When you love someone, you want to go and do things together on a regular basis. It’s completely understandable. After a while, just being at home loses its excitement, and you want to be somewhere else doing something else.

One of the big things my sweetheart, Todd, and I like to do is go out to eat. While Todd enjoys cooking for me, and the reverse is true, it helps break up the monotony of life to go to a restaurant, soak up the atmosphere and enjoy something tasty. Whether it’s in town or a bit of a drive, we like to get away and be in another environment for a little while.

When Todd was first getting me used to the Wisconsin tradition of Friday night fish frys, we fell in love with a place called The Lumberyard Bar and Grill in Bonduel. It was in a nice, out-of-the-way spot instead of being in an area chock full of restaurants and other businesses, so we could feel like we were enjoying a quiet dinner. The food was good, and it was reasonably priced for fish.

Unfortunately, as the years passed, The Lumberyard grew in popularity to the point that, whenever we tried to go out on a Friday night, it was standing room only. When your stomach is growling, your patience is kept behind a fence for safety, for fear of getting bitten. That led us to finding other outlets that would feed us fish.

Recently, we decided to try going to The Lumberyard around lunchtime, seeing as I had to work on that Friday night. There was plenty of room at that time of day, so we sat down and ordered some fish—Todd got some bluegill while I dined on walleye. However, the first thing we noticed when we got the menus was that the price had gone up. The previous price had been $13 or $14, and now both types of fish had a $16 price tag.

Of course, we couldn’t blame the restaurant for having to raise its prices, since the cost of everything has jumped up. Going to the meat department at the grocery store requires packing a defibrillator as the increasing prices nearly give you a heart attack. That’s after seeing gas prices go through the roof in the last couple of months, which drives up the price of transporting food from the farm to the grocery store.

It’s not just going out to eat, though. We regularly go to live theater performances in northeast Wisconsin, and box office prices have been increasing, leading us to limit the number of shows we patronize. It’s a shame, and it goes back to wanting to get away for a while.

This summer, Todd and I are taking a week off for vacation, and we’ve had to talk about reducing the number of day trips we plan on taking because the cost of traveling, buying trinkets and, of course, sampling the local cuisine is going up and up.

In a bit of irony, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently finished filming a reality series about the Great American Road Trip in the hopes of getting folks out on the road this summer to explore the United States. On a recent episode of the podcast Citizen McCain, his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, said everyone should go on a road trip and teach their kids about what’s out there in the great United States.

It’s a nice idea, but the rub is that increasing prices that exceed the employers’ ability or desire to increase people’s compensation require us to make decisions that something has to go. Do we not pay the rent so we can go on vacation? Do we starve ourselves the rest of the week to pay for a night out on the town? Unfortunately, when it comes to having fun these days, the spirit is willing but the cash is weak.

Todd and I hope the economy stabilizes at some point so that the things we want to do will match up with the amount of money we have left after filling the refrigerator, paying the utility bills and making sure we don’t end up living on the street, not to mention paying for necessary medications. Until then, we’ll have to strategize when to get away from it all and hope our wallets don’t resemble an abandoned strip mall after the fact.

Have fun, y’all.