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Hey guys, welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis and on this podcast we address the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love.

Quick announcement before we dive in, our new book, The Naked Marriage. Same title as this podcast, The Naked Marriage releases in just a couple weeks from the date that you're listening right now, if you're listening on the day it comes out.

And we're so excited about this book. If you pre-order it within the next couple weeks, there are some pre-order bonuses that you'll get instant access to, including a free e-book download of our previous book, The Naked Truth About Sex.

Plus, some video conference talks from the XO Marriage Conference, some of the most popular talks that we've done. So you can find all the information about that at the site, nakedmarriagebook.com.

That's right. And today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about probably one of my very favorite subjects when it comes to marriage. And that is date night ideas, but especially date night ideas on a budget. So let's dive in.

I love the topic of today. I love date night. Date night has been one of the biggest, biggest things we've done for our marriage to stay connected over the years. It's just it's like fuel fuel for our souls when we make that time to connect.

But we get that there are a lot of reasons why people say, but we can't do consistent date night because of this or that. And one of the biggest objections usually comes down to budget. People say we just don't have the budget for that.

But we want to answer your questions directly by removing the barriers and talking about some of our favorite low cost date night ideas. You can implement these. You can do these save a bunch of money and really connect as a couple. So sweetie, let's jump in. What are some of your favorite low cost date nights?

Well, first and foremost, I think we need to address kind of the elephant in the room when it comes to date nights. And that's if you have children, there's the babysitting issue. And you know, if you're like like us, you may live away from family. And so you don't have kind of built in babysitters. You don't have siblings that could watch your kids or parents that can watch your kids. And so whenever we talk about date night, we always get those questions. And so I'm not going to harp too long on this. But there are some affordable ways to even find babysitting. And I think one idea is that you and another couple kind of provide

babysitting for each other. And you kind of swap date nights, so to speak. And so you find friends that you really trust that are good with kids. And great. It's good to if you already know their kids. And there's kind of, you know, a relationship there. And basically you watch them one night and let this couple go on a date. And then they do the same thing for you another night. And so that way it's free. There's no money exchanged here. There's just kind of time and effort exchanged. And and that's a great thing. I also think another thing is wherever you are in the United States,

there is usually a gym. It's either a parks and recreation type gym or a YMCA. And they often have what they refer to as parents night out. Some gyms, if you are a member at the gym, they can be for free. And we used to have this kind of whom we lived in a guest of Georgia. We lived for those free monthly. And it was monthly. It was awesome. Even gymnastics places will do them for a minimal fee. And they'll give you usually about four to five hours. Our YMCA always did it for about $5 a kid. And with four children, I felt like that was certainly a deal. And they

usually feed your kids. Yeah, they give them pizza and everything. It's amazing. And so I just I just encourage you go to the mom sites in your city or look in your neighborhood newspaper neighborhood website and see what is offered. You know, I think sometimes we just don't do kind of the grunt work that it takes to find baby sitting in it does take work. And I will tell you seeking you will find you will find that right. Hey, Jesus said that. That's right. It's biblical. Yeah. And really the verb to Jesus used is seek and keep on seeking. That's right. Not can keep on knocking. And so don't just look once

and give up. But you got to keep seeking sometimes. You know, you've got to keep looking for those options. You know, scour Facebook for the mom's groups and the different things. Like I actually talked about. And for the mom's nights out, you will find you will find affordable child care. That's quality. And that your kids will enjoy. Right. If you're really looking for, they won't even realize it's child care. They're just going to think you're taking them someplace awesome and fun, which it will be. Yeah. And then you and your spouse can go out. So once you've got the child care thing down. Once you've got their safe. They're safe. They're taking care of their eating pizza somewhere. Laughing and playing with other

kids. But now you're like, all right, well, we don't have much money. What do we do? And so for us, you know, we come back to this a lot. A lot of our best date nights didn't involve a big fancy expensive meal or tickets to to something, you know, something that's really expensive. You know, very often it's just about connecting. It's about talking. Where can we talk? And we we have some of our best talks when we're on a driver when we're on a walk. I mean, a walk or a walk or a walk.

The hike is really some of our favorite date nights because it gets our heart rate going gets a little exercise. And we we connect and it doesn't cost the thing to get outside in nature. Or if it's raining outside, sometimes just walking around the mall. You'll see all kinds of stuff. People watching and walking around the mall. Walmart.

Yeah, you will definitely see some stuff you will people watching at Walmart. We we love it. And even if we're just going to the grocery together at the end of the day, a lot of our dates in depth at the grocery.

We got to get milk. We got to get this. But when you are intentional about using it as a time to connect anywhere you are, even the serial aisle at the grocery store can be a romantic spot. And so you have to just think creatively.

You know, I'm laughing right now because when we were first married, we literally had like two cents to our name. I was still a student at Georgetown College. If you're a Georgetown college person, go Tigers, if you're listening.

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