1. Offer to make a romantic dinner for Valentine’s Day. You can make a nice Italian meal like spaghetti and meatballs fairly easily, and to really put it over the top you can make some cookies or cake for dessert. Get a nice glass of wine and one red rose and your entire night is set! It sure beats the hell out of paying over a hundred dollars on a dozen roses, plus this idea is definitely more personable and less commercial.

2. Go for a short get-away. Spend the afternoon at the park with a picnic of sandwiches, salad, and wine. Make your girlfriend or boyfriend a card and just spend the day together. Again, it will be obvious you put more effort into it then just going to the local florist and ordering flowers to be delivered to the home at an unknown time.

3. Make something! The reason most people don’t follow this step is that it is the most difficult. Ironically, it is also the most budget sensitive. Create your own poem, or if you sing and play an instrument — create a song!

4. Avoid Valentine’s Day packages from your local florist or online store. They will attempt to sell you a teddy bear, bouquet of roses and a box of ‘no name’ chocolate for twice the price of buying all those things separately. Also, do not fall for the gifts that deliver one thing to your sweetie for an entire week. Not only do you have to worry about someone being home for those amount of days, it can also get annoying after awhile.

Happy Heart’s Day in advance everyone!

2. Once your clothes are packed for your beach vacation, you can begin to focus in on your checklist for the essential beach accessories. This should include a beach bag to carry things, flip flops, sunglasses, and a sun hat.

3. Next on your packing list, include any beach equipment you will be using. This section should include things like a beach blanket, beach chairs, beach towels, beach umbrella, and beach toys such as pails and shovels for the kids to play in the sand and build sand castles. Also add cameras, batteries for any electronic devices or cameras, cell phone, iPod, and any chargers for your electronics. Also consider adding other items in the equipment segment of your beach vacation packing list such as a cooler, goggles, a snorkel, fins, flotation devices or floats, fishing poles, and a football or frisbe.

4. The next segment of your packing list should be health and body items that you’ll need on your beach vacation. This section should include things like sunscreen and or sunblock, bring both an SPF 15 and SPF 30 if you can. Also toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, soap, shampoo, conditioner, razors, shaving cream, prescriptions, deodorant, face cleanser, lip balm with SPF 15, first aid kit, aloe vera gel, antibacterial wipes or gel, moisturizing lotion, glasses, contact lenses with case, solution, and cleaner. If you have a backup pair of glasses or contacts, bring them along. Also a brush or comb, hair dryer, insect repellant, vitamins, aspirin or acetaminophen, antacid, antihistamine, motion sickness, and gas relief or anti diarrhea tablets.

5. Next on your beach vacation packing checklist, include miscellaneous items such as a travel pillow or blanket, travel journal, travel itinerary, printouts of reservations, tickets, passports if needed, cash and atm/credit/debit cards, maps or directions, snacks, a bottle of water, and books, magazines, or other reading materials.

From eHow.