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“When you love, you don’t count”, goes the saying. But faced with rising prices, singles looking for a partner(s) and young couples still find themselves having to count their money.
More than one in three singles (37%) admit to having less budget for dates than six months ago, claims the dating site Meetic.
According to the latter, singles would “now” opt for meetings in “affordable or even totally free places”.
“I found tips to make it cost a little less, like +dates+ (appointment, editor’s note) at McDonald’s, even if it’s less romantic“, ironically Léa, 22, scholarship student in Bordeaux registered for a year on Tinder, and who did not wish to give her name.
In Paris, it is in the middle of the fish, at the Tropical Aquarium of the Palais de la Porte Dorée, that Valentin, 26, and Victoria, 23, decided to meet on a Friday afternoon, for their second meeting. -YOU.
Entrance to the aquarium, popularized by the social network TikTok, is free for minors and adults under 26. “Perfect for your dates!!”, can we read in description of one of the videos on the platform.
“If I had to pay, I would have, but within reason“, explains Victoria, still a student.
Discovered
A little further on, Baptiste, 23, and Elsa, 22, head for the crocodile basin. Their romance was born a month ago.
“We wanted to spend a quiet afternoon and save money for Valentine’s Day“, says the couple.
Romain, a 30-year-old bachelor who lives in Paris, told AFP that he “several times ended up uncovered” because of his appointments.
In the fall, a dinner at a restaurant with a young woman he was meeting for the first time cost him a few hundred euros. “However, I didn’t want to cancel my date with another girl a few days later, so I offered her a walk to the Montmartre hill,” says this bearded young thirty-something.
Two studies, conducted by the dating sites Happn and Meetic in September and December, suggest that the average expense allocated to a date varies between 20 and 40 euros per person.
And, as Valentine’s Day approaches, lovers too are likely to feel “fully the impact of inflation“, in particular on the expenses related to the gifts, estimates Antoine Fraysse-Soulier, person in charge of the analysis of markets for the financial platform eToro.
Homemade gifts
In effect, “commodity prices for the most common Valentine’s Day gifts have risen by 23% over the past two years, outpacing headline consumer price inflation in the EU (16, 2%)“, details a press release from eToro released on Thursday.
According to his analysis,a silver jewel will be the most advantageous gift that the French can choose, the price of silver having only increased by 3% since 2021“. Gold jewelry (+13% over two years) or boxes of chocolates, including “basic products like cocoa and sugar increased by 29% on average“, would constitute less attractive gifts.
“We can’t say that love costs nothing“, ironically Mr. Fraysse-Soulier.
But if Valentine’s Day remains a “commercial holiday”, the professor of marketing and sociology of consumption at Kedge Business School Nacima Ourahmoune indicates that an “alternative” behavior is emerging and developing.
Faced with people who are not going to deny their consumption on the occasion of this love ritual, “there are also others who will start doing things for themselves, for example by offering more symbolic, more lasting gifts, or by cooking at home“, explains the teacher.
Enough to save some money.