Love for Less: frugal Valentine's Day tips

Showering your loved ones with goodies is always fun to do on Valentine’s Day, but not if it leaves you drowning in debt! With a little planning and creativity, you can show your loved ones you care and stay within your budget.

If you have your heart set on giving roses, many grocery stores offer a dozen roses for $20.00 or less. Some offer them as low as $10, as Trader Joe’s did last year. Keep in mind that you don’t have to buy roses. There are beautiful mixed flower bouquets available at grocery stores for $12 or less. Last year, Lowes Foods sold a beautiful 5-stem bunch of tulips for only $4.00

If you are signed up to receive e-mails from the daily deal sites, you have probably seen some good deals on area restaurants in the last few weeks. It’s not too late if you are still looking for a frugal dining out option for Valentine’s weekend. There should be multiple restaurant deals between now and February 14 at the daily deals sites listed below. Restaurant.com also has restaurant gift certificates for discounts off the face value.

If you have an Entertainment Book or a coupon book like the Citipass book, it is full of great coupons for Buy One Get One Free deals.

Instead of dinner on Valentine’s Day, eat out for lunch. Some restaurants have a less expensive lunch menu and it is usually not as crowded for lunch on Valentine’s as it is for dinner.

Of course, the most frugal dining option (other than fasting, I guess) is to eat at home. Even if you splurge on steak (on sale of course) it’s still going to be less expensive (and much less hectic) than eating out on Valentine’s Day.

I asked folks on the Smart Shopper blog what frugal Valentine’s ideas they had and many readers said they were staying in this year, cooking a special dinner at home and renting a movie.

Have your kids make their cards for the grandparents and parents. Homemade cards are fun to make with the kiddos and such a thoughtful gift. My youngest daughter and I made cards for my husband last week. It was a fun activity for us to do together and we used arts and crafts materials we had at the house so they were free!

Have a scavenger hunt for the kids or your special someone– place little hearts all over the place with reasons why you love them written on each little note. Give them a hint on each note where they can find the next one. At the last note, have a little stuffed animal or a $1 heart box of Hershey’s or Reeses chocolates waiting for them. Gather up all the sweet notes so they can keep them in a scrapbook to look at later.

Superturf guy shared that one time he cut out a bunch of hearts on red construction paper and put little notes on them and hid them everywhere all over the apartment and that she was still finding them months later!

Cheleberg wrote that Valentine's Day 1999 was the 1 year anniversary she was celebrating with her boyfriend. She cut out 365 hearts and wrote on each one fun memories and reasons she loved him. She put them in a red mailbox and told him to read 1 each day for the next year.

Holly asked her husband to get a plant that she can plant in the yard if he feels like he needs to get her something. She wrote, “No need to get flowers, they die in a week. The plant will look nice in our yard!!”

Jeanne wrote, “Buy 2/$1 VDay cards at the dollar store. Instead of buying things, we write "I O U" notes for a foot rub for instance, and hide them around the house. One place may be in a shoe. When one of us finds a note, we can collect! I'd rather have a nice backrub than a box of fattening, over-priced chocolates anyway!”

Buy clearance Valentines cards and décor after Valentine’s Day this year to use next year.

Buy red wrapped clearance candy after Christmas to use for Valentines Day. The bags of red and green Hershey’s kisses are great. Use the red ones for Valentine’s Day and you can probably figure out something tasty to do with the green ones!

I wish you all a wonderful, frugal Valentine’s Day filled with love!