I’m a credit councilor and I spend my days helping people find ways to work out a budget they can stick with, to help them get out of debt so they can get on with their lives. Something I see very often is that money problems often lead to family problems including divorce and breakups among formerly happy couples. The hardest part of making a workable budget for most people is staying within that budget while trying to find a new relationship. Most people think that dating needs to be expensive, and the fact is that is really doesn’t have to be if you do it intelligently.

As one simple example, most people invite a first date to go out to dinner. If you examine the menus at any restaurants, you’ll quickly find that taking a date to breakfast or lunch can save you as much as 40% of the restaurant bill without altering the quality of the meal or the dating experience. For people whose hours have been cut back, making plans during the day to date others is easier than you might think at first.

A common claim is that dating at night is necessary because going out to the clubs and bars is the easiest place to meet people, but that also isn’t true. It’s a total scam to think that meeting people that way is necessary; it’s a scam that club owners perpetuate because it helps them earn more of your money every time you visit them.

Take a look at a site like Fling.com when you have a free moment. Instead of spending $12 on each drink and $150 on dinner, why not meet people online for free and arrange an afternoon of entertainment that would not only be more likely to help you find someone worth dating… but would be infinitely easier to fit within your budget as well!

Sometimes saving money means thinking outside the box. Simple changes in the ordinary pattern of your life can simultaneously add new excitement and significant savings to dating and other activities as well. You’ll see some people posting that dating sites are a scam, but ill bet you dollars to doughnuts that those are the same club owners and bar owners who have been scamming you all along… fearful that you’ll find out there are better and cheaper ways to meet the love of your life, or to find the next hot fling.