This week’s article offers three great sections for tips to help on Valentine’s Day. The third is a bonus section since it’s the one that didn’t make the title because ‘7 Money Saving Tips & 7 Gift Ideas & 5 Steps to have a Great Valentines’ was a little long.
7 Money Saving Tips
1) If you have kids, offer to babysit for someone who can return the favor for you the night you want to go out
2) Postpone your Valentine’s outing in order to avoid jacked up prices and crammed restaurants.
3) Start a tradition where you have your Valentines on Feb 16 so you can get the after Valentines sales
4) Check out WagJag or Groupon for any deals. For instance, there’s a coupon to see Robin Hood in Toronto. It’s a great play and it’s a discount gift that you can enjoy on another night. It’s like 2 gifts in one because there’s the moment the gift is given and the time you enjoy it later.
5) Dig out some of those gift cards you’ve got stuffed away and use them up.
6) Go Tobogganing or for a free skate
7) The BEST & CHEAPEST gift idea is to complete a task or two that your partner (aka wife) has been bugging you about forever. It’s cheap, practical, and it proves that you do listen to her. Even if the task isn’t cheap, it’s a job you’re eventually going to have to pay to do anyway so this is a two for one deal. I’m not saying don’t also get flowers or something more traditional, but this is the ultimate gift.
7 Gift Ideas
Note: People report greater happiness from experiences than actual gifts.
1) Consider what you can do together. For instance, for Christmas I bought my partner and I a couples’ archery lesson and a hour in the Xtreme Escape room.
2) Buy tickets for a local theatre like the Staircase Theatre with their great Valentine’s show.
3) Look up past events on Wagjag for ideas.
4) Talk to a great florist like Rosanna from Westdale Florists (rosanna@westdaleflorists.com)
5) Arbonne products are vegan approved because they’re non animal and environmentally friendly based products, which can be sexy to the right person. Talk to someone like Shaun (shaun@myarbonne.ca)
6) While commuting to work practice singing a song or a speech you wrote for your partner.
7) Buy something that will make your partner want to be close to you. I don’t mean drug them, but maybe something that makes you smell better or look better. You could buy body paint and highlight muscles (e.g. instant 6 pack), or maybe you could wear the mask of a celebrity he or she likes (that’s a joke)
5 Steps to Have a Great Valentine’s Day
1) Remember that it’s Valentine’s Day… preferably before the day. This is what normally got my dad in trouble as he scrambled on his way home from work to find a decent leftover card.
2) Consider what you can do that will make both of you in the “mood” to be close later; for instance, sometimes being with friends for a couple hours could help your interest and prevent one of you (i.e. the guy) from saying something stupid and ruining the night.
3) Know what you’d want to make this a good day
4) Ask your partner what he or she would want to make this a good day
5) See what you can actually do cost and time wise.
Rev. Chad David, www.ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people