Deluxe Food Date Night

Marriage makes you poor. It's not that we don't have the same amount of money that we did before, it's that suddenly we have all these extra expenses I didn't know about (chalk this up to me being a young silly girl who was still partially supported by her parents when she got married).

With rent, utilities, savings, cars, and so many other practical items to contribute to, our entertainment/eating out budget has been substantially reduced. Since I do all of the cooking, eating out is a special treat that I really enjoy, so we needed to find a way to be able to go out and feel pampered without breaking the bank.

Enter Deluxe Food Date Night.

Instead of going out to eat once or twice (or several) times a week, we only eat out together once a month. He frequently eats out on the company dime, but both of us are very strict about not eating out using our personal budget unless it is on this special night together (except for the occasional dish of gelato at Paciugos).

A little place called Aurora has been my absolute favorite so far. Aren't those little vegetables the cutest?

With a budget of $100/month, we can easily hit up some really great Dallas restaurants (especially since we both don't drink!). Even better, we've been working on saving up some of that money for the first few months of the year so that during my birthday month we can go all out crazy and dress up and go somewhere really fancy.

For January we chose to visit a place called Cafe Istanbul. It's probably the most authentic Turkish food I will ever eat without actually visiting Turkey.

This chocolate covered pear was as scrumptious as it looks.

What unexpected adjustments did you have to make when you got married?