How to celebrate Valentine’s Day on a budget

Do you know the mistake I’ve been making with Valentine’s Day?

I’ve been living it out on the wrong side of the spectrum. I’ve been spending money on Valentine’s Day instead of making money.  I should be cashing in on people’s need to express their love and affection in grand, overt, colourful and unnecessarily public displays.

Next year, the tables turn – we’re cashing in on this bonanza.

But until we can find the money to get us on the other end of the spectrum, here are a few suggestions on how you and your loved one can spend Valentine’s Day on a tight budget.

Funny thing is, you’ll be more creative when you’re on a tight budget than not. And creative usually turns to memorable, fun and thoughtful.

Anyway, here goes:

1. Don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14
How about you and your lover be the odd couple? How about you take the road down left when the rest of the world is turning right, go against the grain? How about you break the rules and make up your own rules instead? How about you save yourselves the agony of inflated prices and poor service that accompanies the excess of February 14?

Valentine’s Day this year falls on a Thursday.

Live it out like a regular workday: get up at your regular time, prep for your day as you regularly would, put on some regular clothes and head out your door to live a regular workday. A ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ WhatsApp with a cheesy GIF to your lover should suffice.

Then two weekends away – on 1 March or whichever date works – have you and your lover surprise yourselves with a Valentine’s Day weekend. Knock yourselves out with bouquets sent to your workplaces, have dinner at some uppity restaurant, catch a movie, take a trip out of town, do balloon ride, schedule for studio photos...the whole shebang.

March is an odd month because there’s usually nothing special happening. So you’ll get attentive professional service, friendlier prices and no crowds.

2. Stay in and catch some R-rated movies

Turn up the heat in your living room. Or bedroom. Depending on where the party will start. Or end.

Don’t bother with Titanic, it’s too mawkish a movie, we don’t want mawkish on this Valentine’s Day evening. We want raunchy, naughty and downright plain dirty.

Sometimes everybody needs an excuse to be bad – find it on Valentine’s Day.

I’ve looked up a couple of adult movie titles online. There’s Concussion (and not the one starring Will Smith), Zipper, Fragments of Love, Blue is the Warmest Colour (this one I’ve been waiting a long time to catch), Below Her Mouth (you can already tell from the title that it’s something else), Sex Doll (roar)....

And the list goes on and on.

I doubt you’ll get past one and half movies before you and your lover are making your own movie (wink wink).

3. Have a picnic in your living room

I’m using the word ‘picnic’ here quite loosely.

Do the regular picnic setting – lay down a Maasai or some other blanket on your living room rug, then you and your lover lay on it (hopefully facing each other) and you chitchat about nothing in particular.

Turn off the lights and fire up some scented candles. Regular candles will also do.

Some light music in the background will be full stop to this sentence of a picnic you’ve created in your living room.

Here’s the catch: don’t bother with some fancy three-course meal or anything intimidating along those lines. Get some chips and sausage, or chips and samosa, from your local deli and eat it on the picnic you’ve created in here.

Have a drink (hopefully some alcoholic beverage, hopefully cheap) to loosen the mood some more.

Dress up for this one. I’ll leave you to decide what you mean by ‘dress up’ (again, wink wink).

4. Exchange simple, utilitarian, pocket-friendly gifts
Should you and your lover decide that suggestion one to three above don’t float your boat, and that you must exchange gifts, then so be it.

How about you guys enter an agreement that you won’t purchase gifts more than a certain amount, say Sh2,000. And that the gifts will be something that either needs to use right away. Most important, that you will get an idea of what the other wants so that you hit the nail right on the head (Because shooting in the dark sometimes costs money.)

I’d buy my man happy socks. One of those rich-cotton ones from one of those Instagram pages with many followers. Those ones in dazzling prints in all colours in the colour wheel. Maybe they come packed in a jar. Maybe they come in a box. Maybe they cost Sh300 a pair. Maybe they can be delivered to his office in a larger-than-necessary gift box and a complementary bouquet of fresh roses.

For me, I’d ask him to get me some local handmade jewellery. One of those rings and bracelets in solid brass. Or a beaded Maasai choker with tussles. Or maybe a watch with a beaded cuff. Or to take me to one of those boutiques in the CBD where they have ready-made Ankara dresses.

5. Invite your friends or family over for game night

This sounds like it’s hosting but it’s really not.

Tell your guests that it’s potluck; that everyone brings one item on the menu. So I’ll bring the chapattis, you bring the beef, sister A brings the greens, brother B brings the sausages, cousin C brings the salads and friend D brings the pilau.

Then you all congregate in your living room – sharing the food and sharing the love – and kill time with some games.

I used to think that game night was a very White, very bourgeois, very posh thing to do. Until me and my pals tried it once at a baby shower, now it’s my go-to for group entertainment.

Games night is a lot of fun, and makes for a good laugh, especially for the competitive ones on the losing team. It also takes away the need to hold conversation.  

There’re several simple games online that don’t require a board or a deck of cards.

Charades is always an easy pick (it’s not as posh as it sounds). So is Game of Things, Murderer. And that one where you have a table and name things that start with a certain letter.... I forget.

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