Couples Embrace the Least Romantic Date Ever: The Money Date

To set the mood for poring over budgets and savings goals, Tierra Bates and her husband, Gregory, get dressed to the nines and head to dinner at a fancy steakhouse.

“We’re discussing things, but we’re celebrating at the same time,” said Bates, a school therapist and real-estate agent in Shelby, N.C. “Treating ourselves while still talking about the goals we have in mind.”

This mix of romance and finance has been dubbed a money date by financial advisers and others in the business of building wealth. The idea is to carve out time for the sort of conversations couples often dread by making it an event to look forward to.

Advisers and relationship counsellors say couples who go on regular money dates can better manage their spending, saving and investing. Since disagreements over money can strain marriages, having regular open discussions about financial decisions in a fun and intimate way can help address any troubles before they become a source of resentment.

“I have even suggested to clients, ‘Have the money date in your sexy clothes,’” said Christine Luken, a financial coach based in Cincinnati. “Just go ahead and have it naked—as long as you get the money stuff done.”

Bates and her husband plan money dates throughout the year. In January they set goals for the year, then they set up shorter quarterly follow-ups, as well as brief monthly check-ins for short-term concerns and week-to-week budgeting.

At their August check-in, Bates and her husband visited a local food hall and hired a babysitter to keep the focus on the big conversation: the Bates’s back-to-school budget.

Talking about something as stressful as the school year can bring up a lot of emotions, Bates said, but the money date gives them a specific time to work through everything together. Plus, doing it with good food and adults-only time makes it more enjoyable.

The art and science of the money date

Turning financial planning into a date might sound like a mismatch, but science backs up the premise. It is a form of temptation bundling, pairing a less exciting task with a more exciting reward, that research suggests can actually help people change their habits, said Scott Rick, associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan.

“Pair the want with the should in order to entice you to do the should,” he said. “Get each other money date presents. Open the nice bottle of wine. Say, ‘This is the night we order in from the best restaurant in town.’”

You might have to spend money to make better money decisions, as counterintuitive as that might seem. As Adam Kol, a financial therapist based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., likes to remind his clients: “You don’t get bonus points for having a money date if you’re sitting in a dark room and you’re in a miserable mood.”

Box-office receipts

When Megan and Bronson Allen got married in 2019, the Chicago-based couple pooled their finances. They also set up a regular recurring calendar invite that prompted them to sit down together to go over savings, investments and personal-account expenditures.

Megan will pop a big bowl of popcorn and project their laptop onto the TV screen so they can review the money-date agenda items almost “more like a game or a movie that’s playing,” Bronson said.

They have taken their laptops to a coffee shop and cozied up while reviewing coming travel and other big purchases. They also tried a double money date with Megan’s brother and his wife.

“It’s about finding ways to make them kind of lighthearted, like a date and not like a chore,” said Bronson, a 33-year-old software designer.

Their money dates can take several forms, Megan, a 28-year-old product designer, said. Sometimes they look at the calendar and plan travel spending for the month. Or they look back at the previous month’s budget and compare it to the bank statement.

Then there are pitch days, when one of them makes the case for an especially big purchase or financial goal. On a recent money date, Bronson made the case to take some money from their shared account to invest in a new road bike for his triathlon training, laying out his plans as he and Megan mixed drinks.

“I’ve been running the numbers, and this is what I’m thinking, and this is the account it would come from,’” he told her.

They landed on a compromise: Bronson would sell his old bike to invest in the newer one.

Making a first money date

For couples looking to set up their first-ever money date, Kol recommends reviewing the most recent credit-card statement as a duo. When both partners are looking at the transaction history, they are better able to get on the same page about what needs to be done about recurring subscriptions or spendthrift tendencies.

“It doesn’t have to be ‘I can’t believe you spent this, we need to cut this,’ but instead ‘Let’s make sure nothing weird is going on here. Let’s make sure our kid isn’t charging $700 to Candy Crush,’” he said.

From there, you can build onto your money dates and introduce different themes or topics to organise them. For example, maybe one month you and your partner review your respective student-loan payment plans, and the next you could price out travel options for a coming vacation.

“Having that monthly touchpoint allows you to feel like ‘OK, if I have a concern, it’s not going to go on indefinitely. I’ll have a chance to talk to them, I don’t have to confront them,’” Kol said.

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war, hoping prices will begin to moderate before November’s midterm elections.

The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices.

That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans.

Sixty-three per cent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist.

More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins.

U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales.

So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on.

Earlier this week, Trump said the current price of oil is “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really mentally deranged.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, the country would have more leverage to keep the strait closed and “make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon.”

Trump has taken steps in recent days to bring the war to an end. Late Tuesday, the president paused a plan to help guide trapped commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, expressing optimism that a deal could be reached with Iran to end the conflict.

Crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators on a one-page framework to restart negotiations aimed at ending the conflict and opening the strait.

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels.

“Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.”

Since the initial U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, Sununu has met in Washington with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, representatives from the Transportation Department and senior White House officials.

A White House official confirmed that Hassett and Sununu have discussed the effect of increased fuel prices on the airline industry. The official said the conversation touched on how the industry can mitigate the impact of high jet fuel prices on consumers.

“The president and his entire energy team anticipated these short-term disruptions to the global energy markets from Operation Epic Fury and had a plan prepared to mitigate these disruptions,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, pointing to the administration’s decision to waive a century-old shipping law in a bid to lower the cost of moving oil.

Rogers said the administration is working with industry representatives to “address their concerns, explore potential actions, and inform the president’s policy decisions.”

A Treasury Department spokesman pointed to Bessent’s recent comments on Fox News that the U.S. economy remains strong despite price increases. The spokesman said Treasury officials have met with airline executives, who have reaffirmed strong ticket bookings.

“We’re cognizant that this short-term move up in prices is affecting the American people, but I am also confident, on the other side of this, prices will come down very quickly,” Bessent told Fox News on Monday.

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Trump administration and Spirit failed to come to an agreement for the company to receive a financial lifeline of as much as $500 million from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has argued that the Iran war wasn’t the cause of Spirit’s demise, pointing to the company’s past financial struggles, as well as the Biden administration’s decision to challenge a merger with JetBlue.

Other budget airlines have also turned to the federal government for help since the U.S.-Israeli attack. A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

Couples Embrace the Least Romantic Date Ever: The Money Date

The case for making financial plans over candlelit dinners

The art and science of the money date

Box-office receipts

Making a first money date

Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs.