Frugal Dating: Budgets Are Not Sexy
Monday Money Check-in: October 16, 2016
Amid all this Harvey Weinstein shit, which had me sucked in to Twitter for hours this week, my spirit has been saved by meeting the sweetest guy. And we’re dating. It’s new. Real new.
That we’re dating generally means that we go on dates. We’re doing stuff. And doing stuff, you might have noticed, is expensive. I don’t want to just let this guy pay for everything. I want to stand on my own two feet, and meet him where I’m at, as a broke-ass writer trying to make things work and take my lifestyle down at least 10 notches. It’s going…ok. For example, when we had to wait 30 minutes for brunch and walked over to grab some coffees. I got the coffees. When the check came for brunch, I asked if we could split it. He shook his head.
I know budgets are supposed to be sexy, but I do not find budgets sexy. I find spontaneity sexy. I find movies sexy. I find peering at each other over glasses of wine and delicious meals sexy.
So we’re in this back and forth of paying, where I’m spending much less than him, but we’re still doing things, together spending money to entertain ourselves together. Because this is what you do when you date: go out, have fun. The other day he had spent a bit already on me, so I offered to pick up a meal. The bill was $41, which meant $49 with tip. I was like Woah! Stop! Ok, snap out of it.
We just have to do less. I have to cook for him more, or just let him take me out. It’s really hard, as a writer, to tell someone else, “Hey, you too have to lower your standard of living to be with me.” That sucks. But it’s something I’ve accepted for my life, and anyone who wants to be with me will just have to accept that. I find it anything but sexy.
The wonderful news is that he’s a fellow Dave Ramsey follower. So neither of us believing in financing things like cars. It’s so nice to be on the same page about things like that, to have a financial paradigm that we both believe in. When you’re 35, and not just messing around anymore, those kind of things mean a lot. Plus, he said he’d love to try my cooking.
Yesterday, we were out at a fall fare thing, corn maze and pumpkins. We rode in the back of a monster truck, for which I tried to pay but he wouldn’t let me. Then we heard about the zombie paintball, where you could shoot people dressed up like zombies. My eyes got wide and I looked at him all excited. We were both were way into the idea, and went to get tickets. When we walked up, we saw it was $22 per person. We’d already had two $8 hard ciders, food, etc. We kind of just both went…
He looked at me and said, “How about I just buy you dinner?” and we rolled out for some Thai food.
When you’re still in that fun first stage, it can be so hard to stick to your goals. Ah shit I also have to tell you that I spent $133 on some new clothes, nothing too crazy, but just some fall spruce ups that were not unrelated to wanting to look nice for a certain someone.
Anyway, we’re making plans for tomorrow. He says dinner and a movie, and I offered to cook at my place. That’s the plan.
Weekly check-in:
Personal Checking Balance: $116
Business Checking Balance: $60
Discretionary spending this week: (This is a new category I want to track, and it’s actually really hard to figure out. But I need to work on that.) $269
Fuck Off Fund Level: $2,044 (More like a Please Reconsider Your Actions Fund)
Weekly wins: Finished paying back my friend for that trip to Bolivia. I feel like I’m less “in trouble” when I pay off debts.
