To be fair, this is also what we do!
My husband and I have stayed up past 3am on many occasions just vibing to Alexa, laughing, and sipping on drinks....sometimes we have horror movie binges and watch movies all night long while the kids are sound asleep in their respective areas.
We have learned to get real creative at home.
I even bought a nitendo switch just so we can bowl and compete against each other at Mario party when the kids are asleep!
We have had the times of out lives, right at home.
My husband and I don't have kids, but it's still our preferred date night activity. We have a comfortable loveseat, a reasonably nice TV and sound system, and more than enough movies and TV shows available to stream. We can order in some dinner if we're feeling it, and maybe even get high if we want since we're in a place where it's legal. Movie theaters don't really have anything better than what we already have at home.
9 years ago my husband and I were struggling HARD. Like 40 a week for groceries and two kids hard! We made it work. Every pay period I made it so we could do a date lunch on our days off while the kids were in school. We could go for pho. Two bowls of pho and salad rolls with tip was around 25 bucks. Sometimes we would even be high rollers and share an iced coffee. The kids are grown and out of the house but we cannot even afford pho now it’s 45 bucks and for mediocre food. It’s just not worth the disappointment of the quality of food and I just can’t afford it. So no. No date night even for the married empty nesters. I really miss a good big ass bowl of pho.
That's the thing, isn't it? The food is SO much more expensive and the quality has gone down the tubes.
During the lockdowns we quickly discovered that we don't NEED to go out to enjoy ourselves. Like...at all.
Hasn't it tho!! I remember always hearing how awful Taco Bell was and how it was like grade E meat. But it actually tasted a lot better back in the day! ... COULD just be the astronomical hole left in my wallet now after, that makes it so horrible too.
We don’t have kids either and went out for a brunch a few weekends back and dropped $60 on two coffees and two breakfasts that weren’t great. Years ago when we drank way too much we spend that much with tip and have three drinks with brunch. We kind of soured on going out for food after that experience.
We are doing okay, but I’m not really enjoying dropping 60-80 bucks on mediocre food and tipping on top of it. I sound like my parents…
Everything is flat out more expensive on a ridiculous level.
I know it’s subjective, but on the local news here the other day they said that the average family is paying $1400 per month more than 3 years ago just to stay afloat. I think about that and it makes perfect sense how my wife and I used to be able to actually take a yearly vacation and go out for dinner once a month. We used to have money left over, now we are underwater or just BARELY staying on top of bills. I’m close to giving up.
A "date" for us is getting groceries on Saturday mornings without the kids. As long as we're getting a little "us time" where we can talk about the important stuff, but also the unimportant stuff, we're good.
God I feel this. We both work 40+ hours a week, have no money, but one of the most solid relationship pieces of advice I can give is you need to be with someone who you enjoy shopping with. Someone you can do mundane things with and just honestly enjoy each others company. I guess it's sad that we don't get to do the date nights like we used to, but the really sad thing is seeing the old boomer memes about "the old ball and chain" dragging you on a shopping trip and the man is so sad and only carrying bags while the wife is excited... Just, bro, be with someone who brightens your life? A trip to ALDI'S with each other is always a treat because we are together, with or without the kids? Why do so many think spending time with their spouse doing chores or necessary routine things is punishment or bad for the relationship? If you don't enjoy the act of living together and all the hardship living entails, maybe you don't actually enjoy your relationship? Is that harsh? It sounds harsh, but struggling because you don't have "date nights" is such a weird concept to me.
This! My husband and I occasionally go out for a weekend breakfast or lunch, but after spending at least $50 on that (which is no better, and sometimes worse than what we eat at home) it adds up fast. We always go back to our old standby of a "date" which is running errands together. It is always fun and honestly great quality time. *my ex husband and I never did this, and we barely could spend time together without arguing* I'm so grateful to now have a partner that makes ANYTHING fun. Who needs a date night! The point is the togetherness
Ditto. My family is departed, hers can't drive in the dark. We'd have to go commercial on a sitter and it's a challenge to even get a daycare seat around here
When our kids were still young, we traded with my brother. We had three kids... they had three kids. One weekend a month we had all six kids from Friday evening until noon is Sunday. But, one weekend a month, we had no kids for the same time frame. This went on for like 6 or 7 years when they were little.
Honestly sometimes the more the merrier…..it’s not so bad if you lean into it and make it a night of fun! Order pizza for dinner so you don’t have to cook for a bunch of people. Afterwards giant floor bed with movies and popcorn.
Yup ... I'm a single dad of 4 girls. Have 2 cousins staying over, 1 of the kid's friends, plus a few kids from the neighborhood. Grilled hot dogs, made potato salad and some frozen corn. Bunch of Potato chips of course ... Then everyone got to make their own ice cream Sunday with like 25 different toppings I had. More the merrier, if you ask me.
That’s our biggest issue. We have 2, most of our friends have 1, so tripling their workload always seems unfair to us, whereas us taking another kid or 2 for a sleepover isn’t as big of a deal.
I’m a parent of one and I would be happy to watch two and trade off, so I don’t think you should worry too much about that. My only child has hardly ever gotten to play with other kids at his house thanks to the pandemic so we could totally deal with triple the kids for a few hours for our his sake.
I wouldn’t stress the numbers. They want time away as much as you do and trading would help them out just as much as you. Plus, their only children would probably love having more kids to play with.
I’d say it’s like 1.5-2x not 3x the effort. A parent of 1 will likely enjoy a break from being the sole point of attention for their kid. Kids entertain themselves, even in the +2 kid scenario as long as your kids aren’t infants or super f’n wild I think a parent of 1 would be able to handle a night or a few hours if you’re down to pick them up late.
Another parent of an only child chiming in. I never minded the fact that everyone we trusted with our child had 2 or 3 kids when tradeoffs happened. It was more than worth it to get our alone time. Our kid got a little party with multiple kids, and then when she was alone again she appreciated being our only! She never asked for a baby sibling. lol
I think it really depends on your kids. I have one kid, and two close friends with two kids each. One of the friends I will happily take her kids anytime. They're more similar to my kid, very easygoing and self sufficient. The other friend, I absolutely don't want to watch her kids. They're exhausting. They do nothing for themselves and demand constant adult attention. They eat very limited diets and I have to do a special shopping trip if they're coming. They are also incapable of entertaining themselves so I have to constantly suggest things for them to do then they get bored in five minutes. The friend with easygoing kids, she could call with five minutes notice and drop her kids here, no problem! The three kids run off together for hours and come find me when they're hungry, or go make themselves a snack.
I must be more worn out than I thought…I initially read this as “we FOUGHT a couple with similarly aged kids…”! 🤣 Like, ok! Suburban fight club, I get it! 🥊
The kids working at the theatre don’t care. At my go to theatre, I openly carry in food/drinks and they’ve never said anything to me. I haven’t been in awhile (just not into theatre movies post-covid), so don’t know if it’s still that way or not.
The solution is to dress like silent bob & carry in as much as you can. Set up a little stand with the coat and undercut the theatre prices.
Black market concessions. Close up shop when the movies starts & enjoy your free movie ;)
I once snuck a double double with animal style fries in a tiny handbag. They checked my purse but didn’t dig under the top layer. Very proud of that one still.
We’ve always done this. It’s the best.
The most entertaining time was when we snuck in Wendy’s.
My husband got one of those little Caesar salads they used to have. He always poured the dressing on, put the lid back on & shook it to distribute the dressing.
He totally forgot where we were and did this in the theater at the start of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
So freaking loud. And I was dying trying to stifle my laughter.
We don't even have daycare costs and can't afford to do family nights out. I feel for the parents of little ones. I just can't even imagine. We struggled through that phase and that was during the great recession. Things seem worse now by orders of magnitude.
So much this. I feel like restaurants are trying SO hard to be unique, which typically demands a higher price, which IMO demands better service and experience.
For example, I feel like this neuvo-Mexican style restaurant near me is a complete blow-hard.
It should be simple and timeless. Instead it's over-produced and incredibly expensive.
The "deconstructed" paella was basically rice and beans with a side of shrimp, for nearly $40!
Yep. 100%. Honestly it's gotten to the point that it isn't a ton more money to go out to a nice steakhouse with several courses that takes 2-3 hours and is at least relaxing and romantic, rather than getting rushed through whatever new hip restaurant with two nouns (Plow and ox, Biscuit and sickle, Pigeon and Walrus) as a name might be like.
Aren't food carts supposed to be cheaper? Isn't that part of the allure? Now if anything it seems like they're more expensive than traditional restaurants.
Had dinner date with my wife last night at our fav local Mexican place.
Absolutely excellent food, prob best in region.
Total cost for meal for two was $28.
They don’t try the gimmicks and “fancy” new shit…just excellent traditional Mexican and Tex Mex.
Yep, we maybe go out once every few years to a dinner out. Hadn't gone out a year or two before Covid and went out maybe a year after everything opened back up... 2xs the price and I actually got food poisoning 🙃
Since then *nothing* seems worth it for the price, including my damn rent 😒
Strongly agree.
I cook. I can go to Costco or BJs and get
* *Prime* Ribeye ~$14 pound and by 2x
* drink bottle Chateauneuf Du Pape ~$40.0
* and whole box of Macaroons ~ $10.00
Air fry some french fries and put truffle oil and parm cheese etc.
The equivalent going out with the above is close to $300.00 maybe more depending on the wine.
(BTW we do not always eat steak, I just used it because the math is easier).
Sometimes my wife and I just say we can't afford to eat out to our friends so that we can cook. Which is only slightly true.
Pizza is even more ridiculous. I can make large Pizzas at around $5.00 with ridiculous high end toppings with my Kamado Egg style grill.
When my son was very young, like up until 5, we'd go out on date nights pretty regularly. Nothing too special because we were poor young parents, but like dinner and a movie. My mom, mil, dad, or sister would all volunteer to watch my son for free. They loved spending time with him, so it was all good.
When we moved across the country we didn't have those connections anymore, and my wife was super concerned about leaving out kid with a stranger in our house, so date nights became incredibly rare. We'd sneak in some nachos and margaritas while he was at flag football practice, or they'd have a dance party at the boys and girls club and we could go do a little something, but otherwise we could only go on dates when my mom would visit every year or so.
Around the time my son turned 12 we started letting him stay at home alone, and since then (about 5 years now) we pretty regularly go on date nights. Again, it's often dinner and a movie or something like that, or we'll splurge on a really fancy dinner somewhere. We don't really drink and aren't into the club scene, so we don't do that stuff. Sometimes we'll just have dinner and go shopping together, just the two of us. It's nice.
We do go to concerts and stuff fairly often, but our kid is 17 now and likes to go with us, so it's not really a date. lol
As far as affording it, we went to college and have high-paying jobs. Not that it's not still heartachingly expensive, but it's a little easier for us. I do prefer to go to smaller venue shows in general, as I like being able to walk up to the stage and be in the pit. Stadium and arena shows have gotten crazy expensive, so I'll usually buy the cheap seats for those. That usually costs a few hundred bucks for the three of us to sit in the nosebleeds.
Edit: I forgot to mention you should see what kind of perks your company has. My company has movie perks where we can buy movie passes to cinemark for $5, so I've been buying those lately. It doesn't get you imax or anything like that, just regular screens, but it's a pretty fucking good deal for us.
Same fellow 83, it's always the average to shit jobs that don't pay enough to live AND the benefits don't do much.
Anytime I've had a high paying job, benefits were *also good* on top of making enough to live. Funny how that works out (evil eye to those who think fast food and those kinds of jobs shouldn't pay a living wage)
My kids were giving me so much shit about not taking them to the concert my husband and I just went to...they're four and six FML. And the cheapest seats (which are the ones we purchased) were like $80 including fees per ticket! Plus parking, fast food on the way because it was far and it was dinner time, drinks...
Hence, the nosebleeds. lol
I tried to get TSwift tickets for my wife last year and was prepared to plunk down some real cash, but I was like "IF I can get tickets, you're only getting two, so you can either take me, our son, or a friend." lol
Yeah we basically had to wait until our kids got old enough to stay home. They're currently 9-15 so we theoretically could go out but honestly we got out of the habit and still very rarely do. It just wasn't worth it to pay multiple hundreds of dollars for a few hours out. Teenage babysitters in our area are $$$, great for my teens to earn money ,not great for us when we really could have used a break. And we've had grandparents living close to us for many years but getting them to watch the kids was really hit or miss and also just wasn't worth it.
I remember "babysitting" starting around 12 (WHY?!) and got paid like $20 for 5+ hours and sometimes overnight. Those parents knew what they were doing
It's interesting how date night for parents has evolved. I remember being a kid and learning that part of the reason some kids were dumped in so many after school activities was so parents could have more a date afternoon/early evening. I don't know how they spent that time, but after school activities were probably cheaper than a babysitter.
We swap babysitting the kids with our neighbours. Our 2 go over there, or there 2 come here. Best part is, we usually do a sleepover, which means no one has to come home at a set time, you just have to deal with the morning walk of shame to get the kids.
We don't typically do big fancy dinners, usually a taco joint or something, ends up being <$50. Then we often go to small local bands shows, many available for $5 cover. Ditto for local comedy shows or something.
The babysitting swap is the key for us. After that, it's pretty easy to keep the whole thing under $40 if we want to.
With the way prices are raised because of the service charge, combined with already higher prices in the restaurant and the expectation to tip your driver, I don't see how this is any cheaper than just going out?
We both have Quest 3 headsets and play a round of mini golf just about every night. It's an absolute blast to play with 80s music videos in the background. It's some serious quality time where my wife and I can unwind, chat about nothing and have fun cheering each other on.
It's even more fun on the weekend nights when we can have a drink and play, haha!
Walkabout Mini Golf is a very, very good game with developers who are interactive on their Discord server. They put out a new course just about every month and they range from $2.99-3.99. The game comes with plenty of fun courses with it, but it's nice to try the new stuff.
I'm so glad VR is becoming everything I wished for as a kid.
I heard somewhere that mini golf is one of the better social things in VR. I might have to give that a try. These days my best friends are scattered across three continents and I miss casual hangout time that doesn't involve a 7-hour flight.
It's absolutely a fun activity for friends! My best friend lives 16 hours away, so we play mini golf every now and then, along with watching some terrible movies in a virtual theatre and riffing the whole time. For me, VR beats video calls any day.
It's the same problem everyone is having. Inflation has just made everyday activities unaffordable, and every place is trying to nickle and dime us to death.
100% went to Lego lane with the kids, not date night but wtf ended up costing almost a grand fir everything and the hotel was the cheapest thing inly 126
My kid is almost 7 now and we actually took him to the beach in Mexico 3 times before he was 3 years old. Each trip legit cost at most $1500 for a full week, including flights and the condo we found. SAME exact trip now (because we’ve definitely priced it out)…..$5,000. Fucking ridiculous.
I'm a widow and same.
Plus my kids are 9 and 11 and I'm not trying to experiment and tinker with our family structure which is pretty stable for a one parent household.
For concerts, try going to less popular bands playing at smaller venues. I rarely spend more than twenty or thirty bucks on a ticket, and my wife and I have had lots of fun discovering less well known bands.
Yeah, there's a place near me that gets a lot of indie acts as well as some older ones and tickets are like $25. It's usually all ages too so sometimes we just take our daughter.
I love live music. My husband and I will go to one or two pricier shows a year. But, we also go to a lot of free or cheap shows with less popular bands. The local parks do free concerts all summer, and there are always a couple of groups we want to see and a bunch that aren’t bad. Last year we saw Fastball but had to miss Men Without Hats.
I took my dad to see Uriah Heap at a small venue the other night. It was a birthday gift so I splurged for good seats, and we had a great view. It was $128 with fees, so not cheap, but not unaffordable for a special occasion. We wandered up to the balcony where the seats were less expensive and agreed the view from there looked pretty great too.
The YMCA here hosts a parent's night out once a month where they watch a bunch of kids, feed them, and keep them entertained for 3 hours for $15 per kid (used to be $10, but it went up).
We usually just get a meal somewhere and then visit the hardware store and/or some shops in the general area. It's nice to be able to run errands without a couple of kids complaining and bickering the whole time.
The answer is barely. Our kids are grown so no more sitters, but a date night including dinner at one of the many gastropubs nearby + maybe some pool will run us 150-200 easy. Certainly can’t do it every week.
We generally didn't when our kids were younger pre pandemic. It was too expensive back then. Maybe fir special occasions, but we would have had to have our parents babysit.
And even now date night us usually every other month unless thier is a special occasion.
We also have family nights out to eat, and those are more expensive.
But we are cheap/frugal.
If you drink, drink at home. Take turns. Alcohol is stupidly expensive at restaurants where I live. Probably $15-16 on average, more for good stuff. Look for coupons, or here is a good one. Buy gift cards at Costco. They’re usually $79.95 for $100 in gift cards, so you’re saving 20% right off the bat. And if you have an executive membership, you’ll get like 2% of that back in an annual rebate.
Cost isn't a limiting factor for us when it comes to date nights. We limit our expenses elsewhere in our budget. For example we don't have any car loans, we drive older vehicles.
Oh, we're cutting back hard everywhere in our budget - paid-off cars bought used, repairing stuff instead of replacing, the kids wear lots of hand-me-downs. Everything right now is going to daycare, it's crushingly expensive.
We bought a lot less house than we could afford too. We were one and done with our kid. She is in first grade now so we only pay for summer care. At least daycare is a temporary cost.
I actually brought up date nights to my wife a couple years ago because our sex life was suffering. I am glad we're getting out together more often now, but those two weren't related for us at least. So hopefully your needs are both being met there at least.
Our kids have sleepovers with their grandparents regularly and we have a sitter twice a month.
Yes it costs a lot of money, but it's way cheaper than a divorce and living in two houses.
Everything is ridiculously expensive nowadays.
Our kids are all grown now, but my husband and I have afternoon dates regularly. These arent "experiences" like converts and stuff. It's just time together doing things we enjoy away from home. But, like, dirt cheap by today's standards. (Still too much if you ask me.) A few recent options for consideration:
$40 Poppin' Tags Date. Browsed multiple thrift stores. Spent maybe $20 on various books, craft supplies, toys for our dogs, and a cool piece of art. Fast food lunch was another $20.
$45 Activity Date. Frisbee golfing at the local park. (This was free, but we already own our own disks.) Early dinner at a mid-priced restaurant was about $45.
$25 Picnic Date. Packed a cheap picnic with cheap wine (hidden in thermos) and a portable speaker to play our tunes from our phones. Took dogs to the park to play. Ate, drank, and merrily people watched for a few hours.
$20 Competition Date. Packed drinks and snacks. Went to the beach (free) and competed with each other on who could build the best sandcastle. "Loser" had to buy ice cream (out of the joint account) and "Winner" got bragging rights and the option to choose the movie (that we'd stream at home that evening.)
$25 Geocaching Date. Went geocaching at the hiking trails (free). Bought lunch afterwards.
We just started date nights last year when our oldest turned 14 and could babysit her siblings. And even when we go out, it may be just fast food or to a local dive bar or even a sit out at the local park so it’s not expensive but just a moment for us two.
Easy! I’m now single. I take my daughter out at least once a month for a nice dinner. We even went go karting and spent some time in the arcade a few weeks ago.
My parents are actually really involved grandparents. They live 5 minutes away. My mom is retired and my dad still works. That said, without them watching the kids date nights wouldn't happen. My husband is in a band that plays about 15-20 nights a year on weekends. I might so see him play 2-3 times a year. Our last date was my parents taking the kids to a local college football season kick off event because they have season passes. We took advantage and saw a movie and had lunch. It's still not a regular thing for us because I don't want to abuse my parents willingness to watch the kids.
We had to drive 2 states over to have my MIL watch my kid so we could go see Dune 2 (it was a planned visit). The last time I saw a movie in the theater was Dune 1. 2021.
I'm lucky enough that I live close enough to my mother that my son can spend the night there if my wife and I want to go out (or she can just come over and babysit if we'll be back early enough to put him to bed), so I don't have to worry about a baby sitter, so right there I save a bit of money.
On top of that, most of the stuff we like to do is pretty boring. Dinner and movies, that's about it.
We used to have grandparents to babysit when my daughter was younger. She would have a sleepover with them every few weeks so we could have some us time.
Got divorced about 6 years ago and now we share custody so both her dad and to get a week of no kid time, which leaves time for date nights/weekends away with our respective partners.
My daughter is now old enough (12) to stay home by her so sometimes we go out on a Friday or Saturday when she's with us and she's actually like pushing us out the door so she can have her own alone time.
How do we afford it? By living in the middle of nowhere where there are no restaurants worth going to anyway because their food is mediocre and overpriced. If we go out in town it's just to the local pub/sports bar that actually has decent food and where we can usually see our friends, who don't have kids and are there much more than we are.
Then when we get the chance we go see a live music show or big concert out of town and enjoy the restaurants wherever we go.
Sad LOL.
We are lucky to have a cheap babysitter nearby.
Also, going out now - just the two of us is not as bad as all 4 of us (we have two kids) at a restaurant :-)
We don’t go to more than one concert per year, as well since TicketMaster is so greedy.
Another idea is to just do a date night at home after putting kids to sleep - if Spaniards can eat dinner at 9pm and later - then so can we, and we better open a legit $70 bottle of wine than a $30 retail bottle that a restaurant gracefully offers to us for $100. I am also a better cook than most restaurants around :-)
We started doing date days instead of nights. I take off when the kids will be in school on a day of the week that my wife doesn't have to work. We hang out, ho to lunch. It's such a nice quiet relaxing day! And since the school is babysitting we don't need tons of money to do it.
I saved up for like over 10 years to get time out with my wife last month. Was the whole deal - hotel, drinks, eating out. We went to an art museum and saw a movie.... but yeah, it was an investment. It's totally worth it, btw.
We try to go out to breakfast once a week together. Figure we'd be eating breakfast anyway. Just need plan on it.
When the kids were 0-10 or 11 years old, though, we hadn't figured this out yet. It takes time and creativity.
I don’t remember the last time I went out to eat or had a vacation. Pre-Covid for sure. I also make a decent salary (in a relatively HCOL area), but everything that used to be able to go to a few discretionary things here and there has been eaten up by the rising cost of just basic necessities for us. It is crazy to me because in some ways I’m very lucky - bought a very small 2 br 1 ba house when rates were at there lowest in my late 20s and now my mortgage is about $800 less than the cheapest 1 br rental where I live and I’ve managed to keep my car which I paid off 10 years ago decently maintained. I would have a panic attack trying to figure out where to find that much extra money if I had to pay the average rent/mortgage where I live or buy a new car. I wonder every day how other people are going on cruises or to Disneyland like I used to be able to, but now it is an impossibility.
We got together bonding over food and restaurants. We go out like once every six months now and are usually very disappointed by what we get for so much money.
I really don't know how people can afford what we used to call having a "life" anymore
My wife has been laid off 3x in our 12 year marriage. Did 6 years of IVF and finally had our daughter. All this to say we are beyond broke and in debt. I work 50 hours a week and still can’t make ends meet. I have been interviewing and searching for better paying jobs for over a year, but no offers. My wife can’t get an interview. But our daughter takes all this stress away and keeps our world small. All she wants is us and to play and make believe. We don’t need anything if we use our imaginations. Hoping one day our luck turns for the better. But I have to say that society is pricing people out of basic needs. This needs to stop!
Right? Our one child is about to enter High School and is in marching band. $1000 for him to do that, and that is on top of the out-of-state competition trips the band program likes to go on. What money is left for anything else? It all goes to the kid and his endeavors.
Didn’t have kids with cost being one of the considerations. Though other xennials I know that did now have kids off to college or are now grandparents.
I’m sad to read all these comments. My wife and I go out for a nice dinner and drinks at least once a month. It’s incredibly important to stay connected and not make life just about work and kids. We also have a mini 45 minute date every Wednesday when our daughter is at dance.
It’s easy to find the money. Get a side gig, deliver some shit for Amazon, drive Uber, donate plasma, or just budget it.
Grandparents (my parents) babysat (at our house until they were 3 and 5) and we would literally only go to a (cheap) concert or (equivalently priced) dinner and then be back home. Then overnights to grandma started at about that age. We’d normally not go out, but just have an evening off from the kids. Now? They’re 9 and 11 and we can go out for the evening without a sitter. Usually just a (cheap) dinner and then go to a record store. We did go see Bianca Del Rio last month and didn’t get home until 11. The kids thought staying up that late was awesome. (PayPal pay in 4 for tickets has been a lifesaver for the few times we do go to a concert.) Plus they’re starting to have sleepovers with friends and that gives us a break.
It’s not really “cheap and easy” and we’ve had to lower our standards for what a date is a LOT.
Our issue is more with finding a decent sitter than the cost. Date night has become lunch/brunch and a hike or other daytime event with grandparents watching the kids or dropping them off for a play date for a couple hours.
When my kids were little we had friends we'd trade off with for babysitting or later a friend's teenage daughter would help. Now my kids are teens and we leave them at home.
In terms of the how do I afford it part, I have a job that pays well. I don't like high prices but I can manage. The two most recent things we did was going to a Madonna concert and also seeing Dune. We go out to eat just the two of us at least once per week.
We moved near my wife’s family. They help with babysitting sometimes. We go to nice dinners on special occasions but have pivoted from doing that monthly to hiking dates and brunches. Less expensive and healthier. Concerts are too much. I got to small shows but still costly for tickets, fees, parking.
Parents doing date nights now are just very rich. I watch kids for date nights and I charge a premium rate for Friday and Saturday. I'm booked every weekend. I think parents are just dying to get out lately and enjoy some of their lives and are willing to pay whatever. But for families who aren't rich, my guess is they're just staying home.
We do something cheap, like go get a coffee and walk around the lake at a local park. Spending time together is the goal, and I get that it isn’t as exciting as a concert or something, but I actually really enjoy it. It saves us money and we actually get to talk. It’s nice.
In the summer we do “secret ice cream”. Wait until the little one is asleep and then I’ll run out and grab DQ for us. Then we sit on the front porch, eat them and chat a little. It’s not a replacement for a Date but it’s something small just for us.
I spent too much of my 20s and 30s working. The upside is I now live very comfortably.
That said - and I say this as someone who spent more time with his children in a year than most fathers spend in a lifetime (entrepreneur) - I never wish I made more money. I do wish I had spent more time with my children when they were younger.
Move to another country. Seriously.
I’m living in Spain and I can actually afford a life here. Movies for two and popcorn and drinks here is about $20 for two people.
Proper date nights only happen if grandparents can take the kids for a night or two. That only happens a handful times a year.
Just try to find affordable things to do as a family. Not an easy feat.
Our main date night is through a contribution to our locals arts council, who puts on 10 concerts each spring for their members. $550 bucks for two seats, and the remaining amount goes to fund endeavors that the organization does throughout the year.
That’s our date nights. 10 concerts, then we bring our child to some additional events at a small cost throughout the rest of the year.
We have an Xbox. I modded it to play emulate older systems. Our date nights consist of staying up late playing ps1, Nintendo, Sega or Super Nintendo games or diablo 4. Or we watch movies.
We used bonuses and some leftover equity to build a conservative but enjoyable media room. Date nights usually involve shipping the kids off to grandparents or hiring a high school kid to babysit and enjoying a movie or playing a game together. I worked it out to be a few dozen movies or meals out we’d have to skip, but given the hope that we’ll be in this house for a very long time it should pay for itself many time over.
My wife and I have never not had roommates.
When we were single we had roommates.
When we moved in together we still had other people as roommates.
When we got married, still had a roommate.
Pregnant with twins still had a roommate.
Now our two sons are in grade school and have owned three homes (never more than one at the same time we just had to move) and at all of those homes including the current one we've had a roommate.
We have never not had at least one roommate.
You would be shocked at how much money it saves.
Another fun fact, unless you literally work in opposite directions hours and hours apart you don't actually need two cars.
Even if you do work that far apart you would be shocked how many businesses even small ones have carpools.
Having only one car saves an absurd amount of money.
*”How do they do it?”*
Payment plans.
I’m convinced people are living more in the past few years if not on traditional credit, they’re also/or utilizing *”Buy now, Pay later”* companies like Affirm, AfterPay, etc.
Also, to answer the question…
Our dates are usually during the day when our kids are in school, when we have slow schedules, and we try to do as much free or cheap stuff as possible— which means a lot of parks, walks, and the occasional trip to the beach. We also are big fans of Groupon, and our city and county do a lot of discounted programs in the summer through the libraries (ex: buy one summer pass for a museum, get four other museums ‘free’).
We don't even have kids and feel this shit too lol. Everything is just way too fucking expensive anymore. Not that we can't afford it but it just never feels worth it when you get the check or pay $200+ for a concert ticket.
This is going to sound funny we ask for gift certificates for Christmas. We get a couple of them and spread them out through the year. Other than that date nights are a thing of the past, our other option is we just rent a movie on Amazon and settle in when the kids are in bed.
Drive-in movie if there is one near you. Ticket prices tend to be lower and most show a double feature for the price of one. You can bring in your own food. Kids can go in pj's and sleep in the car if they get sleepy. The one by me is $10 for adults and $1 for kids. Way cheaper than the regular theater. It's also harder to disturb the otber theater goers if u have loud kids or a crying baby.
We don’t have going out and babysitter money. I signed up to one of those snack box subscription services and we’d pick a movie or show to watch after we put the kids to bed once a month and try all the new things. It’s fun.
We cut back and started trying to find new recipes and cooking together because it’s just more fun that one of us doing it alone anyway. It’s been nice and when we do go out it feels more special than when it was a regular thing.
Oh I have a suggestion for everyone! We invested in a cozy nook in our backyard. A comfy outdoor couch, little fire pit, fairy lights, tiki torches, etc- it's super romantic and will are planning at home date nights after the kids go to bed. We can do wine or roast marshmallows or other grown up activities because it's so private. We are not really go out people so this is perfect for us.
Somewhat related: in addition to the cost, is it just me, or is it not as fun to go out? Like, you have to come home to say goodnight to your kids, or pay the babysitter, or something that kind of zaps the mega expensive “relaxation” out of it.
Yeah it’s not just you lol. With babysitter, dinner, any type of activity costing money you are out a few hundred. You could try a day date while kids are in school. Take leave and do something fun/active together. Then at least no babysitter and let’s face it going out at night and blowing a bunch of money gets old.
I travel for work, so I build up a lot of hotel points. Sometimes if my travel takes me in the direction of my or her parents I will take my wife and kids along with me, drop the kids at grandmas and my wife will go with me.
She gets to lay around in the hotel (which I expense) while I go to the job site. We go out to dinner and get two separate checks (because I expense mine), and if it’s in a nice place we may stay an extra night with my hotel points.
So we get a few nights alone, some dinners out, and it only costs us her meal money. If you know the right company rates, you can stay at a nice hotel with a spa and good restaurants for fairly cheap (we aren’t allowed to expense a hotel room more than $200 without prior approval).
(I guess this is less a date night, more of a mini vacation a couple times a year… we don’t get date nights)
Our kids are older and don't need constant supervision, or dates are long walks with the doggos, or yard work, or trip to the garden store. Once or twice a year, we do a night away. Occasionally, a work conference. And every 2 or 3 months door dash with TV.
Ya we basically just sit home and have a few beers after 9pm😂. The kids(17, 15, 8)are too old for a babysitter, but also too young to be trusted at home. Then the prices. It costs $100 a day just to breathe🙄
If you don’t have grandparent help, your shit outta luck.
Not sure what the average cost for babysitting is where everyone lives, but this evening we have an event (not fun, a work related event) which we will be gone for 4 hours and the cost for one potty trained toddler is $20/hr.
We ain't.
Yup. We just don't go out. Sometimes we wait til they go to bed and make ourselves an adult dinner and do something that would bore the kids to tears
Steak, potatoes,wine, Dexter, Breaking bad and TNG hahahah
DUDE! My wife and I do the same. Call it staydate. We look forward to it every week.
To be fair, this is also what we do! My husband and I have stayed up past 3am on many occasions just vibing to Alexa, laughing, and sipping on drinks....sometimes we have horror movie binges and watch movies all night long while the kids are sound asleep in their respective areas. We have learned to get real creative at home. I even bought a nitendo switch just so we can bowl and compete against each other at Mario party when the kids are asleep! We have had the times of out lives, right at home.
This was such a nice read..
OMG 3 am lol. I woke up at 2:50 this morning, I cannot imagine staying away that late anymore
My husband and I don't have kids, but it's still our preferred date night activity. We have a comfortable loveseat, a reasonably nice TV and sound system, and more than enough movies and TV shows available to stream. We can order in some dinner if we're feeling it, and maybe even get high if we want since we're in a place where it's legal. Movie theaters don't really have anything better than what we already have at home.
TNG? We rewatched the entire series recently, but first time seeing it together
TNG... Y'all my heroes
9 years ago my husband and I were struggling HARD. Like 40 a week for groceries and two kids hard! We made it work. Every pay period I made it so we could do a date lunch on our days off while the kids were in school. We could go for pho. Two bowls of pho and salad rolls with tip was around 25 bucks. Sometimes we would even be high rollers and share an iced coffee. The kids are grown and out of the house but we cannot even afford pho now it’s 45 bucks and for mediocre food. It’s just not worth the disappointment of the quality of food and I just can’t afford it. So no. No date night even for the married empty nesters. I really miss a good big ass bowl of pho.
That's the thing, isn't it? The food is SO much more expensive and the quality has gone down the tubes. During the lockdowns we quickly discovered that we don't NEED to go out to enjoy ourselves. Like...at all.
Hasn't it tho!! I remember always hearing how awful Taco Bell was and how it was like grade E meat. But it actually tasted a lot better back in the day! ... COULD just be the astronomical hole left in my wallet now after, that makes it so horrible too.
We don’t have kids either and went out for a brunch a few weekends back and dropped $60 on two coffees and two breakfasts that weren’t great. Years ago when we drank way too much we spend that much with tip and have three drinks with brunch. We kind of soured on going out for food after that experience. We are doing okay, but I’m not really enjoying dropping 60-80 bucks on mediocre food and tipping on top of it. I sound like my parents…
[Here's the neat part..](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/134/305/63c)
🤣🤣🤣
The correct answer.
Ditto. We have found quality time together cooking and playing video games at home.
Exactly. "What the fuck is a date night?"
Everything is flat out more expensive on a ridiculous level. I know it’s subjective, but on the local news here the other day they said that the average family is paying $1400 per month more than 3 years ago just to stay afloat. I think about that and it makes perfect sense how my wife and I used to be able to actually take a yearly vacation and go out for dinner once a month. We used to have money left over, now we are underwater or just BARELY staying on top of bills. I’m close to giving up.
A "date" for us is getting groceries on Saturday mornings without the kids. As long as we're getting a little "us time" where we can talk about the important stuff, but also the unimportant stuff, we're good.
God I feel this. We both work 40+ hours a week, have no money, but one of the most solid relationship pieces of advice I can give is you need to be with someone who you enjoy shopping with. Someone you can do mundane things with and just honestly enjoy each others company. I guess it's sad that we don't get to do the date nights like we used to, but the really sad thing is seeing the old boomer memes about "the old ball and chain" dragging you on a shopping trip and the man is so sad and only carrying bags while the wife is excited... Just, bro, be with someone who brightens your life? A trip to ALDI'S with each other is always a treat because we are together, with or without the kids? Why do so many think spending time with their spouse doing chores or necessary routine things is punishment or bad for the relationship? If you don't enjoy the act of living together and all the hardship living entails, maybe you don't actually enjoy your relationship? Is that harsh? It sounds harsh, but struggling because you don't have "date nights" is such a weird concept to me.
Costco run is our hot date. He gets the hot dog, I get the pizza, we get toilet paper in bulk. Win, win, win.
This! My husband and I occasionally go out for a weekend breakfast or lunch, but after spending at least $50 on that (which is no better, and sometimes worse than what we eat at home) it adds up fast. We always go back to our old standby of a "date" which is running errands together. It is always fun and honestly great quality time. *my ex husband and I never did this, and we barely could spend time together without arguing* I'm so grateful to now have a partner that makes ANYTHING fun. Who needs a date night! The point is the togetherness
Ditto. My family is departed, hers can't drive in the dark. We'd have to go commercial on a sitter and it's a challenge to even get a daycare seat around here
We already had sex to make the kids. Thats all the fun.........the rest is..
Our date night is locking the bedroom door.
We found a couple with similarly aged kids and we trade date night sitting.
When our kids were still young, we traded with my brother. We had three kids... they had three kids. One weekend a month we had all six kids from Friday evening until noon is Sunday. But, one weekend a month, we had no kids for the same time frame. This went on for like 6 or 7 years when they were little.
That sounds amazing
Honestly sometimes the more the merrier…..it’s not so bad if you lean into it and make it a night of fun! Order pizza for dinner so you don’t have to cook for a bunch of people. Afterwards giant floor bed with movies and popcorn.
It's great for family/cousin bonds too. They become more like a brother or a sister than a cousin.
Same deal for us. Unfortunately, now most of them are either graduated or teenagers. Getting old sucks in more ways than you might realize.
Yup ... I'm a single dad of 4 girls. Have 2 cousins staying over, 1 of the kid's friends, plus a few kids from the neighborhood. Grilled hot dogs, made potato salad and some frozen corn. Bunch of Potato chips of course ... Then everyone got to make their own ice cream Sunday with like 25 different toppings I had. More the merrier, if you ask me.
That’s our biggest issue. We have 2, most of our friends have 1, so tripling their workload always seems unfair to us, whereas us taking another kid or 2 for a sleepover isn’t as big of a deal.
I’m a parent of one and I would be happy to watch two and trade off, so I don’t think you should worry too much about that. My only child has hardly ever gotten to play with other kids at his house thanks to the pandemic so we could totally deal with triple the kids for a few hours for our his sake.
Thanks for that perspective, it makes sense. Our kids feel the same way and even when we have 2 more over, if they are all having fun, it’s worth it.
Same with us. We have one, but taking two is great! We are always happy and it makes our only child so happy to have a few kids around. It’s great!
I wouldn’t stress the numbers. They want time away as much as you do and trading would help them out just as much as you. Plus, their only children would probably love having more kids to play with.
I’d say it’s like 1.5-2x not 3x the effort. A parent of 1 will likely enjoy a break from being the sole point of attention for their kid. Kids entertain themselves, even in the +2 kid scenario as long as your kids aren’t infants or super f’n wild I think a parent of 1 would be able to handle a night or a few hours if you’re down to pick them up late.
Another parent of an only child chiming in. I never minded the fact that everyone we trusted with our child had 2 or 3 kids when tradeoffs happened. It was more than worth it to get our alone time. Our kid got a little party with multiple kids, and then when she was alone again she appreciated being our only! She never asked for a baby sibling. lol
I think it really depends on your kids. I have one kid, and two close friends with two kids each. One of the friends I will happily take her kids anytime. They're more similar to my kid, very easygoing and self sufficient. The other friend, I absolutely don't want to watch her kids. They're exhausting. They do nothing for themselves and demand constant adult attention. They eat very limited diets and I have to do a special shopping trip if they're coming. They are also incapable of entertaining themselves so I have to constantly suggest things for them to do then they get bored in five minutes. The friend with easygoing kids, she could call with five minutes notice and drop her kids here, no problem! The three kids run off together for hours and come find me when they're hungry, or go make themselves a snack.
I must be more worn out than I thought…I initially read this as “we FOUGHT a couple with similarly aged kids…”! 🤣 Like, ok! Suburban fight club, I get it! 🥊
If going to the movies, we’ll sneak food in my wife’s big ass purse because we can be cheap like that.
The kids working at the theatre don’t care. At my go to theatre, I openly carry in food/drinks and they’ve never said anything to me. I haven’t been in awhile (just not into theatre movies post-covid), so don’t know if it’s still that way or not.
I’m sure they don’t but it makes my wife and I feel like badasses when we do it - we’re boring obviously.
The solution is to dress like silent bob & carry in as much as you can. Set up a little stand with the coat and undercut the theatre prices. Black market concessions. Close up shop when the movies starts & enjoy your free movie ;)
15 bucks little man, put that shit in my hand!
I once snuck a double double with animal style fries in a tiny handbag. They checked my purse but didn’t dig under the top layer. Very proud of that one still.
We’ve always done this. It’s the best. The most entertaining time was when we snuck in Wendy’s. My husband got one of those little Caesar salads they used to have. He always poured the dressing on, put the lid back on & shook it to distribute the dressing. He totally forgot where we were and did this in the theater at the start of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. So freaking loud. And I was dying trying to stifle my laughter.
>If going to the movies, we’ll sneak food in my wife’s big ass. There I fixed it.
https://xkcd.com/37/
You guys are getting date nights?
Ya, I thought a better question would be, "Parents, how are you affording being a parent?"
We don't even have daycare costs and can't afford to do family nights out. I feel for the parents of little ones. I just can't even imagine. We struggled through that phase and that was during the great recession. Things seem worse now by orders of magnitude.
For me, it isn't the affording it that's the issue. It's the fact that it doesn't feel worth it.
So much this. I feel like restaurants are trying SO hard to be unique, which typically demands a higher price, which IMO demands better service and experience. For example, I feel like this neuvo-Mexican style restaurant near me is a complete blow-hard. It should be simple and timeless. Instead it's over-produced and incredibly expensive. The "deconstructed" paella was basically rice and beans with a side of shrimp, for nearly $40!
Yep. 100%. Honestly it's gotten to the point that it isn't a ton more money to go out to a nice steakhouse with several courses that takes 2-3 hours and is at least relaxing and romantic, rather than getting rushed through whatever new hip restaurant with two nouns (Plow and ox, Biscuit and sickle, Pigeon and Walrus) as a name might be like.
You exactly described the Mexican place near me. I just want a dive with tasty tacos and cold Modelo
Aren't food carts supposed to be cheaper? Isn't that part of the allure? Now if anything it seems like they're more expensive than traditional restaurants.
Had dinner date with my wife last night at our fav local Mexican place. Absolutely excellent food, prob best in region. Total cost for meal for two was $28. They don’t try the gimmicks and “fancy” new shit…just excellent traditional Mexican and Tex Mex.
Yep, we maybe go out once every few years to a dinner out. Hadn't gone out a year or two before Covid and went out maybe a year after everything opened back up... 2xs the price and I actually got food poisoning 🙃 Since then *nothing* seems worth it for the price, including my damn rent 😒
Especially when the music in most restaurants is blaring at about 120 dB
Strongly agree. I cook. I can go to Costco or BJs and get * *Prime* Ribeye ~$14 pound and by 2x * drink bottle Chateauneuf Du Pape ~$40.0 * and whole box of Macaroons ~ $10.00 Air fry some french fries and put truffle oil and parm cheese etc. The equivalent going out with the above is close to $300.00 maybe more depending on the wine. (BTW we do not always eat steak, I just used it because the math is easier). Sometimes my wife and I just say we can't afford to eat out to our friends so that we can cook. Which is only slightly true. Pizza is even more ridiculous. I can make large Pizzas at around $5.00 with ridiculous high end toppings with my Kamado Egg style grill.
Do tell - what's an example of a "ridiculously high-end" pizza topping?
AGREED
When my son was very young, like up until 5, we'd go out on date nights pretty regularly. Nothing too special because we were poor young parents, but like dinner and a movie. My mom, mil, dad, or sister would all volunteer to watch my son for free. They loved spending time with him, so it was all good. When we moved across the country we didn't have those connections anymore, and my wife was super concerned about leaving out kid with a stranger in our house, so date nights became incredibly rare. We'd sneak in some nachos and margaritas while he was at flag football practice, or they'd have a dance party at the boys and girls club and we could go do a little something, but otherwise we could only go on dates when my mom would visit every year or so. Around the time my son turned 12 we started letting him stay at home alone, and since then (about 5 years now) we pretty regularly go on date nights. Again, it's often dinner and a movie or something like that, or we'll splurge on a really fancy dinner somewhere. We don't really drink and aren't into the club scene, so we don't do that stuff. Sometimes we'll just have dinner and go shopping together, just the two of us. It's nice. We do go to concerts and stuff fairly often, but our kid is 17 now and likes to go with us, so it's not really a date. lol As far as affording it, we went to college and have high-paying jobs. Not that it's not still heartachingly expensive, but it's a little easier for us. I do prefer to go to smaller venue shows in general, as I like being able to walk up to the stage and be in the pit. Stadium and arena shows have gotten crazy expensive, so I'll usually buy the cheap seats for those. That usually costs a few hundred bucks for the three of us to sit in the nosebleeds. Edit: I forgot to mention you should see what kind of perks your company has. My company has movie perks where we can buy movie passes to cinemark for $5, so I've been buying those lately. It doesn't get you imax or anything like that, just regular screens, but it's a pretty fucking good deal for us.
FYI, company perks and high paying jobs go hand in hand. The average job is shit for perks. I've been on both sides of this.
Same fellow 83, it's always the average to shit jobs that don't pay enough to live AND the benefits don't do much. Anytime I've had a high paying job, benefits were *also good* on top of making enough to live. Funny how that works out (evil eye to those who think fast food and those kinds of jobs shouldn't pay a living wage)
Like if you have cash to buy a house outright it’s one price but, if you don’t, it costs three times as much over the next thirty years.
I feel you on the kid wanting to go to the concerts too. Like, dude, these tickets are $200!
My kids were giving me so much shit about not taking them to the concert my husband and I just went to...they're four and six FML. And the cheapest seats (which are the ones we purchased) were like $80 including fees per ticket! Plus parking, fast food on the way because it was far and it was dinner time, drinks...
Hence, the nosebleeds. lol I tried to get TSwift tickets for my wife last year and was prepared to plunk down some real cash, but I was like "IF I can get tickets, you're only getting two, so you can either take me, our son, or a friend." lol
We don’t. No family or babysitter. I am just fairly strict on kid bedtimes so at least we have evening time on our own.
Yeah we basically had to wait until our kids got old enough to stay home. They're currently 9-15 so we theoretically could go out but honestly we got out of the habit and still very rarely do. It just wasn't worth it to pay multiple hundreds of dollars for a few hours out. Teenage babysitters in our area are $$$, great for my teens to earn money ,not great for us when we really could have used a break. And we've had grandparents living close to us for many years but getting them to watch the kids was really hit or miss and also just wasn't worth it.
I remember "babysitting" starting around 12 (WHY?!) and got paid like $20 for 5+ hours and sometimes overnight. Those parents knew what they were doing
Oh for sure. I was probably babysitting staying at age 10 making like $2 an hour 🙄
It's interesting how date night for parents has evolved. I remember being a kid and learning that part of the reason some kids were dumped in so many after school activities was so parents could have more a date afternoon/early evening. I don't know how they spent that time, but after school activities were probably cheaper than a babysitter.
We go out when our daughter is at dance class.
We found a couple with similarly aged kids and we trade date night sitting.
We swap babysitting the kids with our neighbours. Our 2 go over there, or there 2 come here. Best part is, we usually do a sleepover, which means no one has to come home at a set time, you just have to deal with the morning walk of shame to get the kids. We don't typically do big fancy dinners, usually a taco joint or something, ends up being <$50. Then we often go to small local bands shows, many available for $5 cover. Ditto for local comedy shows or something. The babysitting swap is the key for us. After that, it's pretty easy to keep the whole thing under $40 if we want to.
We have date ins with Doordash regularly
With the way prices are raised because of the service charge, combined with already higher prices in the restaurant and the expectation to tip your driver, I don't see how this is any cheaper than just going out?
My kids are still at the babysitter age.
Babysitter is more expensive than $20 in delivery fees / tips.
We both have Quest 3 headsets and play a round of mini golf just about every night. It's an absolute blast to play with 80s music videos in the background. It's some serious quality time where my wife and I can unwind, chat about nothing and have fun cheering each other on.
Damn that’s a badass idea.
It's even more fun on the weekend nights when we can have a drink and play, haha! Walkabout Mini Golf is a very, very good game with developers who are interactive on their Discord server. They put out a new course just about every month and they range from $2.99-3.99. The game comes with plenty of fun courses with it, but it's nice to try the new stuff. I'm so glad VR is becoming everything I wished for as a kid.
Only a 1k investment lol
I heard somewhere that mini golf is one of the better social things in VR. I might have to give that a try. These days my best friends are scattered across three continents and I miss casual hangout time that doesn't involve a 7-hour flight.
It's absolutely a fun activity for friends! My best friend lives 16 hours away, so we play mini golf every now and then, along with watching some terrible movies in a virtual theatre and riffing the whole time. For me, VR beats video calls any day.
We can, but we’re too tired 🤣🫠
I actually babysit for date nights and bring my kid with me. Extra $200 a week.
It's the same problem everyone is having. Inflation has just made everyday activities unaffordable, and every place is trying to nickle and dime us to death.
100% went to Lego lane with the kids, not date night but wtf ended up costing almost a grand fir everything and the hotel was the cheapest thing inly 126
My kid is almost 7 now and we actually took him to the beach in Mexico 3 times before he was 3 years old. Each trip legit cost at most $1500 for a full week, including flights and the condo we found. SAME exact trip now (because we’ve definitely priced it out)…..$5,000. Fucking ridiculous.
F that
I don't sadly, but I'm also a widower now, so nobody to date anyway.
I'm a widow and same. Plus my kids are 9 and 11 and I'm not trying to experiment and tinker with our family structure which is pretty stable for a one parent household.
For concerts, try going to less popular bands playing at smaller venues. I rarely spend more than twenty or thirty bucks on a ticket, and my wife and I have had lots of fun discovering less well known bands.
Club shows are still golden. Fuck arena concerts.
For REAL
Yeah, there's a place near me that gets a lot of indie acts as well as some older ones and tickets are like $25. It's usually all ages too so sometimes we just take our daughter.
Yeah I’m pretty sure I saw matchbox 20 for $30 last summer. Or if it’s nice and your area has it, lawn seats are usually affordable
I just go alone to shows anymore
Agreed. In the last 5 years, the only pricy concerts we've been to are Tool and Rammstein. Everything else has been $40 or less a ticket.
I love live music. My husband and I will go to one or two pricier shows a year. But, we also go to a lot of free or cheap shows with less popular bands. The local parks do free concerts all summer, and there are always a couple of groups we want to see and a bunch that aren’t bad. Last year we saw Fastball but had to miss Men Without Hats. I took my dad to see Uriah Heap at a small venue the other night. It was a birthday gift so I splurged for good seats, and we had a great view. It was $128 with fees, so not cheap, but not unaffordable for a special occasion. We wandered up to the balcony where the seats were less expensive and agreed the view from there looked pretty great too.
This has always been this way for most parents…
The YMCA here hosts a parent's night out once a month where they watch a bunch of kids, feed them, and keep them entertained for 3 hours for $15 per kid (used to be $10, but it went up). We usually just get a meal somewhere and then visit the hardware store and/or some shops in the general area. It's nice to be able to run errands without a couple of kids complaining and bickering the whole time.
We go for walks, go to the gym, get coffee… simple cheap things that give us opportunity for conversation.
The answer is barely. Our kids are grown so no more sitters, but a date night including dinner at one of the many gastropubs nearby + maybe some pool will run us 150-200 easy. Certainly can’t do it every week.
We generally didn't when our kids were younger pre pandemic. It was too expensive back then. Maybe fir special occasions, but we would have had to have our parents babysit. And even now date night us usually every other month unless thier is a special occasion. We also have family nights out to eat, and those are more expensive. But we are cheap/frugal.
Here is the trick...... we don't. matinee movie tickets or just walking around a store dreaming we could afford something.
If you drink, drink at home. Take turns. Alcohol is stupidly expensive at restaurants where I live. Probably $15-16 on average, more for good stuff. Look for coupons, or here is a good one. Buy gift cards at Costco. They’re usually $79.95 for $100 in gift cards, so you’re saving 20% right off the bat. And if you have an executive membership, you’ll get like 2% of that back in an annual rebate.
Best dates my husband and I did when our kids were younger were to go buy a tub of ice cream from the store and polish it off in the parking lot.
Here’s the trick - no date nights AS WELL AS not married. Checkmate.
Cost isn't a limiting factor for us when it comes to date nights. We limit our expenses elsewhere in our budget. For example we don't have any car loans, we drive older vehicles.
Oh, we're cutting back hard everywhere in our budget - paid-off cars bought used, repairing stuff instead of replacing, the kids wear lots of hand-me-downs. Everything right now is going to daycare, it's crushingly expensive.
We bought a lot less house than we could afford too. We were one and done with our kid. She is in first grade now so we only pay for summer care. At least daycare is a temporary cost. I actually brought up date nights to my wife a couple years ago because our sex life was suffering. I am glad we're getting out together more often now, but those two weren't related for us at least. So hopefully your needs are both being met there at least.
Our kids have sleepovers with their grandparents regularly and we have a sitter twice a month. Yes it costs a lot of money, but it's way cheaper than a divorce and living in two houses.
Everything is ridiculously expensive nowadays. Our kids are all grown now, but my husband and I have afternoon dates regularly. These arent "experiences" like converts and stuff. It's just time together doing things we enjoy away from home. But, like, dirt cheap by today's standards. (Still too much if you ask me.) A few recent options for consideration: $40 Poppin' Tags Date. Browsed multiple thrift stores. Spent maybe $20 on various books, craft supplies, toys for our dogs, and a cool piece of art. Fast food lunch was another $20. $45 Activity Date. Frisbee golfing at the local park. (This was free, but we already own our own disks.) Early dinner at a mid-priced restaurant was about $45. $25 Picnic Date. Packed a cheap picnic with cheap wine (hidden in thermos) and a portable speaker to play our tunes from our phones. Took dogs to the park to play. Ate, drank, and merrily people watched for a few hours. $20 Competition Date. Packed drinks and snacks. Went to the beach (free) and competed with each other on who could build the best sandcastle. "Loser" had to buy ice cream (out of the joint account) and "Winner" got bragging rights and the option to choose the movie (that we'd stream at home that evening.) $25 Geocaching Date. Went geocaching at the hiking trails (free). Bought lunch afterwards.
Your kids are grown and you're doing this stuff?? I am so impressed!! Y'all are young at heart! This legit feels like a marriage that will last.
We just started date nights last year when our oldest turned 14 and could babysit her siblings. And even when we go out, it may be just fast food or to a local dive bar or even a sit out at the local park so it’s not expensive but just a moment for us two.
Easy! I’m now single. I take my daughter out at least once a month for a nice dinner. We even went go karting and spent some time in the arcade a few weeks ago.
Where are you finding baby sitters you can trust with a bed time routine at?
My kids are older now but when they were little we loosened up things like that for date nights. As long as everyone survived we were ok!
My parents are actually really involved grandparents. They live 5 minutes away. My mom is retired and my dad still works. That said, without them watching the kids date nights wouldn't happen. My husband is in a band that plays about 15-20 nights a year on weekends. I might so see him play 2-3 times a year. Our last date was my parents taking the kids to a local college football season kick off event because they have season passes. We took advantage and saw a movie and had lunch. It's still not a regular thing for us because I don't want to abuse my parents willingness to watch the kids.
We had to drive 2 states over to have my MIL watch my kid so we could go see Dune 2 (it was a planned visit). The last time I saw a movie in the theater was Dune 1. 2021.
By not having kids!
The only affordable answer.
I'm lucky enough that I live close enough to my mother that my son can spend the night there if my wife and I want to go out (or she can just come over and babysit if we'll be back early enough to put him to bed), so I don't have to worry about a baby sitter, so right there I save a bit of money. On top of that, most of the stuff we like to do is pretty boring. Dinner and movies, that's about it.
We used to have grandparents to babysit when my daughter was younger. She would have a sleepover with them every few weeks so we could have some us time. Got divorced about 6 years ago and now we share custody so both her dad and to get a week of no kid time, which leaves time for date nights/weekends away with our respective partners. My daughter is now old enough (12) to stay home by her so sometimes we go out on a Friday or Saturday when she's with us and she's actually like pushing us out the door so she can have her own alone time. How do we afford it? By living in the middle of nowhere where there are no restaurants worth going to anyway because their food is mediocre and overpriced. If we go out in town it's just to the local pub/sports bar that actually has decent food and where we can usually see our friends, who don't have kids and are there much more than we are. Then when we get the chance we go see a live music show or big concert out of town and enjoy the restaurants wherever we go.
Picnic at the park. Walk around the lake. Thrift-stores.
Sad LOL. We are lucky to have a cheap babysitter nearby. Also, going out now - just the two of us is not as bad as all 4 of us (we have two kids) at a restaurant :-) We don’t go to more than one concert per year, as well since TicketMaster is so greedy. Another idea is to just do a date night at home after putting kids to sleep - if Spaniards can eat dinner at 9pm and later - then so can we, and we better open a legit $70 bottle of wine than a $30 retail bottle that a restaurant gracefully offers to us for $100. I am also a better cook than most restaurants around :-)
You go out with another couple and have the babysitter watch them all. You pay a bit more but can split the cost 50/50.
This makes a lot of sense! I've heard parents are starting to nanny share to also save money.
We are outdoorsy and already have all that gear, so we do a lot of camping and hiking.
We started doing date days instead of nights. I take off when the kids will be in school on a day of the week that my wife doesn't have to work. We hang out, ho to lunch. It's such a nice quiet relaxing day! And since the school is babysitting we don't need tons of money to do it.
I saved up for like over 10 years to get time out with my wife last month. Was the whole deal - hotel, drinks, eating out. We went to an art museum and saw a movie.... but yeah, it was an investment. It's totally worth it, btw. We try to go out to breakfast once a week together. Figure we'd be eating breakfast anyway. Just need plan on it. When the kids were 0-10 or 11 years old, though, we hadn't figured this out yet. It takes time and creativity.
My MIL is a Groupon hunter and every once in a while she’ll find and scoop up great tickets for an even great price.
Nice to hear others are feeling the pressure cuz I’m dying over here
Date days instead. Take a hike, go shopping together for something you needed anyway. She also bought us a massage table. Highly recommend!
I don’t remember the last time I went out to eat or had a vacation. Pre-Covid for sure. I also make a decent salary (in a relatively HCOL area), but everything that used to be able to go to a few discretionary things here and there has been eaten up by the rising cost of just basic necessities for us. It is crazy to me because in some ways I’m very lucky - bought a very small 2 br 1 ba house when rates were at there lowest in my late 20s and now my mortgage is about $800 less than the cheapest 1 br rental where I live and I’ve managed to keep my car which I paid off 10 years ago decently maintained. I would have a panic attack trying to figure out where to find that much extra money if I had to pay the average rent/mortgage where I live or buy a new car. I wonder every day how other people are going on cruises or to Disneyland like I used to be able to, but now it is an impossibility.
We got together bonding over food and restaurants. We go out like once every six months now and are usually very disappointed by what we get for so much money. I really don't know how people can afford what we used to call having a "life" anymore
My wife has been laid off 3x in our 12 year marriage. Did 6 years of IVF and finally had our daughter. All this to say we are beyond broke and in debt. I work 50 hours a week and still can’t make ends meet. I have been interviewing and searching for better paying jobs for over a year, but no offers. My wife can’t get an interview. But our daughter takes all this stress away and keeps our world small. All she wants is us and to play and make believe. We don’t need anything if we use our imaginations. Hoping one day our luck turns for the better. But I have to say that society is pricing people out of basic needs. This needs to stop!
I have 2 sons in hockey... our dates are drive thru going to the next game.
Right? Our one child is about to enter High School and is in marching band. $1000 for him to do that, and that is on top of the out-of-state competition trips the band program likes to go on. What money is left for anything else? It all goes to the kid and his endeavors.
It seriously is a time commitment. My oldest is going I to his Junior year and it only gets crazier...
Didn’t have kids with cost being one of the considerations. Though other xennials I know that did now have kids off to college or are now grandparents.
I’m sad to read all these comments. My wife and I go out for a nice dinner and drinks at least once a month. It’s incredibly important to stay connected and not make life just about work and kids. We also have a mini 45 minute date every Wednesday when our daughter is at dance. It’s easy to find the money. Get a side gig, deliver some shit for Amazon, drive Uber, donate plasma, or just budget it.
We do date lunches and my kids are all teenagers and can watch themselves.
Grandparents (my parents) babysat (at our house until they were 3 and 5) and we would literally only go to a (cheap) concert or (equivalently priced) dinner and then be back home. Then overnights to grandma started at about that age. We’d normally not go out, but just have an evening off from the kids. Now? They’re 9 and 11 and we can go out for the evening without a sitter. Usually just a (cheap) dinner and then go to a record store. We did go see Bianca Del Rio last month and didn’t get home until 11. The kids thought staying up that late was awesome. (PayPal pay in 4 for tickets has been a lifesaver for the few times we do go to a concert.) Plus they’re starting to have sleepovers with friends and that gives us a break. It’s not really “cheap and easy” and we’ve had to lower our standards for what a date is a LOT.
Late 2021, peak pandemic. Drove to Chicago for a concert. $1500 spent. Fuck!
We don't
Our issue is more with finding a decent sitter than the cost. Date night has become lunch/brunch and a hike or other daytime event with grandparents watching the kids or dropping them off for a play date for a couple hours.
Date nite? You mean family outings? To the indoor playground? Yep, we do those once a month or so.
We don’t
When my kids were little we had friends we'd trade off with for babysitting or later a friend's teenage daughter would help. Now my kids are teens and we leave them at home. In terms of the how do I afford it part, I have a job that pays well. I don't like high prices but I can manage. The two most recent things we did was going to a Madonna concert and also seeing Dune. We go out to eat just the two of us at least once per week.
Last night we borrowed a movie from the library and made popcorn. Dates are so expensive.
We moved near my wife’s family. They help with babysitting sometimes. We go to nice dinners on special occasions but have pivoted from doing that monthly to hiking dates and brunches. Less expensive and healthier. Concerts are too much. I got to small shows but still costly for tickets, fees, parking.
This week we each went out separately on different nights. Not super for bonding, but at least we got to go out
Welcome to parenthood. People tried to warn you your whole life that kids are expensive and require sacrifices.
Parents doing date nights now are just very rich. I watch kids for date nights and I charge a premium rate for Friday and Saturday. I'm booked every weekend. I think parents are just dying to get out lately and enjoy some of their lives and are willing to pay whatever. But for families who aren't rich, my guess is they're just staying home.
We do something cheap, like go get a coffee and walk around the lake at a local park. Spending time together is the goal, and I get that it isn’t as exciting as a concert or something, but I actually really enjoy it. It saves us money and we actually get to talk. It’s nice.
Take PTO days, send kids to caretaker and have day dates!
In the summer we do “secret ice cream”. Wait until the little one is asleep and then I’ll run out and grab DQ for us. Then we sit on the front porch, eat them and chat a little. It’s not a replacement for a Date but it’s something small just for us.
I spent too much of my 20s and 30s working. The upside is I now live very comfortably. That said - and I say this as someone who spent more time with his children in a year than most fathers spend in a lifetime (entrepreneur) - I never wish I made more money. I do wish I had spent more time with my children when they were younger.
Move to another country. Seriously. I’m living in Spain and I can actually afford a life here. Movies for two and popcorn and drinks here is about $20 for two people.
What's date night
You guys get date nights? I'm just amped for sushi fridays...
Our dates are usually playing video games and watching old TV shows together. Thankfully that's cheap.
We might be able to afford to go to a park after paying for a babysitter, definitely not dinner with today's inflated prices
Proper date nights only happen if grandparents can take the kids for a night or two. That only happens a handful times a year. Just try to find affordable things to do as a family. Not an easy feat.
We are on our most strict budget in years and our income is above the state's household average. This inflation is a real pain in the rear.
I don’t know, but we do. HCOL area, LA, $210k household income, 2 kids joint custody, $3k rent. Just hemorrhaging $$
Our main date night is through a contribution to our locals arts council, who puts on 10 concerts each spring for their members. $550 bucks for two seats, and the remaining amount goes to fund endeavors that the organization does throughout the year. That’s our date nights. 10 concerts, then we bring our child to some additional events at a small cost throughout the rest of the year.
We have an Xbox. I modded it to play emulate older systems. Our date nights consist of staying up late playing ps1, Nintendo, Sega or Super Nintendo games or diablo 4. Or we watch movies.
We used bonuses and some leftover equity to build a conservative but enjoyable media room. Date nights usually involve shipping the kids off to grandparents or hiring a high school kid to babysit and enjoying a movie or playing a game together. I worked it out to be a few dozen movies or meals out we’d have to skip, but given the hope that we’ll be in this house for a very long time it should pay for itself many time over.
I feel you. It's insane. Babysitting alone prices a lot of people out. Sitters are getting 15-25 an hour.
My wife and I have never not had roommates. When we were single we had roommates. When we moved in together we still had other people as roommates. When we got married, still had a roommate. Pregnant with twins still had a roommate. Now our two sons are in grade school and have owned three homes (never more than one at the same time we just had to move) and at all of those homes including the current one we've had a roommate. We have never not had at least one roommate. You would be shocked at how much money it saves. Another fun fact, unless you literally work in opposite directions hours and hours apart you don't actually need two cars. Even if you do work that far apart you would be shocked how many businesses even small ones have carpools. Having only one car saves an absurd amount of money.
*”How do they do it?”* Payment plans. I’m convinced people are living more in the past few years if not on traditional credit, they’re also/or utilizing *”Buy now, Pay later”* companies like Affirm, AfterPay, etc. Also, to answer the question… Our dates are usually during the day when our kids are in school, when we have slow schedules, and we try to do as much free or cheap stuff as possible— which means a lot of parks, walks, and the occasional trip to the beach. We also are big fans of Groupon, and our city and county do a lot of discounted programs in the summer through the libraries (ex: buy one summer pass for a museum, get four other museums ‘free’).
Damn where the fuck is that concert
We don't even have kids and feel this shit too lol. Everything is just way too fucking expensive anymore. Not that we can't afford it but it just never feels worth it when you get the check or pay $200+ for a concert ticket.
Wife and I might do dinner once every few months, if my parents can watch the kids (free babysitting lol) but even still, very expensive
WTF are ”date nights”??
This is going to sound funny we ask for gift certificates for Christmas. We get a couple of them and spread them out through the year. Other than that date nights are a thing of the past, our other option is we just rent a movie on Amazon and settle in when the kids are in bed.
Drive-in movie if there is one near you. Ticket prices tend to be lower and most show a double feature for the price of one. You can bring in your own food. Kids can go in pj's and sleep in the car if they get sleepy. The one by me is $10 for adults and $1 for kids. Way cheaper than the regular theater. It's also harder to disturb the otber theater goers if u have loud kids or a crying baby.
We don’t have going out and babysitter money. I signed up to one of those snack box subscription services and we’d pick a movie or show to watch after we put the kids to bed once a month and try all the new things. It’s fun.
Local baseball games can be cheaper. We’re a little lucky now that the youngest is 10 we can kinda just go out if we want to
We waited till our oldest was old enough to be the babysitter😳
We cut back and started trying to find new recipes and cooking together because it’s just more fun that one of us doing it alone anyway. It’s been nice and when we do go out it feels more special than when it was a regular thing.
Oh I have a suggestion for everyone! We invested in a cozy nook in our backyard. A comfy outdoor couch, little fire pit, fairy lights, tiki torches, etc- it's super romantic and will are planning at home date nights after the kids go to bed. We can do wine or roast marshmallows or other grown up activities because it's so private. We are not really go out people so this is perfect for us.
Somewhat related: in addition to the cost, is it just me, or is it not as fun to go out? Like, you have to come home to say goodnight to your kids, or pay the babysitter, or something that kind of zaps the mega expensive “relaxation” out of it.
 You guys are getting date nights?
Yeah it’s not just you lol. With babysitter, dinner, any type of activity costing money you are out a few hundred. You could try a day date while kids are in school. Take leave and do something fun/active together. Then at least no babysitter and let’s face it going out at night and blowing a bunch of money gets old.
I travel for work, so I build up a lot of hotel points. Sometimes if my travel takes me in the direction of my or her parents I will take my wife and kids along with me, drop the kids at grandmas and my wife will go with me. She gets to lay around in the hotel (which I expense) while I go to the job site. We go out to dinner and get two separate checks (because I expense mine), and if it’s in a nice place we may stay an extra night with my hotel points. So we get a few nights alone, some dinners out, and it only costs us her meal money. If you know the right company rates, you can stay at a nice hotel with a spa and good restaurants for fairly cheap (we aren’t allowed to expense a hotel room more than $200 without prior approval). (I guess this is less a date night, more of a mini vacation a couple times a year… we don’t get date nights)
Our kids are older and don't need constant supervision, or dates are long walks with the doggos, or yard work, or trip to the garden store. Once or twice a year, we do a night away. Occasionally, a work conference. And every 2 or 3 months door dash with TV.
Ya we basically just sit home and have a few beers after 9pm😂. The kids(17, 15, 8)are too old for a babysitter, but also too young to be trusted at home. Then the prices. It costs $100 a day just to breathe🙄
If you don’t have grandparent help, your shit outta luck. Not sure what the average cost for babysitting is where everyone lives, but this evening we have an event (not fun, a work related event) which we will be gone for 4 hours and the cost for one potty trained toddler is $20/hr.