Tips for a Budget-Friendly Valentine's Dinner

Write up a list of your favorite restaurants, and call them to check if they are having a special Valentine's Day menu. If they are, move on to the next restaurant on your list to avoid the limiting Valentine's Day menu.

Search online for restaurants having Valentine's Day deals in your area:

New restaurants and more casual places sometimes offer great deals for Valentine's Day meals. Pitfire Pizza, (a Los Angeles-based gourmet pizza restaurant) for example, offered a Valentine's Day special that included a salad, pumpkin ravioli, gourmet pizza and one of their famous red velvet cupcakes by Auntie Em's for just $20. This price is less than the items cost on their regular menu, and was intended to drum up publicity for their new location. Good deals at restaurants can be had - it just takes some online sleuthing!

Find restaurants where you can bring your own alcohol:

This might not sound uber romantic, but there are many quality restaurants that simply don't serve alcohol or allow diners to bring their own bottles. This will allow you to buy a special bottle of champagne or wine at regular retail price, which can make any meal more fancy. Veuve and turkey burgers, anyone?

There is always the option of dining at home:

In this case, call up your significant other's mom and get the recipe to his or her favorite home-cooked meal. The sentiment and effort is more meaningful than any restaurant meal.