Fellow frugal fathers and nationwide misers, behold the Frugal Father guide to protecting the moth habitat living within your wallet.

First of all the Valetines Day Card. If you are like me and you think cards are a waste of money, that’s too bad. Girls love the bloody things. Fear not though, you can make one yourself from some card.
You don’t have to be a creative genius for this one, but do ensure you put a long message inside telling her why you love her so much and her heart will melt, thus ensuring she fails to notice it looks pants. Joking aside though, it won’t take much work to put something together yourself, you can google for neat ideas, and the fact you’ve gone through the trouble will earn you extra brownie points.

Secondly comes the flowers and chocolates. Let’s face it they’re not cheap, but you could try getting a dozen red roses from Aldi for £4.99. I think these ones are artificial, but they look nice enough on the picture. For real roses moneysupermarket.com has some ok vouchers. As for chocolates, aim for fancy looking ones from lidl or aldi. Good quality, low price.

Finally, you have the meal. My personal choice is staying in on Valentines day, cooking a nice meal and then treating her to a massage. A really frugal idea is to make something cheesy (excuse the pun) like a heart shaped pizza:

Alternatively, just go for her favourite dish. Either way its much cheaper than going out on Valentines, restaurants are packed and prices inflated.

If you must go out for a meal, try and go the day before of the day after Valentines day. You’ll save a packet. I’ll link to moneysupermarket.com again here as they’ve just launched a ‘Go Local’ campaign. Whack your postcode in, select restaurants, and it will list all deals and exclusive offers they’ve got in restaurants near your home: Go Local