Valentine's Weekend Reward

Throughout the month of February I have been talking about Marriage & Money and the importance of how you spend your money. Most of my topics have revolved around saving money and making wise decisions, this one is a little different.

For Valentine's Day, I decided that we needed fun & romance, more than we needed to save a few hundred dollars. My wife and I have both been stressing about our jobs, the economy, having a baby, and we just needed a weekend of fun to forget about all the negative going on around us.


So what did we do? We went to Paoli, Indiana, to ski and snowboard. We spent the night in a very nice hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. And we each enjoyed stress relieving massages the next day.


How did we do this without breaking the bank? By going into debt? Absolutely not. We were able to do all of this because of planning. The great thing about a budget is you get to tell your money where to go, instead of wondering where it all went. I had been putting back money for a vacation for the past few months, so the money we spent came directly from there.


I'm all about saving money, but there's sometimes you just need to reward yourselves. Don't let yourself get bogged down thinking you always have to save, save, save. There are times in your life when you need to have a little fun. Just plan ahead first.


My wife had been wanting to go skiing for a long time, and she would bring it up every couple weeks. Well one day I finally listened to her. You know how we can often hear things, but don't really listen. I had been hearing her for months. It finally occured to me on Tuesday of last week to do something about it. And I knew we had been stressing about work, so I thought why not get a massage. The weekend worked out perfectly. After trying to learn how to snowboard for a day, you're going to need a massage.


Would I do it again? Absolutely. It was worth every penny. How did you reward yourself this Valentine's Day?