{top five friday – budget friendly date ideas!}

one thing we have in common is that both of us and our spouses are currently taking the dave ramsey financial peace class she posts about on tuesdays. i have a weekly (most weeks) post on friday called “top 5 friday” where i list my top 5 favorite things about any given subject. so for today’s post, i am combining my top 5 post with skye’s tuesday’s with dave and bringing you…

1. coupon dinners– we get coupons for some of our favorite restaurants in the mail once a month. in the past, we would just go wherever we wanted for dinner. we never once used the coupons. this friday, we are planning to go to one of the restaurants we have coupons for. i am excited now knowing we will both eat (and eat well) for under $10! we are also planning to start utilizing groupon and deal mobs to stretch our dating budget even further as well!

2. the library– if you’re one of my readers, you know i love the library. i love the smell of books, the quiet, the thousands of options, the endearing homeless man snoozing in the corner… love it all! so sometimes, i drag my hubby (matthew) there. and he loves it, too. we recently went and checked out 10 books on the east coast which is where we are doing our 2 year anniversary trip this august. another great thing about the library: not only are there hundreds of books with fun ideas, but there are also tons of movies- classics and new movies- that are free!

3. yogurt or coffee– depending on which yogurt shop you like, two can enjoy a reasonable size pile of yogurt for under $5. after our library date last week, we took our east coast books to yoforia (our preferred yogurt shop) and enjoyed more than enough while planning which cities we will visit. be careful to check pricing, though because a similar yogurt place in our city would be double the price. coffee dates are the same idea. often, we will eat at home and then go out afterward for coffee or yogurt. this allows us to save money while still getting out of the house.

4. exercise– if your one of my readers who followed me over to skye’s lovely place today, you also know matthew and i exercise together. we trained for a 5k together. and we signed up and ran the entire thing together. we do jillian michaels’s 30 day shred exercise dvd together. and we go for walks together. running a 5k event together will usually cost about $20 a person (plus a free t-shirt). the jillian michael’s dvd cost $9. and going for a walk or run costs $0. it’s a great way to work as a team and still spend time together.

5. go to a park– parks are free. we are fortunate because we live in a city with a botanical garden. we enjoy lots of time there exercising, taking photographs, and enjoying each other’s company. you can also take a picnic and some cold beer or a bottle of wine and linger for hours in the great outdoors. that’s another favorite!

i hope you have enjoyed these budget friendly date tips! i would love to hear yours! just leave a comment and don’t forget to come visit me, too!

have fun in spain, skye! we can’t wait to see your pictures!

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woot woot! these are such great ideas for easy, cheap, fun and most importantly, bonding dates! thanks again katie for coming through at the nick of time! 😉 you rock!

i will be back from spain soon but know i am having a blast while i am here. it is so beautiful and the people are, well honestly, pretty rude, but liz and i are loving spending time together!! see you guys soon!

disclaimer: neither katie nor i am not in any way affiliated with dave ramsey and there are just my honest opinions. we am not endorsed (ha – wouldnt that be nice!) and he has no clue who we are, no matter how many times a day we tweet him. we just think he has the right idea and think you should join in. all phrases in italics are from financial peace, revisited.