The Financial Diet blog:
Hi i’m chelsea and i’m lauren and we are the financial diet and today is a very special holiday episode of tfd because as some of you are probably aware in fact i would guess all of you are probably aware it’s valentine’s day june a soon i was a fun day we had tf t hate valentines day we love love we love romance we love special gestures for the people we love
But the concept of valentine’s day as an excuse to spend a lot of money you don’t have on things that aren’t really worth it is a terrible one and at least speaking for us we think pretty much everyone has at least one cringe-worthy valentine’s day story so my worst valentine’s day ever had to have been when my significant other and i lived out new jersey and we
Decided to go into the city one night for a very expensive like exclusive valentine’s day dinner at this restaurant with like hearts all over the menu and like themed dishes and it was like really like in retrospect but it turns out that they dink in our reservation captured so we had to just kind of like wing it and we ended up going to this like vegetarian vegan
Restaurant that was nearby it was just like one of the worst meals ever but we tried to make the best of it but it was just like a complete waste of money and a huge headache so and one of my valentines day nightmares was when i went on a first date that happened to be on valentine’s day with this guy i met on okcupid and he brought me a giant bouquet of flowers to
The date which meant that for about 12 hours i had to carry around this big bouquet of flowers to a museum and then to a dinner at a nice restaurant and then to a movie and by the time i got home they were like disgusting and brown and wilted so when it comes to useless valentine’s day spending here at tfd we really think that it comes down to five expenses that
People tend to really waste money on so for us the five biggest valentine’s day wasters are restaurants flowers events jewelry and gift cards so first off restaurants they should be avoided at all costs especially the ones with the fancy prefix menus where you’re guaranteed to be spending more per person and it’s usually that the quality of the food suffers a bit
And the service does as well because you’re guaranteed that you know it’s going to be crowded and you’re going to be tempted to spend more on a holiday themed night pretty much anyone who’s ever worked in the restaurant industry myself included knows that there’s really two nights to avoid restaurants and that is new year’s and valentine’s day you’re going to be
Spending more to get less so the second one is flowers and we’re talking about like the big surprise bouquet which i know a lot of people and not to be gendered here but i think it’s usually like what can i send this woman to make her feel special on valentine’s day and you go on to and you sort of flower website that might not be named and you pick out the bouquet
That arrives in the vaz with maybe like a teddy bear with it and those are just such huge waste of money especially considering that when you look on the lower end of things they tend to be about 30 to 40 dollars for like their entry-level bouquet and then the more upscale ones are 60 to even $100 and who in the world should be spending that much money on flowers
I think is a rule of thumb you should say don’t spend more than 25 dollars on something that’s going to be dead in four days and anytime you’re looking at a bouquet to be delivered go ahead and see how much that same bouquet would cost in like a grocery store or a flower shop chances are it’s being sold at about a 400 percent markup so as an alternative to fresh
Flowers you can pick up something like a bouquet of silk flowers at a store like tj maxx or michaels craft store and you can put those on your table and they’ll last forever essentially rather than being dead in four days and doesn’t have to just be flowers either you can pick up any kind of decoration that you want for a house just something that looks pretty
And feels special that you’re giving your significant other on valentine’s day the point is just to give something that beautifies their everyday life and again that could be flowers but it could also be something like you know frame candles anything that might look beautiful and special so 3 would be cheesy couples themed events that you would normally avoid
Unlike any other day other than valentine’s day so i’ve seen crazy overpriced things for couples like dinners in the dark where you sit there with your significant other and you’re both blindfolded and like these choreographed servers come around and feed you i’ve seen you know couples workout classes that are really expensive and also like cupid underwear runs
Like all those kinds of cheesy events should be avoided at all cost as an alternative feel free to partake in just about any other activity that you guys would normally enjoy doing on any other day but that’s not a valentine’s day branded because once it’s branded you can pretty much assume that the price is going to jack right up number 4 is jewelry now obviously
Valentine’s day is a time when people feel really compelled to go out and spend a lot of money on jewelry that they might not be able to afford at the time or that they might not be sure about or whatever it may be so the thing about jewelry is if you’re ready to buy it great eight but if you’re not ready to buy it don’t use valentine’s day as the time to force
Yourself into buying something that you can’t afford and as a general rule at tfd we think that if you’re going to be investing a lot of money in something like a piece of jewelry that’s really something you should consult your partner about to make sure that they’re okay with spending that amount of money on it and maybe they’d like an input on what it even looks
Like so the fifth thing would be thoughtless gifts like gift cards which if you’re getting your significant other a gift card for valentine’s day you clearly have felt just obligated to purchase something put it in a bag and hand it to someone probably not even a bag probably just like an envelope it’s that true so an alternative to this would just be taking your
Significant other out for a shopping trip and letting them pick something that you would like to buy them but in their presence it makes it a fun activity for both of you and you know as an excuse to spend time together so the biggest issue that i personally have with valentine’s day is not the romantic aspect because we love romance it’s the fact that everything
Feels forced and crammed into one day out of the year for me things like special dinners out flowers gifts special moments for your significant other they can be sprinkled throughout the year they don’t have to happen on one night because then it makes people feel forced to spend more than they normally would and plus i think there’s something a lot more thoughtful
And special about doing something just sort of at random because you thought of the other person and not because it was like the day my parents actually called valentine’s day amateur night for this reason and keep in mind any sort of like fun expensive thing you might want to do at a restaurant or bar is something you can recreate at home which then adds a built-in
Activity of making something together this year for example my boyfriend and i plan on just taking this board game that he got for his birthday a couple weeks ago heading to a really low-key local bar that we like and just sitting you know in a corner and playing a board game all day then you know maybe come home and cook something together for dinner it’s really
More for us about taking advantage of the fact that it’s a sunday than the fact that it’s valentine’s day so the point is that valentine’s day can still be romantic and special without having to come in an expensive pre-wrapped red package we like to think of romance is something that you build every day and not something that you buy on february 14th and as always
Thanks for watching and don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and to go to the financial diatom for more bye
Transcribed from video
The 5 Most B.S. Things About Valentine's Day | The Financial Diet By The Financial Diet