to ask: Have you paid the DMV?
Valentine’s Day happens to coincide with Chinese New Year this year but that’s not my excuse not to celebrate. I’m not a V-day sort of gal, generally. For me, the Hallmark Day of Love is simply a reminder that it’s time to send some sugar ($$$) to the DMV to renew my car registration. That and some Valentine’s Day cards if I’ve got something fun cooked up.
Sadly, my car registration is one of those few remaining irksome bills I can’t automate. They’ll allow online payments, thanks heavens, but it’s a single mailed statement several months in advance and woe betide those who forget to renew on time! Last year I managed to forget about both “holiday” and due date, and ate a whopping parking/expired tags fine as a result.
Determined not to File and Forget again, I added the bill payment reminder as an event on Google Calendar with an emailed reminder set a week in advance.
This reminds of me a decidedly clueless boyfriend of years past who deliberately scheduled our first date on a numerical date matching that of my birthday. He’d theorized that doubling up on “significant” dates was a surefire tactic to stay out of anniversary trouble.
That was probably the single smartest thing he did in the years we were together! 
For those of you who are fond of acknowledging the day, remember that the stores are about to run out of affordably priced flowers, Russell Stover’s chocolates are a glaring red flag that you’d forgotten about it, and truly, a sincere gesture doesn’t have to cost you the rent money. But I’m sure you already knew that.
How is everyone spending their Valentine’s Day? And does anyone else use nationally significant dates as a reminder of something in their personal lives or is that just quirky?
[My name is Revanche and I’m the writer and owner of the personal finance blog A Gai Shan Life. Feel free to come on by, and subscribe if you like what you see. I also help out around here a bit.]
