Valentine’s Day – Money Can’t Buy Me Love
The Beatles told us all about how money “Can’t Buy Me Love”, yet each year millions of 
Americans go ape spending money on Valentine’s Day. Are we really expressing love, just throwing away cash, or attempting to buy something that is missing in our relationships?
According to Media Post, the Valentine’s Day spending is a whopper:
THE NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION SAID yesterday that it expects Americans to spend $16.9 billion on Valentine’s Day this year, with the average consumer shelling out $119.67–up from $100.89 last year. And 63.4% of consumers plan to celebrate the holiday, whether it’s with a pricey gift or a simple text message.
That is a lot of money spent on tokens to represent love. And a token is all these gifts we buy really are. Over at Bank Rate they talk about the “Cost of Valentine’s Day” on a per-item basis. For instance, they quote the average 1 dozen of red roses with a vase to go for $80. While I LOVE roses as much as the next person, that is a lot of money. Run that through some of the financial calculators John recently wrote about and it’ll have you weeping. Another gift they note is the gift of monthly chocolates and that goes for $30 a month plus shipping. It is rare a day goes by that I don’t have a piece of chocolate of somekind, but $30 a month? Even if I buy a few bars of super dark chocolate a week, I’d be hard pressed to spend over $30 every month.
Of course all these figures are from the regular straight couple angle. I’m sure these quotes from the Clarion Ledger aren’t thinking about their gay counterparts when they say:
“And it’s a fun time. There’s no religion, nothing political about it. How can you be against Valentine’s Day?
“You’re against love?”
Perhaps it is because our love is so invisible that no one is noticing. So how does Valentine’s Day shake down in our households? Do we partake in the same flower, chocolate, overpriced dinner, jewelry rituals? Or, do we make our own rituals? My guess is a combination of both. Gay retailers like Love & Pride have some specials for the occasion, but a Google search returns woefully few GLBT targeted Valentine’s Day ideas.
While I think Valentine’s Day can be fun, to me it is a mirror of a deeper issue which runs through so many relationships. We spend a lot of time on window dressing and miss out on the real deep stuff that makes or breaks relationships. Just as with money, toys and gifts can be fun, but if that is the foundation of what you’re building, you’re in trouble.
In my house we usually do something understated on Valentine’s Day… a quiet night in with dinner and wine or maybe a movie. As much as I like to eat out, I think Valentine’s Day is like New Year’s Eve, a general mediocre, over-hyped, overpriced experience. In the early days I was big on giving flowers or a gift. Now, we simply find ways to celebrate one another and our relationship all throughout the year and let the “Hallmark Holiday” be what it is. Of course this year we’ll be moving all our furniture so contractors can install carpet the next day. If that isn’t long-term relationship excitement, I don’t know what is (…grinning with sarcasm)!
How about you? What is your take on Valentine’s Day? How do you celebrate?
I find Valentine’s stressful because I am often single. I am also cheap, but I see no reason to be cheap all the time. I am in a new relationship, so I certainly don’t want to be unromantic. I am taking her for sushi (avoiding the biggest crowds and potential overt homophobic reactions at the fanciest places) but it will still all add up. Cheap flowers, decent champagne, a dozen fancy cupcakes, dinner out, and I got her an karaoke attachment for her Ipod since she loves singing and dancing along to her Ipod (dances well, sings not quite so well …..). And then comes the big question for femmes everywhere–how much am I spending on lingerie? She will like it, but won’t care that much. Still, sometimes it is worth making an effort!
I figure this will come out $150 without the lingerie, and maybe $220 with new scraps of fabric. Is it worth it? I certainly want to mark the occasion, and celebrate these good moments in life. I should add we don’t do expensive birthdays or Christmas seasons with each other. She would always rather do things together rather than give gifts, but doing fun things together also adds up.
Paula,
Thank you and John for these recent posts. I just realized why I find them interesting and important even if I myself, as a graduate student, have no real personal connection to issues in investing. Money I save is likely to stay in a checking account or go towards books or my mom’s medigap plan or something like that. I know I am lucky in many ways, having an older sister that does make significant money to help out with aging parents and having, myself, truly enough to do what I love to do. I’m content without having to spend too much (well, that’s in comparison to someone with affluenza b/c I can also be wasteful).
So…back to why I find these two posts important even if I am not saving up for a business like John or doing any investing, like you. Thinking about costs to us over time is *one-way* we can get some critical distance from our ingrained consumptive rituals and habits. Marketers would love it if we walked around the mall or surfed the net, making purchases as if this activity were akin to pulling an apple from a tree or breathing the free air. Consumption rituals get so naturalized that people do literally max out credit they shouldn’t have without giving much self-reflexive thought to the implications for personal finances (and I know this is a big issue for young women and young LGBT folk who move to the big cities to live the “Sex in the City” or “Queer as Folk” lifestyle…there was a great article about this a few years back…about the costs of the stories we tell ourselves and perform for others).
Another way we can strive for some critical distance from our consumption habits is to think about the costs to others and to the environment. For example, if one reads this article– http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/starbucks — I think one is more apt to think twice about walking into the nearest Starbucks out of sheer habit. Not that everything then boils down to self-conscious reason but instrumental information about the costs of things to ourselves and to others and the interrelation of our personal habits and global justice can make a big difference in schooling or retraining our desires.
As for Valentine’s Day, I’ve never liked chocolate all that much (if one ate rack of lamb on Valentine’s Day I might have been more tempted) and, hating these kinds of holidays anyway, I’ve kind of stayed out of it. One former boyfriend was, I recall, offended but for the most part the decision to boycott the day has been mutual. I think we’re just going to get a zip car and drive to the beach at night. And this might not even be on the day itself (it might be too cold) but it’s something we both enjoy. Now that’s breathing the free air!
Be My Valentine!
Remember when we were kids and you’d go to school with Valentines for EVERYONE — boys and girls alike!
I was a bisexual when it came to Valentines!
I still am. I don’t spend a whole lot of money, I go for the cheap box of Valentines that are made for kids — that you have to punch-out of a cardboard sheet — you know what I mean?
The manufacturers were too cheap to pay for die-cut; but they sprang for the perforation? I love those! Especially if they have some cartoon characters from my youth on them!
Nothing says “I love you” like Porky Pig, “I lu-lu-lu I like you a lot!”
I also love those really cheap, sugar-rush, heart-shaped candies with the sayings on them: “be mine,” “I LUV U,” and “you’re sweet.”
I always wanted to find a bag of those called QUEER CANDY HEARTS that would have naughty sayings like “eat me,” “size queen,” or “you’re a (fill-in with the appropriate adjective).”
Valentine’s Day offers you many ways to waste your money. Don’t fall into that trap! Be creative instead!
That dozen long-stemmed roses will cost you much more during this romantic holiday, so grab a box of Crayola crayons and CREATE a picture of roses — all the diverse colors of our rainbow waits inside a box of Crayolas… and don’t forget to smell those crayons, too! There’s a fragrance that will catapult you back to your kindergarten days – spend a romantic evening with your honey-pie drawing “love notes” to each other! A ream of paper and a box of Crayolas can make a beautiful evening!
And why take your significant udders out to dinner when you can cook a meal yourself? A romantic dinner for two at home, with those dishes you just HAD to have from Pier One are your best bet for a rendezvous worth remembering. So, you say, you don’t cook? Order a delivery pizza and before you serve it, cut it in the shape of a Valentine!
You’re not being cheap, you’re being original! Creative! Fun! A free-spirited lover with a sense of playfulness…
And don’t forget those “pampering goodies:” make-your-own-massage oils, bubble-baths to share (buy the little kids bubble-baths in the SESAME STREET containers!), write a love-poem (copy one if you don’t write), or rent a romantic movie and pop some pop corn to share in one big bowl.
Romance is about sharing… not spending.
Here’s the poem my not-so-literate, poor-but-loveable lover (of 30 years) gave me last Valentine’s Day; it was written by William Butler Yeats:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
—
Honey, I cried like a baby! Happy V.D.!
I just love this theme! I’ve long been against spending like crazy for these types of holidays. A night in with wine and a pan of mac-n-cheese is good enough for me!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/09/ivorycoast.chocolate.reut/index.html
Paula,
The above article is about a Dutch journalist who is asking to be jailed for eating chocolate because of the child labor/slavery often behind chocolate production. I’d love to hear your own reactions to something like this and that of other bloggers and readers as well. It seems to me that the whole consumer landscape is haunted by these faces of injustice. It can feel rather overwhelming at times. I remember seeing that movie “Jeffrey” in which the lead character starts thinking that sex itself has become toxic (in the age of AIDS) and I feel that I sometimes have a Jeffrey-like reaction to consumption because at evey turn there is some danger, some pitfall, some grave injustice. I know I can’t look away–that much I know. But I don’t have many answers sometimes…finding that what I need for now is to do lots of soul-searching, educate myself and let go of many things that once made life seem sweeter at the expense of a higher ignorance quotient. At the very least, these kinds of stories make me appreciate the pervasive suffering that underlie my relative freedom and privilege. To try to wish global producers and environment away or to try my best to see past them becomes a form of evil. Sometimes, I admit, all of this engenders a sense of despair but sometimes it ignites in me a sense of ethical and moral responsibility.
What a range of responses- mirroring the huge range of regulars here! From Lewis’s response of keeping Valentine’s that day of sweetheart cutesie love (which is more my thing) to Harvard Student’s response of the bigger global picture (which is always such a downer- the big implications of any of our choices always lead to horrific extremes).
We keep it light in our family. The kidlets of course buy Valentines for school. I decorate our house with ones that we all have received in years past- cutsie, kid like Valentines- some are even just pictures of Valentine like themes from my daily Mary Engelbreit calendar I keep on my work desk. We put them up in the mirror over our fireplace mantel, tape them on doors, string them into banners. Its cheap, cute and somewhat unique. I also have a few wallhangings I have made over the years that go up for Valentine’s Day- I put these up usually around the first of February.
We don’t really give each other Valentine gifts- I got a card for my partner and since she’s going away this coming weekend- I’ll probably tuck a book or something in her suitcase- but nothing else for “THE day.” We do make a special treat or let the kids have some of their candy they’ll bring home- but we don’t really get them anything either.