Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?

SALT LAKE CITY — Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a day filled with love, but it’s also a no-win holiday — especially for your wallet.

Dave & Dujanovic talk about the holiday some people love and others dread.

On Valentine’s Day this year, Debbie Dujanovic said $26 billion is how much Americans will spend  — up $3 billion from last year. The average person spends $192 on Valentine’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation, she said.

Dave Noriega is frustrated with all the spending on holidays.

“It’s so costly and it comes at such a terrible time,” he said. “We just went through the holidays. We spent all of our money. It’s tax season. I mean, think of all the times you have to buy gifts for your significant other. It’s not because I want to; it’s expected; this is an expectation. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Mother’s Day, all of these Valentine’s Days. It’s like every five minutes there is an official holiday that I have to purchase a gift to prove my love.”

Phew!

Debbie said society as a whole will never ban Valentine’s Day.

“We’ve got to boycott it ourselves. But I’m not sure that’s a very popular take. I’m ready to boycott Valentine’s Day because it’s a no win. The gift you get will never be enough, and then she’s got to match it or vice versa.”

Valentine’s Day advice from an expert

Dr. Dave Schramm, Family Life State Extension specialist and associate professor at Utah State University, joins the show to discuss how money plays a role in causing stress in relationships.

Valentine’s Day is a holiday that comes down to honesty, expectations and comparisons, he said.

Ask your significant other what an ideal Valentine’s Day is, he advised.

“For some it’s going to be: ‘I expect dinner. I expect flowers. I expect chocolates,’ but for other couples, it’s: ‘Let’s just have a night in and ignore all this commercialization of it. Let’s just order out and have a good time tonight and not let all the pressure of having to spend hundreds of dollars just to prove my love because, honestly, there’s not a box of chocolates big enough to sweeten a relationship that has some serious struggles,” Schramm said.

“Write that down, Dave,” Debbie stressed.

She returned to the $29 billion being spent on Valentine’s Day this year.

“My immediate thought was: Why don’t you try to be a good human to your significant other or to the people who are important in your life who support you year round?” 

“If you’re not working on your relationship all these other days,” Schramm said, “one day is not going to make that big of a difference.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Dave said. “Is there a win in the grand gesture?”

“What’s that?” Debbie asked.

“Yes, Dave, you’re right,” Schramm said. “There is because people like to say, ‘You were thinking of me. I was on your mind and you went out of your way to do something.’ But now you flip that and what I don’t like to see is, ‘Oh, this whole thing is commercialized, so I’m not going to do anything.’

“And then your partner kind of feels like, Oh, you know, you don’t feel so good. It all comes back to that communication, the expectation and the comparison,” he said.

Dave & Dujanovic can be heard weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon. on KSL NewsRadio. Users can find the show on the KSL NewsRadio website and app, as well as Apple Podcasts and Google Play.