10 Fun and Frugal Dates to Try This Weekend!
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Last weekend for the $20 Date Night Challenge! How are things going?
I'm loving having some more time together. Even with the craziness of this month, we've worked hard to make sure we chilled as a couple.
This weekend we're mixing things up. Tonight I'm going out for ladies night with a few buddies to unwind while the guys watch the kids. Next week, we'll switch it so they can have a night out.
More Love, Less Money
One of my favorite sites to follow is Frugalwoods. If you've listened to the podcast, you'll remember that Liz and her husband Nate were able to retire in their 30s to their dream homestead by shifting their priorities and focus.
Liz usually has some fantastic posts on how you can simplify finances and lives and still have fun.
Recently they crowd-sourced date ideas as well as shared a few of their personal favorites.
And while the focus was Valentine's Day, the ideas and sentiment are true every day of the year – you two can have a great time together with spending a ton of money.
Some of the most romantic ideas rely more on creativity than what's in your wallet. Loved many of them, but a few that stood out to me were:
- CL was surprising husband by taking him to a new food truck, hiking at a nearby park, and giving a handwritten love note.
- Jamie had a sweet plan for the evening – making chocolate covered strawberries at home with the kids. Sometimes family dates can be the perfect evening.
- Rhiannon went a unique idea of creating a crossword puzzle for her husband. If you want to try this out, I found this site that can help you create a crossword puzzle for free!
I enjoyed seeing the really interesting dates people came up with. You can read the rest of the thoughtful ideas here.
Fun and Frugal Dates
If you're looking for some more inspiration, here are some ideas to try:
- Bike around the city: You two can discover the nooks and crannies of your town with a bike tour.
- Train for a 5k: We’ve done this and it made the weeks fly by.
- Take dance classes: Save money by renting a DVD from the library so you can practice at home anytime you want.
- Poetry: Write and share a poem you’ve created for your spouse.
- Plan a trip together: Even before you reserve the tickets, take time to plan out your next trip. Spend a day virtually exploring a city and come up with some places you’d love to visit in person.
- Create a vision board: Looking to explore your options? Make a vision board for your future and see what the two of you come up with.
- Learn a new skill: Are you both into painting or photography? Sign up for a class at your local library or go online and pick up a skill together.
Thoughts on Date Nights
Even though the challenge is wrapping up, I hope you continue making time for another!
I’d love to hear from you. What are your date night plans this weekend?
Vision board, yes.
We had a vision board to help plan for our cross country travel.
It was a map of the US and we cut out a travel trailer and taped it to the map! That was it, lol!! But it was seriously motivating to see it up on the wall everyday.
Even though I didn’t call it a vision board, I was doing them years ago. Yeah, they can be very powerful and keep your goal in front of you.
LOL, it doesn’t have to be fancy. Actually, you can use that idea again. Can you do that again for your bike trip across Kansas? 😀
Such great ideas to have fun as a couple!
We used to bike around the town a while back. Actually, it all started when my significant other taught me how to ride a bike. (yes, I was a 20 something year old unable to ride a bicycle…).
Problem was, after a few weekends of biking fun together, someone stole his bike. He got another one, but a few weeks later, someone stole my bike seat 😀
It was like the universe telling us to find something else to do together!
Now, we’re thinking of jogging together. I would LOVE to run a marathon one day, it’s one of those ‘bucket list goals’ I’d love to achieve. So, jogging together it is! It’s spring, so it’s the perfect time to start.
Sorry to hear about people snatching the bike and the parts 🙁
Great idea about running. My husband and I did a couple of 5ks that were fun. You two might want to try it out.
I’m a little late to this particular game, but here are some of the frugal things my partner and I will do this weekend:
1. Start some seeds (we can’t put them out for another six weeks, at least, but having our hands in the soil gives us hope)
2. Visit the “used bread” store, i.e., the bakery outlet. One loaf of multigrain bread will cost us either $1 or $1.50, and I’m hoping they’ll still have some of the blue-corn tortilla chips (50 cents for a big bag!) left from last week.
3. Washing the sheets and tumbling them in the dryer for about 20 minutes, then letting them (with luck) finish outdoors. If there’s enough sun and wind it won’t matter if it’s well below freezing. There’s nothing like the fragrance of sheets dried outdoors.
4. Baking an on-sale ham and cutting it up; much of it will be sliced thin and frozen for sandwiches and the rest will be eaten as a ham dinner and a sweet-potato-and-ham hash (which we call “ham and yam”). The bone will flavor a pot of bean soup.
5. Watching the penultimate season 7 episode of “The Walking Dead” at a local dive bar. That’ll be just me and a friend, though; he’s not a fan. It has to be at the bar because (a) we don’t have a television and (b) the local cable provider dropped the AMC channel.
6. Listening to “Idomeneo” on the Live From The Met broadcast.
7. Maybe lighting up the fireplace insert and watching what my nephew calls “the fire movie.”
Even the stuff that doesn’t look romantic FEELS that way, because we’re doing these things together. Fun is where you find it.
Thanks Donna for sharing your fantastic ideas! Yep, somehow things seem more fun when you’re working together.
This weekend we’re finishing up the fence for the garden in the back. I like to think of it as a fitness date 😉
My husband and I go for a walk at the mall for just do grocery shopping for fun. We see them as dates. We have fun, and it’s totally free!
Love free dates!
We try to find fun and cheap events going around the city and hang out there.