Thank you so much to Melt for sponsoring this post! All opinions are 100% my own, and my opinion is that Melt is a great budget friendly date night!
One of the major problems with having kids and living on a budget is how to work in date nights. In order to even leave the house, you’ll have to pay for a babysitter ($13/hour in Northern Virginia where I live!). When you combine that with the typical costs of dinner and a movie ($40 for dinner and $22 for a movie), you’re looking at about $75 just to get out of the house alone with your spouse.
The problem is… I don’t really want to spend $75 to connect with my spouse for three hours. And I don’t think that eating overpriced mediocre food and watching a movie will help me connect to him.
What I really want is to be able to lounge around in bed with him all day without a care in the world, talking about our hopes and dreams and what our future holds. Not whether he loaded the dishwasher and a play-by-play of our toddlers potty training success. I wanted to rekindle what we had when we first got married. The feelings that got lost in diapers, yoga pants and taking out the garbage.
With an infant at home, and a three year old, we needed an experience that would help us connect as a couple while fitting in to our budget. It was a pretty tall order. But I found the solution in Melt.
Melt is an online training program that brings couples massage classes to the privacy of your home. Taught by an Australian Massage Therapist (of 15 years experience) and demonstrated on his wife via online videos (that aren’t creepy, overly “sexy” or weird in the slightest) in a series that will last you many, many date nights and give you skills to improve your marriage over the course of your life together. This was just what I was looking for.
I signed up for the couples massage class. My husband had some reservations that this would be weird. I showed him this video on their about page and that did the trick. He was in. I highly suggest that if you like this idea and your spouse in reluctant based on your description that you watch the intro video together.
How did our date night go?
Awesome! It was so much better than even I expected! It was exactly what we needed and we decided to do them weekly.
Jon put the kids to bed while I prepped for date night. My personal philosophy is that half of date night is getting to get dressed up and feel amazing. So, I got dressed up, cleaned the bedroom, and made the space relaxing and calm.
We set up my laptop to play the videos.
We ended up spending the next two hours giggling, laughing, talking and connecting in a way that we haven’t in a long time. We ended up staying up way past our bed time and it was a wild success as far a date nights go. It was so much more than I could have hoped for.
Initially I was thinking that it would be hard to actually learn how to massage from a video, but this changed my mind quickly. They promise that you’ll fall in love with your partners hands and they were spot on.
I thought Jon gave great back rubs before but this blew me away. They also showed us how to give massages that don’t tire out our hands so we can happily massage longer. Denis has a gift for teaching and can explain things in a way that even I can pick up on (I’m not known for learning things quickly… kind of the opposite really).
Benefits of Melt
- Denis (The Masseur) is an Australian native with 15 years of massage experience that has massaged celebrities ranging from Pierce Brosnan to Pearl Jam.
- You’re learning a skill that benefits your marriage for the rest of your lives together.
- You’re connecting in a way that’s difficult to do with today’s distractions.
- Melt is easily adaptable for your comfort level.
- Melt is frugal! We plan to do a weekly date night with this, that’s 52 dates a year, which makes the cost per date about 2.28.
- Massages feel really, really good.
- Whether you’re easily embarrassed or a complete vixen, this will make you feel comfortable. There’s no creepy half naked people getting way too into it. It’s instructional, light and at times even funny.
- The videos are delivered in an online lifetime membership which means that you don’t have to worry about losing or scratching DVD’s.
- You get instructions on everything from the basic massage technique (including a 5 minute quick massage which has become a daily event in our household) all the way to deep tissue massage.
Who is Melt Perfect For?
- Parents! If you have small children, I would go as far to say that this is a must.
- Couples looking to have a date night experience on a budget.
- Couples looking to reconnect.
- Couples who want to learn how to give great massages.
Tips and Tricks for Melt
- Treat it like an actual date. Set a time. Get the kids in bed. Clear your schedule. Put your phones away.
- Dress up. Look good, smell good, the whole nine yards. Take a selfie if you feel the need. 🙂
- Set the mood. Make sure your space is clean and calm. Take 10 minutes to speed clean the bedroom if necessary. Light some scented candles, warm the room up a little, and have your favorite playlist running in the background.
- You don’t need anything except the video series and either lotion or oil (oil is preferred, lotion can make due in a pinch).
Cost analysis of Melt:
Class: $99 (but I have a special for you… read on.)
Massage Oil: $5 (and delivered straight to your door if you order through this link on Amazon.)
Total: $104 for 52 date nights (likely many, many more… but I like to under-promise and over-deliver.)
$2.00 per date night. Plus you get a much better date night experience than you would for $75 at a dinner and movie!
I was able to talk Melt into a special package for you guys!
This is such an exceptional value. You pay for the course once, and it’s yours for life! That’s literally tons of date nights together. We’ve been doing them for several months already and have no intention of stopping!
You can find out more about Melt here!
This is such an exceptional value. You pay for the course once, and it’s yours for life! That’s literally tons of date nights together. We’ve been doing them for four months already and have no intention of stopping!
Because, as Denis and Emma, the creators of MELT say, every relationship deserves a little massage.
This post may contain affiliate links. If you click & make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps keep the Busy Budgeter up and running. Read my full disclosure policy here.disclosure policy here.
Tell me what you think!