Valentine’s Day is coming up and many students plan to go out but want to know the cheapest way to do so. Fortunately, there are many romantic ways to spend Valentine’s Day without denting your wallet.

Flowers are a must-have on Valentine’s Day. Maybe instead of 12 red roses, stick to one rose and get a small box of her favorite candy.

To start off the night, make a homemade dinner for two. There are so many recipes out there that require very little ingredients and still cost half of what a nice meal at a restaurant would cost. Talk about what you both like and then go to the grocery store together to get all the ingredients. Making the meal with each other can be half the fun!

For example, if you made chicken alfredo, it would cost you approximately $14 – $1 for pasta, $3 for alfredo sauce, $4 for chicken and $4 for garlic bread. If you went to a restaurant, it would probably cost $14 per person.

After the meal, make dessert or splurge by going out for dessert. Frozen yogurt shops, such as Orange Leaf on Lincoln Way and Aspen Leaf on South Duff, allow you to control how much you want to spend.

An option for keeping costs down here would be splitting a bowl of frozen yogurt or lower the weight of the frozen yogurt in your own bowl. The total amount of money spent on dessert could potentially be around $5. 

The night is still nowhere near over. Here in Ames, you can go to Cinemark North Grand 5 – the discount theater. It literally costs a couple dollars per person for admission and paying for snacks should not be a problem because you just had a gourmet meal. This theater has movies that were out at the regular movie theater a few weeks before, giving couples the chance to see movies they didn’t get the chance to see when they were first released.

If you want to watch a movie, but going to the theater isn’t something you want to do, rent a cheap movie or watch one you have in your own personal collection that you haven’t seen in a while. To add a romantic feel, light some candles or dim the lights.

For the whole night, a romantic evening on a budget can cost, at most, approximately $25. However, enjoying the evening together is priceless.