A few days ago I met up with an old friend from secondary school, we had both decided to bring our other halves. I, brought along my wife, my friend, his latest girlfriend, he starts talking about how they met (after my wife asked), and about their first date, and how he spent $250 on a whole meal!
He then preceded to tell how much to spend on dating. He started to tell me that he’d had 13 girlfriends since May 2019 (as I am writing this in November 2019). He told me that he had an income of roughly $3500 per month, and he spent roughly $1200 per month on dating.
He then preceded to tell me that I needed to “loosen up” in terms of the amount I spend on dating. Which was something that quite annoyed me, but I let it slide, my wife saw this, and decided to do something.
What you may ask?…
My wife decided to recount our first date, saying: “He took us to a restaurant, it was the only time I’d seen him be a little less frugal (in reference to the penny pinching I’d always done). He let us spend a whole $20 on our meal! But he was a gentleman, and paid for the entire meal plus a tip to the 16 year-old waitress of something like $3! Which was rather generous of him!”
My friend and his newest girlfriend found that highly hilarious, and told me that the cost of dating with them was more like $200 for one night out! Not including tips, they then told me how a meal costing $20 would probably be “Something like one glass of wine and maybe half a starter!”
For those of you who follow us regularly, you can probably guess that this shocked me very much. I found it so absurd that someone would be willing to spend $200 on one meal alone!
We finished our meal, and changed the subject of our discussion to sports and politics. When my wife and I were walking home I turned and asked her if she thought I was going mad (which she replied adorably with a definite “No!” so it must be true!)
I preceded to pull my phone out to do a little bit of research on the matter, to see if my friend’s case was an isolated one, or if it was a common occurrence.
What did I find?
I typed into Google one simple search query “How much should I spend on dating?” ( the same title as I used for this article) it came back with 150 million results as Google tends to do. Some of the top articles on there amazed me, just not in a good way.
In one article on The Guardian, it talks about one man (called Gareth) who says:
Dating costs him [Gareth] about £1,000 a month after he splashes out around £200 on dinner and drinks per date, plus additional costs such as taxis and clothes.
This astounded me, as not only does this man appear to have little to no savings, but he also has no current partner/girlfriend to speak of (at the time of that article being published).
There were many more examples that I could’ve used with how much some people spend on dating! And do you know what the worst part of this is?
These people rarely find true love as they are too busy with a mask on, letting their money, rather than words and actions do the talking!
How much should you spend on dating?
When it comes to how much you should spend on dating, my advice is keep the belt tight. Arguing about money is the #1 reason that leads to divorce- an argument over how to spend your money can soon escalate. Once it has escalated, it is quite hard to stop it from spiraling out of control.
If I had to give an exact amount that you should spend on dating, I’d break it down like this:
- $0-$10,000 annual income- $25 per month
- $10,001-$20,000 annual income- $50 per month
- $20,001-$30,000 annual income- $75 per month
- $30,001-$40,000 annual income- $100 per month
- $40,001-$50,000 annual income- $125 per month
- $50,001-$60,000 annual income- $150 per month
*Obviously these are only rough approximations, this can vary from country to country and state to state*
Why shouldn’t I spend more than $150 per month on dating?
You are probably wondering why I haven’t gone any higher than this (sorry anyone who makes over $60,000). This is rather straight-forward when you think about it:
$150 x 12= $1,800
No man/woman should be truly in love with you, just because you are spending almost $2,000 on them each year. If the person you are going on a date with is ‘the one’, they shouldn’t care whether you went to a 5* Michelin restaurant or a Whetherspoons.
If you took the bottom amount I laid out earlier for you to spend on dating ($50 per month), you’d pay $600 per year. Put it this way:
$1,800-$600= $1,200
That means that you could potentially have an extra twelve-hundred bucks to save or invest, and the partner of your dreams by your side, all at the same time!
Obviously, I am not a love expert, I never have been (and probably never will be). I don’t know you individually (no offense), I can’t speak for your specific situation, nor can I advise you on how much to spend on dating. I have simply put this article together to give you a rough estimate of how much to spend on dating.
