Friday, February 12, 2010

Money=love?


According to the paper (OK, just the Daily Mail, but still) Brits spend £4.9 billion on Valentine's Day, with the average couple spending £550. That's 635 EUR or 860 USD.

For my part, I've paid £2.85 for the card I bought my husband. I expect he'll spend a similar amount for mine, perhaps a bit more if he splashes out and gets me some flowers or a box of chocolates. Between us, we'll have spent no more than £10. Does this mean that there's a couple out there spending £1,090 to celebrate their love for each other? Or maybe we're simply below average?

Elsewhere in the paper, I spotted the following snippet: pupils at a primary school in Somerset have been banned from celebrating St Valentine's Day - to protect them from the emotional trauma of being dumped. Any cards found or exchanged in school will be confiscated.

I guess sending electronic VD cards isn't considered a suitable alternative, although I don't think anyone was ever traumatised by not receiving one of those.

So... what have you got planned for Valentine's Day, and how much are you spending on it?

11 comments:

Gattina said...

I don't know where I should put us then, we have never celebrated Valentine's day and we are married for 40 years ! Valentine's day didn't exist when we were young, it just arrived here a few years ago through America probably.
It's another day for business, just like mother day, father day, grandparents day etc etc ! Good for the shops !

Susan Mo said...

I told my hubby that I don't want anything for Valentine's Day, not even a card. I don't need it. I know he loves me and I don't need a card on a random day to prove it. Instead, we are going to cook a nice dinner at home and just enjoy being with each other and our dogs. It sounds perfect to me. Happy Valentine's Day to you!

Karen said...

Welcome back! So glad you got your fix!

Valentine's Day is a touchy subject over here. The Wonder Hub, frankly, is a terrible Valentine. I've just recently decided to rock his socks off instead of getting my hopes up that he'll grab me more than a last-minute rented movie and a bag of licorice. Sigh. For the record, I did get two dozen roses on his promotion day (even if we forgot them in the car and they froze).

I'm starting by making him these:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/brownie-hearts?backto=true&backtourl=/photogallery/chocolate-desserts-for-valentines-day#slide_2

(more on Mitford after the snow melts, I need to go play!)

VP said...

A funny post, I'll try to not outspend you, with a quite good chance of success. We usually save this kind of money for travels or something like that...

Betty Carlson said...

Nothing planned for Valentine's Day, but it's more for young'uns in France...

Hey I see you haven't posted for a while and somehow WE ARE BOTH ON THE SAME Wordless Wednesday number! So let's forge ahead to 100...together! :)

Tinsie said...

@ Gattina: You don't know what you're missing. Or maybe you do ;-)

@ Susan Mo: Sounds perfect to me too. I'm sure you guys will have a lovely time.

@ Karen: I'm also a terrible Valentine. I'd have given up on the whole thing a long time ago, but the one year I decided to break the pattern and not buy a card, I opened hubby's underwear drawer to put some socks away and caught a glimpse of a card with telltale red envelope stashed away at the back. So then I had to go out and get a card too. Since then I've tried to make sure I have a card for him, even if he's slipped once or twice over the years.

Let us know how the brownie hearts turn out :-)

@ VP: I guess a lot of the people who spend serious amounts of money on Valentine's Day go away for the day or the weekend. But as February is usually such a bleak month and prices for romantic breaks quite high, it seems more sensible to travel at a different time.

@ Betty C: The UK's Valentine-mad. Maybe Hallmark's not caught on in France ;-)

Excellent result on WW. Now full steam ahead to 100!

palmtreefanatic said...

nice saying! works for me;)
we never do much for Valentines day, not sure why it just comes and goes!
i am happy with a dinner out! I dont need much;)

Happy Valentines Day to you!

Kali said...

We've nothing planned either...and I haven't bought dear hubby anything. We will spend it together though, probably out for brunch..but then again we do that most weekends!

Yep, I'm Greek, and you did well spotting the Greek cookbook :)
♥ Kali

Tinsie said...

@ Palmtreefanatic: Dinner out sounds like fun. Is he treating you?

@ Kali: Well, if going out for brunch is good enough for other weekends, it's certainly good enough for Valentine's weekend :-)

Lowell said...

At our age, after almost 53 years of marriage, we don't get too excited about things like Valentine's Day. We'll get one another cards, and we did buy a very expensive horse painting which we decided would be our gift to one another...

Tinsie said...

Any excuse for a little extravagance, that's what I say ;-)

WOW - 53 years, that's really impressive!