Eight Great Frugal Date Ideas

The following is a guest post by Ashley Jacobs from Green Sherpa.

The pressure associated with trying to impress someone and make sure they have a great time can take the fun out of planning a date.  Coming up with a great date idea is difficult enough.  Add to it the fact that you want to be frugal while making the date awesome makes it even more difficult. 

So how do you make sure you and your girlfriend/boyfriend or husband/wife have an awesome date night without breaking the bank?

Here are my eight favorite frugal date ideas:

• Get Moving! -- Get outside and get moving. Go on a bike ride, go for a hike, head to the beach and go for a swim. Not only will you be spending time with each other but you will be exercising which can be great if you spend a lot of time in the office or at home studying.

• Have a Picnic -- Get together about an hour before you want to eat, make your favorite sandwich, grab your favorite drink, then pack it in a cooler, grab a blanket, and head to a local park. Don’t forget the napkins and dessert!

• Dinner and a Movie at Home -- Whip up his or her favorite dinner and watch a movie at home. It is much more intimate than going out on a Friday night. Conversing will be easier because you won’t have to yell over the hustle and bustle of a busy restaurant and cuddling up on the couch to watch a movie sure beats sitting in your own seat.

• Watch the Sunset -- Grab a jacket and head to the beach or mountains to watch the sunset. As corny as it sounds, it is romantic and will always be one of those sweet, cheap things to do with your significant other.

• Lunch and a Movie -- Instead of spending twice as much on dinner and a movie, grab lunch and see a matinee. Lunch tends to be much cheaper than dinner and matinees will save you a few bucks as well.

• Go to an Arcade -- Grab $10 and head to a local arcade. Not only will you have lots of laughs trying to beat each other at ski ball and basketball but you will get to trade in the tickets you win for some cheesy arcade prizes (i.e. a stuffed animal) that you will inevitable hold on to for years to come.

• Go to a Playground -- Nothing is more fun than unleashing your inner kid. Find a playground in your area and have fun swinging on the swings, climbing on the jungle gym, and sliding down the slides. As immature and childish as it sounds, there is something so enjoyable about forgetting all your “adult” responsibilities and letting lose, kid style.

• Go to the Zoo (or Museum or Art Gallery) -- Zoos (and museums and art galleries) frequently have discount days. Find out when your local zoo is having it’s next discount admission day and go! At the very least it will be something new and different for you and your significant other to do.

With these ideas, there is no reason to not have an awesome date without spending a ton of money.  Chances are there are a few of these that you haven’t done yet, so try them out and keep things fresh and fun by having a new experience with your significant other!

Have any frugal date ideas that aren’t listed here?  Share them in the comments section!

Comments

[MaryB5]

I think volunteering and giving back to your community together is a great way to bond and it's free!

[Budgeting in the Fun Stuff]

I'm big on the picnics. My husband loves movie night. Good ideas.

[Learn Save Invest]

My Fiance and I are big walkers. We're country folk who ended up living in the city (for now) so we try to get out to as many parks and waterways as we can. It's nice to get a few hours of entertainment without spending any money.

[Jo]

My hubby and I love to play board games...it's our regular fun nite activity. Fun to joke around, be competitive, and can lead to more romance...

[Squirrelers]

Often times you can get deals on tickets for sporting events or theatre performances, buying them from those who want to unload their tickets instead of losing money. Of course, this isn't likely to work with high-demand events, but it could work for other options.

For example, if your local professional sports team isn't in the hunt for a championship, you might be able to get some tickets for low cost. Of course there is parking and food to consider, but the point is that you can get to a quality event for a low cost sometimes. Not a "cheap" date, but an economical quality one.

That said, walks in parks, by a lake/river, beach etc - they're winners to me. Good conversation, fresh air, and time together. A recipe for success:)

[DCS]

Where I live you go to the library and "check out" memberships to local attractions like the local museums, zoo, and the local botanical gardens & sculpture park.

Sometimes they also have tickets to performances (ballet, civic theater, etc) and sporting events (baseball, hockey...) as well. The attraction memberships admit up to six people; the performances are usually pairs of tickets.

There are restrictions (like you can only visit each venue/event once per year) but there's no charge. You just check them out with your library card.

[Johnson]

Stay home and have sex - fun and get's ya some exercise too ; )

[Tracy]

Some of my best dates were ones where we just spent the day walking and having a picnic.

I don't need a man to splash a lot of cash to impress me anyone can do that but if they can make you laugh and are imaginative well that's worth a lot more.

[Beatriz]

How about stargazing for a frugal and romantic date? Almost every community has an amateur astronomy group that offers regular stargazing at a park, or a local observatory at a community college or university that has public nights, or a local museum that may have a planetarium or dome. Even schools that don't have astronomy majors have observatories and most of them have public nights. If you have a starchart app on your phone, even better, you can do it from your own back yard.