I Ruined Valentine's Day

A few years ago I ruined my birthday present two months before my birthday. It was around Valentine's day and I had heard on the radio that Michael Buble was coming in concert. I wanted to go so badly. I asked Dave to get tickets and he kind of danced around the idea. Then I got an e-card from my mom that said, Happy Birthday. It wasn't my birthday. Not even close. As it turns out, my parents had already bought me tickets to the concert for my birthday.

This year instead of my birthday, I ruined Valentine's Day.

Dave and I decided to do a month of no spending. The only spending we would do would be bills, gasoline, and groceries. That meant, there would be no Valentine's presents for each other. We agreed on it and assumed that would be the case.

For the last year and a half, Dave and I have been sharing a Garmin 405. It hasn't really been a problem as Dave was training for Ironman and I was training for my marathons. Plus, I've always been kind of anti-Garmin. I like to think of myself as a purist runner...just shoes. But since we are now training Iron-distance together it's becoming increasingly obvious that we both need a Garmin. There are just too many heart rate zones to keep track of and WAY too many intervals than my watch will program. I've been eying the Garmin 310XT for a while, but it's mighty expensive and while I was saving my pennies, I just didn't have enough.

Last Friday I had a breakdown. I went to Dave's office and tried to convince him that we needed to go to the store that night and buy me a Garmin. The bike rides were just getting too complicated to not have one. He said no. We were doing too goo on our month of no spending to break our pact. But, I said, it's my money!!! He said no and I left without saying goodbye. As I was walking back to my car, he called me and told me he already got me one for Valentine's Day. Great! I didn't buy him anything. And what happened to the month of no spending? Turns out, he didn't spend anything.

What?!

Our bank gives us points and rewards for every dollar we spend on our credit card. Considering we don't use cash or debit, we earn A LOT of reward points. We reached a limit where we could cash-out and Dave was going to but found out he could order the Garmin through the bank's reward program for a HUGE discount. So he did. And therefore, didn't spend any money that we already had. Essentially, he got that Garmin for free. :)

It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm so excited for my new present.