Shantelle Marie Photography

Why Seeing Movies is a Budget Date Dream

budget movie date night

The perfect date night situation.

I love taking my wife to see movies from time to time (this is Andrew, by the way). If you follow Shantelle’s instagram it’s a huge surprise, right? But it’s one of the most amazing things you can do, period. To start with there’s the anticipation of going to see a new movie, something you’ve never seen before but you’ve been checking out the previews for weeks (or months). And while the feature presentation is exciting enough by itself that’s only part of the fun. It used to cost an arm and a leg to see a first-run movie, but things are a-changing, people.

Personally, I’m a HUGE fan of the trailers before the film we paid to see even starts. When I go to the movies with my wife we are both transformed into movie critics for 15-20 glorious minutes. Every preview is an opportunity to decide if an upcoming film will receive the coveted “see it in theatres” ranking. There are a few other ratings we use as well, as any good critic should, so allow me to break those down for you:

1. “UGH, why?” – this rating is usually reserved for movies that probably should never have been made and/or many of the fundamental elements in the movie/their very existence is fundamentally troubling (see “Aloha”).

2. “No, no, definitely not” – this category is home to the vast majority of movies. It’s basically a catch all for movies where it’s painfully obvious from the preview that we won’t enjoy it (see “Run all Night”).

3. “Just plain dumb/Why?/Please I thought the end of times wasn’t nigh” – A category basically filled with Entourage-esque movies (see “Entourage”).

4. “Redbox!” – These movies are intriguing, but not worth the price of admission due to a high likelihood of the movie sucking. At times our suspicions are confirmed – the movie sucked, but in some pleasant cases cases we’re happily surprised to find they’re actually really good (see “The Duff”).

5. “Fine, we’ll pay” – Pretty obvious, we might not have otherwise paid to see it but the previews were catchy enough that we’ll be forking over too much money to see this (and it at times this pays off, see “Furious 7”).

6. Lastly, and the highest rating, “Add that to the planner RIGHT. NOW!” – You can tell from these previews that you simply must go see the movie in theaters or your life will be incomplete*! This final category of movies is also a source of consternation when the release date keeps getting pushed back until later and later in the year (see “Pan” and also my wife’s tears).

Critiquing movies is not only one of my favorite parts of going out to the theater, it’s imperative. Nowadays going to see a movie at the theater isn’t cheap so it’s important not to waste your movie dollars on a bad film. Adult ticket prices are usually $10 and up and even a matinee will cost you $8 a ticket. I won’t even talk about how expensive concessions have gotten because it’s almost painful to part with the price of a bag of popcorn. All of this is to preface a rather large budget date night secret with you/an amazing tip for when you want to see a movie.

budget movie date night

Shantelle is very excited about budget dating (and Cinderella).

Every Tuesday night our local Regal cinemas has a discount day where tickets are only $6 all day long on first-run movies (we aren’t talking dollar theatres here). If you’re also a Regal Crown Club member (which we are because it’s FREE), the tickets are only $5 a pop. Anytime we’re not sure about a new movie, we will wait and go see it on a Tuesday night. The tickets are cheap enough that even if we don’t like the movie (I’m looking at you “Far from the Madding Crowd”) we didn’t spend too much going to see it. The other benefit is that the whole reason they have the discount: very few people see movies on Tuesday nights. Even with super cheap tickets the theater is never crowded.

We have since discovered that more than just Regal offers this discount. AMC theatres has a discount day and I am sure that there are other deals out there as well, all you have to do is look. It seems like the discounts vary between theatres so I’d double check with your local big screen house to find out when they are!

In addition to the regularly discounted movie nights, the movie clubs through places like AMC and Regal have great deals. We earn free popcorn, drinks, and tickets on the regular which finally makes a movie date a budget dream.

Now, go forth and date at the movies on a budget (finally)! And since we’re talking about it, what was the best movie you’ve seen in theatres lately? Personally, I really loved InsideOut!

May your popcorn bucket always be full,

Andrew

*May or may not be completely true.

Top 5 Fun & Cheap Date Ideas

Bonus points if your date includes overly enthusiastic goats.

Bonus points if your date includes overly enthusiastic goats.

I don’t know about you, but date night seemed like one of the hardest things to add into our weekly schedule. It wasn’t that we didn’t have time to spend together but we fell into the rut of “dinner and a movie” which is probably the most boring thing to do week after week. We live on a budget that doesn’t allow for very expensive meals every week and I know I don’t want to constantly sit in public and wait on someone to bring food and then go to a movie to sit and stare at a screen. Plus, that food that costs more than our monthly gym membership isn’t usually better than what we can make at home! We got tired of doing the same thing, let it fall to the side, and eventually date night stopped.

Recently though, Andrew & I have been consciously investing time into working on our marriage (because we’re weird and work is fun in this case!) which lead us to reading two of my new favorite books on marriage and relationships in general: The 5 Love Languages & Marriage Meetings for Lasting Love (side note: these meetings are actually fun and helpful). These books have a wealth of helpful information but the one thing they both stress is quality time with your spouse in the form of a weekly date night. Since we’d both grown “tired” of date night we decided to take another look at what we were doing wrong. We made a list of things we like doing together and started making dates out of them! So in the interest of keeping date night fun (for us and you!) I thought I’d share our top 5 fun and cheap date ideas!

5. Specialty Cookin’ – You’re going to make dinner anyways, right? So why not go to a specialty market around town and make something new?! We recently checked out a specialty food store, The Butcher’s Market, and decided to make a recipe we’d never made before with some fancy meats (and their delish garlic cheddar rolls!). Cooking together can be SO much fun so why not turn a regular dinner into a special date? Total cost: $27

4. Movies at the Museum – We loooooove museums and movies and our local art museum has the best set-up to combine these two loves. During summer they show movies in their huge art park on the side of one of their buildings. This year we saw Mary Poppins for the 50th Anniversary and last year we saw Ghostbusters! When things get colder they move things to an indoor theatre, which is how I got to see my favorite movie (Roman Holiday) in theatres on ACTUAL film! It was a pretty amazing experience to share with the dude! Total cost: $10 (not including snacks, oops)

3. Picnic in the Park – When we first started dating Andrew would have random days off at times when I was working. So for lunch he would surprise me by picking me up and taking me to a park nearby my old office and present a wonderful picnic! It wasn’t overflowing with food, just enough for us two and it was all pretty standard fare, but it was special just because of the intention behind it. Since he has a more standard schedule now, our picnics are relegated to the weekends but they’re still a surprise! For Labor Day this year he took me to a nearby park and put together the yummiest picnic ever. Best part? There were still leftovers since this was all made at home. Also the very enthusiastic goats you see above. We totally got to pet some (and then wash out hands). Total cost: around $15 (depending on how much you have at home already)

2. World Market Exploration – At some point, we’ll both have seen more continents and countries than we’ve lived in. Until then, we love going to World Market to try out different beers and sodas…and candy. We’ll explore the beer aisle and I’ll pick out beers mostly from other countries which you can make a 6 pack for only $12! Obviously you can’t drink in-store but most of the fun is spent getting to pick out the items that you’ll be drinking over the next few weeks. Plus, you get the fun of trying different things each time you go, like the Halloween wine we purchased for a roast I made last time! Total cost: $20 or less (which could be WAY less but they have too many yummy and cute things)

1. Dine & Drive – This is Andrew’s favorite (and probably mine as well). All you do is go to your favorite low-cost eatery, eat, get in the car, and drive. You don’t need a specific destination and we certainly never have one. You can drive for as long or as short a time as you would like but the point is that you’re together with no distractions. We find that some of our best talking gets done in a car and it is the cheapest date that isn’t free we ever do. The world is a little less annoying when you’re in a car with no traffic and your honey. Total cost: $20 (not including gas)

In the course of writing this I had to ask Andrew what his favorite dates are which he actually said is our errand days! To him, they feel like one long date that is not only productive but a little spontaneous too! We incorporate fun stops in between the boring ones, like going to Al Baraka for lentils and mango juice instead of Walmart. It just goes to show that you can turn anything into a date by making the intention (and interactions) clear. Tell me, what are your favorite fun and cheap dates?

Wishing you yummy picnics and world traveling beers,

Shantelle

PS – please excuse my use of the word honey to describe your significant other.