Love costs money, no matter how you slice it. You and your significant other can only binge-watch Netflix for so long. But as you sit there watching the 10th episode of “Orange is the New Black” on a Saturday morning, you’re bursting at the seams to get out of the house. But therein lies your dilemma, you’re broke until next payday and you only have 20 dollars to spend.
Are you convinced you can’t do anything for that pocket change? I’m going to show you that 20 bucks can still go a long way for a date and who knows, maybe we will have some change left at the end. So come along with me in this journey; every two weeks I’m going to take the love of my life on a date and limit myself to a budget of twenty dollars. So let’s see if we can make this happen.
The hardest part of this adventure is figuring out what the heck to do. Sure there’s tons of free stuff to do and quiet little theaters and small restaurants where your dollar can be stretched, but where are they?
For date one of this series, Kate and I started the day with something free: a trip to Glen Helen to take a look at some amazing birds. Glen Helen is located just outside of downtown Yellow Springs. We were able to spend about 30 minutes looking at all of the birds. It’s also a lot of fun to try and get the birds to react to you, as you horribly try to imitate the sounds they make.
After we left there, we went window-shopping in Yellow Springs. Window-shopping always sounds like a lot more fun than it actually is, because the urge to buy something in one of the great shops in town is intense. But remember, you only have 20 bucks. So stay calm.
We continued to wander around the town. Yellow springs is home to the Little Art Theatre, a single screen theater, that shows lesser-known movies as well as movies that are no longer in the theaters, a ticket costs $7.50 with a college ID, so we spent 15 dollars to see a flick and burned two hours.
As we left the theater, we realized we still had five dollars burning a hole in our pockets so we stopped off at the Corner Cone Dairy Bar and Grill and grabbed a regular sized chocolate shake for $3.99. We sat and chatted while we enjoyed the shake.
So hey I guess 20 dollars can really go a bit farther than you think and we still had some change left over!
Thomas Hallaway
Contributing Writer