Babysitting

Going out without the kids at least sometimes is very important--especially if one spouse is staying home with the kids all day/week.  We sometimes use the day care next to the gym at which my wife is a member or a teenage girl we know from church.  The frugal part of me finds it strange to spend $20 on babysitting to see a movie at the dollar theater--though that's a lot more frugal than paying for babysitting and full price movie tickets!  So I try to find creative ways to maximize the time while we are paying a babysitter, and watch the movies later when they are available at redbox.  But sometimes that creates too much pressure to have a perfect date whenever the kids taken care of.

The best times have been when we have arranged with another couple to take turns watching the others' kids.  This had a double benefit.  Every other week we knew we had free babysitting, and we could do a variety of things.  In between those weeks, we would watch their kids.  And to be honest, it was usually easier watching four kids play together than our own two fighting each other or us.  So it was a win-win situation.  We've done this regularly with at least one family in each of our last two locations and sporadic trade-offs with others.  We've recently moved and are still meeting people here.

A personal finance blog I follow occasionally, The Simple Dollar, has a recent post on a baby-sitting exchange.

Introduction

I am a husband and father of two -- that is, I have two boys, not two wives.  Eight years into our marriage I still try to plan regular dates.  I have been a graduate student for most of that time (I am now a postdoc after five years of graduate school), so I try to make up for in creativity and planning what we lack in time and money.  I frequently search the web to find interesting and fun things to put together into a fun evening.  Those searches have yielded many good ideas that I've been able to use, or bits and pieces that I've put together into more elaborate dates.  I've decided to post these dates in order to help others who might similarly be looking for fun and cheap ideas.  These ideas might be especially useful to couples with small children who may not be able to afford the expense of a babysitter every week, as some of the dates have family participation during the early part of the evening.

I have a backlog of dates and ideas that I will hopefully be posting over the next weeks/years.  So stay tuned, and hopefully you'll enjoy the ride!