Frugal valentines doesn't have to be a dead squib

It's coming up to the middle of February and every man knows what this means. Time to drudge down to the best restaurant in town and empty your wallet all over an ungrateful sommelier who will then bring you the cheapest wine they have yet charge you the earth. Or is this just my idea of what the Valentine's sheeple seem to be doing next to the candle and flowers in every restaurant in town come the 14th of the month.

I have to say I have been known to fall into the lazy chocolate and flowers brigade and especially this year with my wife 8 months pregnant I don't think we'll be having too much of a romantic getaway as others may have.

Yet we will still love each other and not just on this day but on every day of the week/ month / year decade and hopefully for most of the century to come.

What I'm trying to say is that you don't have to show your love by buying things for your significant other, there are many other ways too. This sometimes gets forgotten in this crazy world of overpriced phones and under valued devotion.

So here are some other ideas for bringing down the cost (there probably will be some element of cost) of V day whilst showing your partner that your love is more important than shiny trinkets and red flowers.



COOK - to me the way to my heart is definitely clichéd and full of fat. But I do love a good potato dauphinoise, and really what's not to like cheese, potato, garlic, cream = yum. Recipe here, this is usually a side dish but I'd be quite happy eating it just with salt and pepper!

TIME - spend time with each other and I don't mean watching tv. Get out and about, walking is a great way to stir conversation, going to the pub can go one of two ways either its chocker due to everyone going on there v day routine or it's dead and the owner wants to shut early. Of course it's always a good idea to get the kids into bed early and have some quiet time alone, but this doesn't have to be limited to valentines.

WORK - not go to work, work at making something, grow some flowers, grow some vegetables, use your talents to paint a picture or write a poem. They love you because of who you are, use those things they love to show your devotion.

WINE - who doesn't like a little social lubrication and if your drinking at home maybe combining it with some COOKing you can get a good deal. Most bottles of red around £5 are pretty decent these days and sell for around £15-20 in a restaurant.

Seems pretty simple but so many people don't seem to put the thought in, like so many things in life!

What will you be doing for Valentines?

Kids can be a motivator or a demotivator: you choose

I'm soon to be a father for the second time and I'm very excited. Looking at this from a career perspective is a little less exciting.

As this will be my second I'm well aware of the lack of sleep that is soon to start, this will obviously have a knock on effect on my time at work. I will be less awake during the day and probably more irritable (recently giving up coffee won't help either!), not that this is anything unusual for me.

I'll also be having 2 weeks of leave when the baby's born. This will be significant for two reasons.

1. Financially I'll be losing my normal pay and having it replaced with paternity pay. This is a very useful service the government provides however the payment made will be £139 per week for me. This is the equivalent of around £7 grand a year. A pretty paltry sum. This won't be a large hardship for us as we've been saving hard all year. This will simply put us in the position of having to dip into these savings rather than being able to increase them further. Remember folks SAVE ALL THE TIME.

2. The 2 weeks off will be significant for me in my career as well. As I work in finance 2 weeks out, especially near the end of the month is the busiest time. Not working during this time will not only put my colleagues under significant pressure to not only do their own jobs but also cover mine, but may turn some of my hard work putting people on my side around. Especially if they don't know the reason for my absence.

So what can I do about these two things.

1. As I mentioned we've been saving hard for this, an occasion like this doesn't quite come around every year, but it is also not unexpected. Having a cash buffer put aside for these things can help put your mind at ease just when you need it most. Struggling for cash at times like this would be something I would not be looking forward to.

2. To mitigate any loss in standing at work I have been trying to build up a plan of action with my manager, distributing the different tasks to those most proficient and training them where necessary. Unfortunately my absence may coincide with a couple of other people leaving the company  for new jobs. This isn't the best timing as it will disrupt the norm even further. I've also not so subtly dropped into conversations with my key stakeholders that at some point in the near future I'll be off work due to a fantastic new addition to the family.

Hopefully these actions will help mitigate the large part of any disruption. Of course once I've returned to work I'll have to try hard to catch up. I simply hope they won't push too hard too soon, otherwise I may snap at a few of them. I'm not good when I'm tired.

When success does not equal happiness

As time goes by I meet various new people as you do.

At the moment I seem to be meeting a lot more new people at work than I do socially. Maybe my social life is in the gutter (I blame the kids!).

Recently I seem to have put myself in the position where I'm meeting more managers and directors than previous. These higher ups that I meet seem to have a fair few things in common.

What are they you are thinking, some kind of major work ethic to ensure they grind there way upwards at all time, a magnificent network of colleagues who help them manage the endless workload or some kind of pomodoro-esque productivity system that makes them only have to work one day a week? Well probably but they don't seem to want to share this with me.

What they have shared with me so far is their rigourous and unending hatred for all of human kind. It would seem that they are all clearly scoiopaths let loose by the state or maybe not diagnosed as yet. Willy nilly throwing around deadlines that only seem to help themselves ensure they maintain their own salaries and bonus levels. Whilst caring not for anyone they trample on their way to new found glories.

So what are we the people meant to do about this. Well there are a couple of things, ensuring we all have a proper FU fund. Making sure we are saving ALL the time, this means every month even if it's as little as £1 and of course sticking it to the man whenever possible.

We can play along with the games these higher ups and hopefully when we get to their level change the system to make it easier for the next guy / smash the system up from within!

In the mean time lets keep on ticking off those savings targets and looking forward to that happy day in the not so distant future where we can walk away happy knowing we have changed things for the better.