Alana McKenzie Page, a dating and intimacy coach at Sovereign Dating, offers less expensive ideas that help you have fun without going broke.

<div class="block">The single tax is real, people, and the cost of dating can be crushing. Alana McKenzie Page, a dating and intimacy coach at Sovereign Dating, offers less expensive ideas that help you have fun without going broke.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Dating Doesn't Have to Cost a Fortune: Free Tips From a Dating Coach

Well, if you're on the dating scene, you probably already know that going on dates can be very expensive, especially these days. But the good news is that it doesn't always have to be expensive to be a great experience. So joining me now is dating and intimacy coach Alana mckenzie is everything we need to know on planning the perfect date without breaking the bank. Alana. Thank you so much for joining and let's get started you. Any ideas, date ideas under $50 for a new relationship. Absolutely. This is such an important topic because so many people are dating often first dates many times uh because of dating apps. So uh you really want to have a great list of first date you can get to, I like to recommend being a little bit creative with these people. Get a little bit lazy because they go on so many first dates and initial dates. However, if you can be a little bit more creative, you'll actually have a better date. So these are some ideas that will get that better date, better connection, better intimacy going for you, uh which helps you stretch your dollar in the end. So one of those would be to go on a picnic date, go for a picnic in the park. And this is a great date because you can really choose how much you want a spend. You know, you can really sort of choose which, which budget you want to create your picnic. With another thing would be to play tourist for the day. Uh, so you can dress up, wear something nice and then head out to do something in your city that usually just a tourist would do. But we kind of forget to do them when we live in the city itself and then something else I call this Chasing Waterfall. Oh, sorry, I was gonna say, I think that those are all really good ideas for early in the game dates, right? Maybe a first or second date. But when you get to the third date and beyond, do you have any ideas? Additional ideas for how you can do those have a good time without breaking the bank? Absolutely. At that point, you're gonna add another layer of maybe time spent together and, and more a little bit more commitment. We could say even if you're not going for the big commitment yet. So something you could do in that case would be what I call chasing waterfalls, but it could really just be chasing any body of water and this is to go searching for bodies of water. So if you live in in the city, you could be looking for fountains, maybe take some fun photos together near the fountain or chasing literal waterfalls and uh counting how many you can get in the amount of time that you spend together. Another thing would be to go on a spa date. So this is really great for couples who've been together a long time and you can just go to any drugstore and get, you know, face facial masks and exfoliator. And we, uh I mean, and do that at home, you know, do your own spa date at home. And then another thing would be to go hiking uh during the summer, usually depending, depending on where you live, sometimes it could be a little bit warm. But if you live in a really nice area to be outside in the summer or somewhere where you have woods, you can go for a lovely hike outdoors. I love these ideas. Ok. So let's talk about maybe the hardest question, especially if it's a first date or an early in the game day. How do you decide who pays? What's the rule for that? I love that. I love this question. Um What you would hope is that both people want to pay, right? What you're really checking for in paying for the date is generosity, which is a really important trait for any uh partner to have is generosity. So when we talk about who's paying what you're really checking for is that um one thing that's gonna happen when you go to pay for the date is that this might be your first big negotiation. So that's why it's awkward. So even though you might feel like a tussle, I recommend just going into it with this mindset of this is my first negotiation with this person. And let's see how it goes. And hopefully both of you are generous, but hopefully at least one of you is generous. So, should you talk out about it before the date or when you're on the date? Well, you know, I love that rule that uh whoever asked you on the date pays, I think that that's a really great way to go. Um Then again, sometimes you get on these days and that turns out to not be what the other person had in mind, right? So this is, this is that moment where you kind of get to know a little bit more about how they deal with money, right? So this is great for this conversation about how to save money and how people relate to money. Uh because you're learning a lot about how that person relates to their own finances and how they think about sharing wealth. What advice do you have, Alana, for people who are thinking about making a joint account, they've been together for a while, maybe they want to pool their money. Is that the right move? I think it's a great move. For people who are going to share expenses. Um, you know, my husband and I began our joint account when we decided to, you know, joint pay for bills, joint pay for rent, these kinds of things. Uh, previously, it didn't make a lot of sense for us. And so we just didn't bother with it, but it's really helpful if you are sharing expenses with someone to have a very, you know, a, a joint way to be sharing that money back and forth. All very good advice, Alana, thank you so much for joining us. This is a fun topic as we kick off stretching your dollar, especially this summer. That's dating an intimacy coach, Alana mackenzie Page. We appreciate it.