How do you and your SO handle spending on date nights each month? And how do you keep it feeling fun and romantic instead of like you’re just splitting costs down the middle all the time?
Date Night Budget Planning
byu/Icy_Lawfulness_5755 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Icy_Lawfulness_5755
5 Comments
Take turns planning the dates and whoever plans pays. Then it feels like you’re treating each other.
We each get the same amount of “fun” money every month. Depending on how we’re doing with the rest of our budget, sometimes I’ll treat her to dinner or sometimes she’ll treat me. We just check in with each other occasionally like “hey how are you doing this month?” and then decide how extravagant we want to be, and sometimes we’ll go Dutch.
I think the better question you need to ask yourself is, why does 30 seconds spent splitting the bill kill the fun and romance for the entire date for you? Because it doesn’t get any better when you’re partnered up and your SO is treating you to dinner with your own money.
If you want to treat them, then treat them. Trying to keep track of how close to 50/50 you are is only going to end in grief, because it’ll never be 50/50.
Once we moved in together we got a shared credit card. Each of us is an authorized user. When we buy anything that’s “for us both”, including paying the check on a date night, one of us just puts down that card. We split the bill for the CC every month.
I cannot imagine trying to split every individual purchase.
>And how do you keep it feeling fun and romantic instead of like you’re just splitting costs down the middle all the time?
If your finances are combined, it literally doesn’t matter. If they are not then it should all equal out in the end if you’re in a healthy relationship anyway.