocolates would be fun. What about the pomegranates? I found out to my surprised that hubby has never had a pomegranate. I loved these as a child, my mom would purchase them all the time. Hubby had to have one!

Box of chocolates $8

1 Pomegranate $2.50

2 Fantas from the coke plant .50

Total $11

Unfortunately this was not a very yummy box of chocolates, plus it had just 4/5 varieties. That is not fun for our purposes. We have more then half of it left over. The pomegranate was fun, but very messy. Its not a very um, seductive activity to spit seeds in front of your partner. We enjoyed it but save this for someone your very comfortable with. After we ate our pomegranate hubby and I played several rounds of our favorite Sorry Revenge game.

We had a great night together, laughing and joking. At one point my pomegranate exploded out of my hands and showered seeds every where. It was awesome. I was able to spend some time focused on my husband, have a few treats, and enjoy hubby without spending a fortune or needing a baby sitter for bento baby. Success!

Date night, nerd style.

My husband was elated to find this brand new Trivia Pursuit Star Wars game at the thrift store. For a mere $7 (his spending money) he walked away with this treasure. And started pestering me to play it. I greatly dislike Star Wars. And hubby is quite a fan. There is no way I will win against him. Did I mention he's super competitive too? I agreed to play 1 round of his game on date night, IF its followed by a game of Scene It Friends. (we went without cable for 2 years but i had all 10 friends seasons. They were played ALOT) We had our activity all set but snacks were still in the air. A quick trip to Grocery Outlet gave us our munchies.

Mondo bag of my favorite popcorn $4

Dagoba (star wars, for real) chocolate for hubby $3

Chevrai Bruschetta goat cheese (1 pound) $3

3 (not pictured) cans of soda from the Coke plant .75

Total $10.75

You may ask why i didn't include dh's $7 game. Because it wasn't purchased for Date night. My playing it on Date night is a gift to my husband. If we included his game we would also have to include my $20 game that was purchased years ago. This week's date night is all about snacks! :)

Weekly date night

Hubby and I knew tonight was date night. Our plan was to play Mario Party on the wii. Its my favorite game. We used to play it regularly before we became parents. We haven't played it since. However last night we were both too worn out to do anything besides veg. That is so sad! Too tired to play a game? Sad! Now we had to come up with alternate plans, and fast.

I looked through the available stand up comedy titles from Netflix's instant queue. Hubby made us Mimosas using the $11 bottle of champagne from this post. In a matter of minutes we had an improvised date night together. Thankfully we had orange juice in the fridge. We never did find a new super funny comedian but we still had fun flipping through the different ones.

Netflix comedy shows $0
Champagne $11
Orange juice $0 already in fridge

Date night total $11

Weekly date night

We kept date night low key and simple this week. Some weeks we're so tired that all we want to do is crash on the couch. A little snuggling, some soft warm blankets and a comfy couch were just what we needed!

Netflix rental (Backup plan, so funny) $0
Frozen chocolate silk pie $8
2 liter of Cherry Coke $2

Total: $10

Lets say you don't like frozen pies, and you don't have a netflix account. First of all I would recommend at least the minimal netflix account. One movie out at a time is $9 and you get unlimited streaming movies on your computer and XBOX or WII. Worth it.

However if you don't use netflix, check out a redbox dvd. $1 a night with free codes available online. Just take it back the next day! You can also make your own pie or cake for a lot less money then $8 if you watch sales. Same with the coke, we had to buy it at convenience store because our grocery store was out. They had a good sale going on.

The point of date night is to do something special with your spouse on a budget. If you don't like chocolate pie, buy what you do like. If hubby has to have soda, then find a good deal on it. customize date night to be what YOU want it to be. While on budget. :)

Frugal date night

My hubby and I determined to have a special night once a week. We don't use a baby sitter. Which means our dates have to be at home, fun, and affordable. Yesterday's date night was one of our most fun to date!

Our most recent date night cost us $11. We laughed and teased each other the whole night.

We spent $6 on Sorry Revenge. This is our beloved game and the 3rd copy we have purchased. It is an amazingly fun game. I hate math, but i adore this game.

The other $5 went to a treat. We splurged on 4 Auntie Anne's cookies. This was a huge treat for me. I love Auntie Anne's cookies and rarely treat myself to them. Homemade cookies would be cheaper but Auntie Anne's cookies were more fun.

Thats $11 total. Our 6 dollar game was an investment purchase (assuming we can find this copy again!) that will bring us tons of fun.

Date night reality

Hubby and I live in a very rainy part of the country, our outdoor plans were cancled last night. We made our smores over candle light. Not quite what we had planned, but when does life go exactly how we plan? The champagne will wait, and bentobaby will be more then happy to help drink the orange juice. Eventually we'll have our Mimosas around the fire pit. In till then, smores over candle light sounds pretty fun to me.

Date Night

What is a couple to do when they don't use baby sitters but still want to have a special time with each other? We use date night. Frequently this means a movie, popcorn, and a treat. The treat is usually cake or ice cream bought on sale. Usually its not something I have to bake myself because that is not much fun for me. Sometimes its a cheese plate, chips and dip. Something we do not eat often that is a splurge. Tonight i had a different idea. Today we bought:


$2.50 orange juice
$11 bottle of champagne (huge splurge, we never drink!)
$3.50 bundle of wood (all of ours is wet!)

Total $17

Plus smores fixings leftover from dh's camping trip. We plan to sit outside around our fire pit, roast smores, and sip Mimosas. We can relax alone (away from the 7 animals, while baby is sleeping) but still be there if BentoBaby needs us (via baby monitor). Sounds like a perfect evening to me!