Be My Frugal Valentine – 18 Ideas from the Personal Finance Community

You may know this already, but all the cool personal finance people hang out over at the Rockstar Finance Forums. If you’re not over there yet, don’t worry – you too can be cool by hopping over and joining in the discussion. I know Valentines is coming up shortly, so I asked the forum what they’re doing to celebrate  Valentines day to get some ideas for all you awesome readers.

So without further ado, here’s the Valentines Day plans of the Rockstar Finance Forum crew!

• Primal Prosperity suggests using the day to practice extra love, kindness and appreciation to people without giving into the corporate consumerism of flowers, candy and expensive dinners
• Student Loan Planner  (who also writes over at Millenial Moola) recommends a dinner at the Waffle House (side note – my husband would be totally behind this recommendation- he loves Waffle House but sadly there are none here in CT)
• Financial Rookie, a firefighter on the forum, is planning to get his wife flowers from a secret fancy shop (cough-Wegmans-cough). He also picked up some snowman trinkets from Etsy and will be cooking up a couple of Omaha steaks received as a gift for dinner. Then they’ll settle in for a nice Netflix movie and off to bed!
• The Walking Debt, who works with a computer software company on Electronic Health Records, celebrated with his wife last weekend (good tip to avoid the crowds!) and had a great date night with pasta
• Steve from Think Save Retire will be wishing his wife a happy Valentines Day. Is that it? Yep! Keep it simple.
• SFF from Savvy Family Finance plans to do such romantic things as take the boys to tae kwon do and her daughter to soccer practice. Also, she gets to clean the bathroom!
• SmartProvisions will be celebrating with a hike and a home-cooked dinner
• Wealth Well Done has come to an agreement together that if gifts must be given, she wants flowers and he wants a beautiful steak to cook at home
• Hernandez Prime from Sydney Austrialia will be taking his fiance to the movies – a special treat when usually all movies are from Netflix
• Mrs. Need2Save is hoping for an extra kiss (or two!) from Mr. Need2Save and a text during the day to know he’s thinking about her
• Katrina, an accountant from Canada, is planning to do absolutely nothing, although her husband might go on a discount Valentines candy buying spree (Side note – I love to do that too!)
• Money Buffalo is cooking supper for his wife and likely doing a handmade card
• Edgar Pickle, a teacher from North Carolina, is planning to snag a couple of locally made peanut butter cups the size of cupcakes (yum!) and bring those home to eat with dinner
• The Big Cheese, an internal auditor on the forum, is planning on making dinner together with his girlfriend (after subtly and strategically working to downplay Valentines Day)
• Single Dad Living is a bit anti-Valentines and has an article on that topic (warning – profanity!) if you’re also feeling that way
• A Journey We Love received an aquarium set including fish, and bought her husband a book
• I, Vigilante is planning to head over to a local vineyard for a special event involving wine, chocolate, bacon, and beer

What I’m Planning for Valentines Day

I’m not big on gifts, dinner out (hate the crowds), or flowers. For us Valentines Day is more about doing things with the kids to celebrate. So we made homemade Pokemon Valentines for my nine-year olds class, and we’re planning to decorate Valentine themed sugar cookies today.

What are you planning for Valentines? Any fun and frugal tips? Let me know in the comments!

Want to learn more about teaching kids about money? Check out this great page with my top articles and resources I’ve found from around the web.

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