Appreciating What You Have: The Cheap Date

Yesterday, I got to thinking about how much my husband and I enjoyed cheap dates when we were young. Back then, it was all we could afford and a big night out was dinner at someplace like Chilis or Applebees.  Those were expensive to us back then.  We regularly went to the dollar movies because often it was all we could afford.  It really didn't matter if it was a movie we really wanted to see and often we saw some of the best movies purely on accident.  So, I decided.  I texted my husband and asked if he wanted to go on a "cheap date" with me.  He said yes.

So what did we do?

We went to Chili's and shared two appetizers.  Cost for dinner? $22 (after tip).  Enjoyment level: Awesome.  Heck, we forgot how much we love their Chips & Queso and their Southwestern Eggrolls. 

After dinner we went and walked around the mall to kill some time.  Granted this particular mall is half empty and it makes it sad and nostalgic since we spent so much time there when we were young. I worked there in 4 different stores, he visited often.  But, it was still fun to just see how much things have changed and to see how our perspectives have changed.  There was a huge sale at JCPenney's... but we looked at the prices and said "that's just too much".  Yes, we could afford it. We could afford it if wasn't on sale.  But, we are cheap now...lol.

Finally, we headed across the parking lot the dollar theater; the same theater that was a hot place to go 15 years ago when we were dating.  We bought our tickets and headed inside to see Harry Potter.  We haven't been going to movies as much in the last year or so. I think we had gotten fed up with the high prices and then getting inside to have distractions of babies crying, cell phones and people talking.  Why pay so much for something you aren't enjoying.  So, for us to go it had to be something we really wanted to see... or because we were going with friends.  We were finally going to see Harry Potter.  It was ok and we agreed it was worth $1.  The funny thing was that I think that most of the people who were there, paying only $1 were there also because they were fed up with paying high prices and having distractions.  It was probably the quietest I've seen a theater during a movie in a long time.  Once I heard a cell phone go off, and once we heard a guy talking on his cell phone.  However, we both agreed that those both seemed accidental.

In the end, our "cheap date" cost us about $28, for dinner and a movie.  But, I think we enjoyed it more than many of the times we've spent more than twice that much to do the very same thing.  We paid less for both movie tickets and two bottles of water than we normally pay for one movie ticket! 

I think we will be doing this more often.  It's funny how you appreciate things so much more when you aren't doing them all the time.  Suddenly, date night becomes something special again, rather than feeling like you are doing the same ole thing all the time.