$20 Dinner Date Night Tips
Note: I wrote a little bit about this almost three years ago, but I thought it might be time for an update.
Mr. FG and I have a somewhat loose $20/week budget for a date night, and while we sometimes go over, most weeks we manage to stay right around $20.
Obviously, a $20 budget eliminates a lot of date night meal options, but there definitely are options at that price point.
So, I thought I'd share the main ways we keep our date night budget costs down. Ready?
Skip restaurants with a waiter.
If we have to tip a waiter, we're pretty much guaranteed to go over budget.
And honestly, unless it's a super fancy date night, like what we do for our anniversary, we don't really enjoy having a server that much.
On the regular, a casual, self-serve meal is good by us!
Skip drinks.
Most places will give you a cup for water and that costs $0.00. Plus, it's healthier than almost any beverage you could choose.
Don't get appetizers.
Appetizers + entrees usually end up being too much food for the two of us anyway, and appetizers are awfully overpriced, as a rule.
Eat sandwiches.
Subs (hot or cold), burgers, deli sandwiches, and so on tend to be on the very affordable side of things.
Five Guys, Firehouse, Panera, Jimmy John's, and Jersey Mike's all work well for us.
Eat pizza.
Pizza almost always makes a cheap date night. We like Mod Pizza and Bertucci's, plus some local pizza places.
Go casual for whatever cuisine you choose.
For example, Pei Wei is cheaper than P.F. Changs (also, no waiter!).
And the taco truck or Chipotle will be cheaper than the sit-down Tex-Mex restaurant.
Consider the grocery store.
Mr. FG and I have spent our $20 on really good scallops before, which we've brought home and grilled.
We've also picked up lobster rolls from the seafood department at the grocery store, brought them home, and eaten them while watching a movie.
If your grocery store has a hot foods bar (on the East Coast, Wegman's and Harris Teeter do), you could each pick something and eat it at home, or take it to a park for a picnic.
Skip dessert and stop at a drugstore instead.
The dessert at most restaurants is just not that good, and it's expensive. Plus, we're not usually hungry enough for a full-blown dessert.
So, Mr. FG and I usually pop in at a drugstore and we each pick out a candy bar.
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100% with you on the dessert thing. Always disappointing at a restaurant. And at most bakeries, actually. Nothing compares to homemade.
I have a related question, though. We just started letting our kids (8, 5, and 3 years old) watch a full-length movie so we can go hide in the bedroom with the baby (4 months) and a cocktail and actually have a conversation. I know you did this with your kids too, and that you also have four children in a fairly wide age range. What movies did they all enjoy? It's sometimes hard to get one that the older ones want to watch but that doesn't scare the younger (he can get freaked out by something like "Finding Nemo," with the shark eating the mom, and I can't say I blame him). Any suggestions are welcome!
This week my kids have been sick--fevers high enough to go the doctor, so I've been putting on TV to encourage them to rest. I didn't want to watch Daniel Tiger for an entire hour, so I found some Disney short films that were really great to watch together as a family. Some of them were over the kids heads, but the music and artistry captured their attention. Some of them I didn't care for as well but the kids loved them, and some we all loved and giggled hard. I find shorts to be more child appropriate than full length films, and studios release compilations which adds up to almost a full length feature.
Fantasia? Maybe skip:
- one scene in the Rite of Spring, where the TRex kills the Triceratops
- Night of Bald Mountain.
Fantasia 2?
The first act is boring, the rest are good.
Pixar movies have funny parts that go over little's heads but older ones find hilarious.
Shaun the Sheep has been a hit for kids of many ages (even grown-up kids)!
We go on dates too but never order anything separate for our son since he's only 3 years old and can eat part of our portions. When he's bigger, we will need to think about going to restaurants with free or discounted meals for kids.
I'd add the following cheap date meal ideas to the list:
- Food courts at shopping malls & grocery stores (no waiter and reasonably priced food). We usually just get water although you can get soup at the grocery store's food court for free.
- Cook food at home and bring it to a park. Or we can eat at home and go on a food-free date later.
- Eat at home and get a bubble tea (1 for both of us) at a tea shop.
- Look up Groupon for discounts!
Happy date nights!
oh man, we love Shaun the Sheep!
VeggieTales are a good option and they come in varying lengths from 30 minutes to movie length. My older kids now catch on to the humor and still enjoy them. We also enjoy Chicken Run, The Tale of Despereaux, and a lesser-known movie called Milo and Otis (although be warned--there are scenes of puppies/kittens being born--every family has different standards of what is acceptable at certain ages so I want to give you a head's up about that). We also have several of the Dr Seuss shows on DVD (for example, Horton Hears a Who)--I appreciated that many of them were shorter in length and I can't think of anything objectionable. I have also consistently used commonsensemedia.org as a resource for movies/books/dvds and they have never failed me yet--they rate the age for which a movie (or book) is appropriate and list positive qualities and items of concern. Parents and kids can comment, as well.
We do $20 date nights too! Initially I thought it was going to be a hard feat because normal non fancy restaurants near us charges $9ish for a plate or bowl of food. Even the taco truck hits at $10 in Seattle! After tax it's just over $10 and that's before tip in a meal setting with servers.
Date night adds up. We do it once a week and there's 52 weeks in a year?! That's 52 x 20! But it's good for marriage so it's one of those things I consider pretty much necessary. Like an oil change.
Lately we have been going to cafes instead. We order a tea each and a side of snacks (popcorn chicken, donuts etc.) - the total comes to about $18 and we tip a little even though it's a self serve cafe setting. We get a nice date and some snacks without breaking the bank.
The next date night, I totally want to go grocery shopping with my husband 🙂 that sounds fun!
We have not had a date night at all for most of our married life because we have many small children and live near no family. It has just always been easier for us to wait until we have family visiting, but even then, we've usually had a nursing infant that accompanies us.
However, we recently (this Valentine's Day) started taking advice we were give years ago by a friend: we wait for our supper until the children go to bed and then cook a special meal of some kind and enjoy quiet (what's that!?) conversation together. This is way cheaper and less rushed that going out.
But we still go out to a restaurant/shopping whenever we have the opportunity. 🙂
Yes! we do dinner after the kids, too! Or some time of activity. A few months ago, we ordered a Saturn V lego set, and the number of evenings it took to put it together made the price average out to $20 or less a night. We have to feed the kids, too, so we generally just join them for dinner and make date night non-dinner related.
I don’t really enjoy going to places with servers either! It’s an added bonus that counter service restaurants are cheaper too!
For our anniversary every year, we pick a new recipe and cook together.
DH and I don’t do date nights, but sometimes we’ll do date lunches on a workday. Lunch is usually cheaper than dinner at sit down places.
Yes, we do date lunches on Valentine's Day because it's very difficult to get into crowded restaurants in my area at night. So we have a nice lunch then, while everyone else is waiting to get in, we are home.
We do these too. Kids are off at school and Hubby works 5 minutes away. We can usually grab 1 meal and there is enough for both of us. Chinese or Greek, take-out of course. Drink whatever is in the fridge.
N&M, date lunches was going to be my suggestion! My kids are older now, but when they were younger, it meant no fee for a sitter while they were in school, which was a definite bonus. I enjoy a good sit-down restaurant and love the lower price point at lunch. Another idea if you are lucky enough to have a cooking school near you is to see if they have a time/place when they serve the public. We have a restaurant in our town dedicated to the local cooking school and it's a ton of fun--meals range in the $9-$12 range; the meals are varied, not your typical run-of-the-mill chain restaurant variety. If you have a foodie soul on a McD's budget, that's the way to go.
Absolutely-- a sitter alone would be $20!
Kristen, the salad in the second picture looks amazing. What restaurant produced that heavenly concoction?
It's a local restaurant, and it's a salad they only serve on the deck in the summertime. Avocado and mango are really good in a salad!
Thank you! Definitely a mouth watering picture!
Several ideas to stay under $20:
-Entertainment Book/app coupons
-raise.com gift cards after logging into ebates to get the rebate
-groupons after ebates
-valpak local coupons
-local college/university cafeteria (all you can eat buffet for less than $10 a person - our local one is $7.25 for dinner) followed by campus event
Love the college campus event idea. We took our kids (12 and 14 years old) to a concert this past Friday as a free family event, but it could easily work as a date night, also. Our local libraries have monthly free concerts--I have seen other freebies as well, such as summer concerts in the park; a local church does monthly free concerts during the lunch hour as a service to the community (and their concerts are fantastic!). I think the key is to keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities.
I don't think I've seen anyone else mention this, but my husband and I enjoy "free" activities such as hiking/snowshoeing. There may be an initial outlay of cash if you need to purchase gear, but once you have what you need, you are good to go for a long time. Plus, it's healthy!
If you enjoy a coffee shop atmosphere, you can have time together for under $10 if you avoid the expensive drinks!
Sometimes we combine coupons with discounted gift cards. For instance, I buy UNO gift cards that are discounted 25% at COSTCO then use a $10 off UNO coupon.
We often do take-out and even split meals when we do. There is way too much food for one person when we patronize the local Chinese place, or the local kabob restaurant.
Another thing is to make it a date lunch. Some places have lunch menus with cheaper prices. We do this sometimes on the weekend.
We have 3 kids (oldest 3, youngest 2, no twins) and 1 with medical conditions that require a trained individual to care for him, so we get about 2 dates a year. Instead, we do "date nights" at home. I have the kids skip naps, or put them down for an early nap and only let them sleep a little bit so they're ready for early bedtime. Since I have to feed the kids regardless, we just join them for dinner (pre-date night dinners have strict rules: easy to make, minimal clean-up, Momma doesn't jump at kids' every whim during dinner because these rules help set the stage for an relaxed evening). After bedtime my husband and I will play board games (we love Pandemic, since we work together--no competition against each other) or make a fancy dessert or do something just the two of us. Recently we assembled a LEGO Saturn V (took many date nights) and did a 1000 piece puzzle of a Maligne Lake and the mirror reflection of surrounding mountains on the lake's surface. Those two things used up a lot of date nights, so their cost ($120 and $40?) respectively evened out to less than the $20/night price point. We like having those type of put things together projects because we have better conversation when we are using our hands or going for walks, and we can't exactly go for a walk while the kids are in bed.
If you enjoy Pandemic, you could try Pandemic Legacy. The first season is about $50 on Amazon. It takes between 12 and 24 games to complete the campaign, so it provides lots of date nights at home for less than $5 each. We are waiting on the price of the second season to drop a bit because we're excited to experience that fun too. 🙂
What a great game! We got the first season for Christmas, and are about to start September. We play it less frequently now that it's getting harder!
We were so excited that we bought season 2 when it came out. Playing it with the same set of four people that played Season 1. It's tough to coordinate time together to play, so we are only in April, but for us it's already worth the purchase. It's still familiar Pandemic (in the same sense that season 1 resembles the base game), but sufficiently different to stay interesting.
Now that we have kids (ages 3.75 and 2), one of our favorite inexpensive dates is to go out for breakfast or brunch by ourselves. Even at a place with a server, breakfast is almost always less expensive than dinner. We do this virtually every time our parents or siblings visit--the kids stay home with beloved relatives while we go to our favorite place for omelettes. Yes, we could make those eggs at home for much less, but we just really like going out for breakfast together 🙂
For dinner dates, our favorite is to buy nicer foods than we typically eat for family meals and enjoy cooking and eating together after the kids are asleep.
More often, we make a dessert and play games after the kids are asleep. When we were newleyweds, we spent a lot of our date money going to the game store in the mall and picking out a new board or card game. Now we have a stockpile of favorite games that provide free entertainment years later.
I love the idea of playing games as an in-home date. What are some that are fun for just two people?
I don't know what others do, we're a big board game family/couple so I can tell you our favorites..we always play rummy, sometimes Scrabble, Set is a fun card game, so is skipbo and phase 10
We love Pandemic and Ticket to Ride, and I love bananagrams (similar to Scrabble)
We love to go to the movies. The 2nd run theater is $4 each so we can still split a popcorn and soda for $20! My kids are all teens though, so no paying a babysitter anymore!
Aww, I love the idea of picking up a nice dessert treat at the drug store. How cute! We like to do simple date nights with a nice homemade meal and a rented movie from the library.
For childcare:
If you have a local college and find a student who can babysit, and you have a washer-dryer, invite him/her to bring a load of laundry! That can be completed in about two hours, is an indirect cost to you, and a nice perk for the student in addition to what you pay for childcare. Residence hall facilities are inconsistent in their convenience.
No one has mentioned a babysitting exchange with another family, another potential cost-saver.
We typically buy something nicer than usual to cook, and have a fancy-ish meal at home, but as all our kids are moved out, we pretty much could have "dates" any time we wanted, if it weren't for the expense. If we go out to eat, it's usually at lunch on a weekend. We never get desserts out, or at least almost never. We got a dessert years ago in Savannah at the Pink House, and let me tell you, it was worth every single cent and calorie.
The other thing we do is eat at the outdoor table on our porch when the weather is pleasant. Somehow, just a change in scenery makes it more special. A picnic in a park is another suggestion, and it could be food from a good grocery store deli, if you want to really take it easy.
Unless we go to McDonalds or Subway there's not much we can get that will cost 20$ for 2 around here.... 🙁
I would add : use Groupons or coupons. Eat out at lunch or for brunch/breakfast instead of dinner, it's cheaper.
NEVER be cheap on the tip if you do decide to go out to a sit down restaurant (unless the service was terrible). If you can't afford to tip, don't eat out. I used to date a guy that didn't tip, or tipped ridiculously low (like 50 cents).... we are not dating anymore!
Side note - I miss Wegman's so much since I moved... sometimes we would get just an appetizer or appetizer sharing plate to split. We have a local 'groupon' like site that will have half off deals sometimes too.
My kids are all raised now but we used too exchange babysitting with friends who had kids of an age similar to ours. For date nights and an occasional weekend. I agree on the tip servers work hard for little $.WE love sit down places but often for lunch or breakfast. I often worked restaurant meals ,cheap places, into budget to include the kids so they could learn how to behave in 1.
Hey Kristen! Did you wait until your oldest kid(s) were old enough to watch the younger ones before you started doing this? My kid is a toddler, and we don't have money in the budget for cheap date + babysitter, so we rarely go out. Do you have any tips from when your kids were younger?
Check this out, Maria: https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2011/07/how-and-why-we-do-takeout-date-nights/
Yep! Here's how we did date nights when they were younger: https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2011/07/how-and-why-we-do-takeout-date-nights/
We have a small hospital near us. It's new and nicely decorated. We've had a dinner date there. Basically empty on weekend nights. Good food too!
It is really nice to hear so many other couples do "dates" with their husband so casual. We have 3 kids: 8 ,7, and 4 and I can count on one hand how many solo fancy dinner dates we've had out...after 10 years. Family is far away and sitters aren't something friends like to share.
My husband does shift work so we're home together alot during the day with kids at school, this helps a great deal. On anniversaries we make pizza for the kids early and put a movie on with Legos and set out board games in our basement, they often give us a good 2-3 hourd alone before a fight breaks out...but it's plenty of time to make and enjoy a nice dinner alone together. If my husband is home for an evening, the kids are always in bed by 8...we put them to bed, if the older ones aren't tired, they can stay up and read. We play cards over drinks, really enjoy 1000 piece puzzles... those consume us for a week or two. We are also our own book club, we try to read the same books at the same time and talk about them. But YouTube is often my favorite. We throw on an old comedian's hour long routine, and we play cards while we listen. We hardl ever eat out, so I just go to the grocery store buy frozen shrimp and make a pasta or he makes steaks and I throw together a salad...I'd rather cook with him then drive to a restaurant and get interrupted by a server. I loved reading everyone's idea..had to share too.
You are giving me hope that someday my husband and I will be able to leave the house for dates regularly again. We're firmly in the stage of little children. But we do keep managing to have these children, so we must be doing ok!
When the weather is good we do our usual...pack a lunch and go biking, hiking, kayaking ect ect...
Also...most communities have recreational activities at little or no cost...movie, dances
Also...scope out what is available within a 20 dollar driving range...wild life sanctuary, museums ect
Or get creative...my husband and my first date was a drive to a lookout with a view of the city. Totaly thought up by him. Dinner was baloney sandwitches and a shared coke and it was during a light snow fall while listening to christmas carols ...cant ask for much more when your 18 and he's 19 with nary a dime to spare beyond bills...honestly...I'll take a date like that over a fancy dinner...it was beautiful.
Our local Chinese place has specials for 5.99 and then we order eggrolls, fried noodles, and hot tea. With drinking only water the bill comes to $16. Makes for a nice date night!
I'm fond of the no- food dates -- driving up the road into the woods to go mushroom hunting, visiting Goodwill for entertainment, taking the dog on a long walk, etc. Dining out has lost a bit of its appeal.
I love that you have a Ritter Sport marzipan in your photo. I love Ritter Sport and it used to be rare in the US so when I would visit my cousins in Germany once a year, I'd bring back 20 of them in my suitcase. Now I can find them easily, but only a few flavors. I had a kid in 2001 and haven't been able to afford a visit to the old country since then. Someday I'll go and come back with a suitcase full of my favorite flavor, "Jogurt" (a tart yogurt filling) that I can't find here!
We live in a high-priced, large city. A cocktail usually costs about $15 at a sit-down restaurant, even if it's not a super-fancy place!!! However, a nice dessert is "only" around $10. Even at a high-end restaurant with an amazing ambiance, especially in an outdoor area during the summer. If you go early or late, you can enjoy dessert and coffee, and still come in around the $20 mark with tax and tip. Usually good people-watching, too!
We also love "happy hour" at the bar of a nice restaurant. You'd be surprised, but you can often each get a cocktail and plenty of food for $20, including tax and tip.
We enjoy putting puzzles together! We'll pick them up at Goodwill, and keep them out running for weeks at a time (probably easier for us with no kids around).
My partner enjoys playing video games, so he introduced me to a few games that he thought I'd like. Now we play against each other (friendly competition!) for relaxing date nights in.
We also do the fast casual restaurants, split a fancy coffee treat and take a walk, wander the mall and window-shop, or pick up deli food from the grocery store and take it to a park for a picnic. We also pick out recipes, do the grocery shopping together, and then cook the meal together. Or we'll just run errands together, which makes it way more fun to get groceries or other things. One thing I didn't see mentioned yet is coloring books. They have so many fun adult coloring books out now, so I bought my partner one that I thought he'd enjoy, and we sit and color together. It's relaxing, and we still chat and laugh while we do it.
We have Jason's deli where we live and they have a great salad bar. Ingredients like artichoke hearts, real bacon bits, hard boiled eggs, pasta salads, three kinds of greens, fresh veggies, mini corn and gingerbread muffins, deserts and soft serve ice cream. I get the dressing on the side and take what I don't eat home for lunch the next day. They also have soup, sandwiches and pasta if you want warm food. It's easy to stay under budget when we drink water with lemon slices and have plenty of time to sit and talk without feeling like the restaurant wants us to leave so they can get new paying customers in our seats.
I’ve been wondering about your date nights and how they work out to be frugal!
Personally, we prefer to spend more money, less often. Last month, my husband took a day off from work and we had a “day date.” We didn't go nuts, but we definitely spent over $20.
This is interesting to me as I reflect on our date nights. My husband and I love to cook and love good food. We rarely go out and when we do we splurge on food we wouldn’t ordinarily make. When we first got married we decided that all of our gift budget for each other (birthday, valentines, anniversary and winter holidays) would go toward a good meal. So, about four times a year we pamper ourselves with date night. Not sure if it’s Frugal, but it is delicious and fun.
My husband and I have a date budget of $40/month. We rarely go out for a meal because it's usually too expensive. Most of the time we just go out for a beer (and maybe fries) or dessert. If the weather allows, we'll go for a walk/hike or bike ride or even run errands together. (We have done winter walks too!) We have a friend who is frequently available to sit at the house in the evenings, but if she's not available we'll do drinks and fun snacks from Trader Joe's at home and play a game or watch a movie after the kids are in bed.