You’re Such A Cheap Date!!!
It’s rough out there…
Bling is thin.
I know lately there is more schwing than bling, but dudes, that does not count as a date.
So.
As part of RagamuffinSoul.com’s response to the economy I thought we should each share our cheap date ideas.
Heather and I LOVE to go to Borders and seperate for 15 minutes and come back to a table with 5 magazines and 5 books we think the other will enjoy.
It’s cheap and we learn a lot about what we THINK our other is into at the moment.
What have you guys done on next to nothing to enjoy your boo?
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
We go to the BX, get a cart, fill it with all we would buy if we had money and then put it all back.
Hey, it kills time and we have a blast!
Mini-golf. This is better suited for new couples, especially if one of them is waaaay out of practice. It makes for good laughs when it takes 7 shots to sink the ball on an easy course.
Classic… picnic by the lake… make all the food yourself and bring it in a picnic basket. It's cheap (only about $10-$20) but she'll love you for it. My wife does. Dudes do your self a favor too and scope out the spot ahead of time. Find a real romantic place that is fairly secluded. Trust me do your homework!
good call [taking Evernotes]
my boyfriend and i love going to this "so little you're barely able to call it a park", park in our town. there's never anyone around except passing traffic and its by the river. its a beautiful place and with nothing else really around it really forces us to have to talk and not use other things as conversation starters or distractions. after awhile we'd usually take a walk around and sometimes we bring food or books there. i love it. its a great bonding time and unless we bring food it costs us nothing at all! it may sound cheesy but it really is great.
Art galleries and museums are always cheap. During the summer in my city there are classic B&W films every Sunday night outdoors. We bring blankets and our own popcorn.
yeah the picnic is always a hit… We have a great spot in Greenville overlooking the Reedy River downtown…
Also, some friends of ours said that they would rent a DVD and take their laptop and drive somewhere romantic and watch the laptop in the car and "get to know one another"
Love this post. My one year anniversary is coming up and we ain't rollin in cash if you catch my drift!
I do secret shopping and sometimes I can land restaurant or movie gigs. I complete a survey on the place of business and get reimbursed PLUS get paid for the effort. Really cool way to make money on a date – the LEGAL way!
Just a drive and a picnic or cheap dinner at our destination works for us. We live in upstate S.C. so we can be in N.C., G.A., or the beach in an hour or so. Most states have tourism sites so you can be a tourist in your own state.
a nice walk in the park is awesome. i love talking with my girlfriend so it works out really well. sometimes we even just pick a bench and sit on it for a while. great, VERY cheap fun.
I'm stealing all these ideas and you can't stop me!!!!
oh man… I feel like I've forgotten about mini-golf. How did I forget about mini-golf?
coloring books. one dollar, two tops, and have competitions.
the mrs. and i did that back before she was the missus.
ooooo I like ur idea Andrew!!!!!
I like to go to our favorite Thai spot that serves really good sushi and they do happy hour sushi for a $1 per piece and also have edamame, chicken satay and other apps for a buck or so. They even have domestic beers and wine for a buck or two. Our place in the ATL is Bangkok Thyme on Roswell Rd but I have seen it elsewhere.
I would definitely look for a place with fish you would eat regardless!
Date nights are really hard for my wife and I right now. Have a 19 month old. It's no excuse….but often enough it's popcorn and a netflix movie after he's in bed.
lol…classic
do you have to bring your own clubs?
The few mini-golf courses I've been to let you rent them and it's usually pretty cheap.
i was just kidding, i'd love to see a miniature golf course with carts…
Oooh. Okay.
Um, yeah. I feel goofy. It's because I have a broken sarcasm meter, though. I swear I'm not that stupid…not all the time, anyway.
Lol…my bad…Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
From: IntenseDebate Notifications
stop thief!
i feel for you man,those are the tough days, but good times with the wife.
Yeah, they are special times. And we found our recently that we have another on the way….sooo…..netflix it will probably continue to be! But it's all good. having a little dude is way worth it.
Sharon and I go to coffee and talk; Bookstores and browse;Matinees; Split-Dinners and a walk at Lake Sacajawea; window-shopping in the Pearl District in PDX;
(we are spoiled now that our oldest is 14 and can relieve us for a spell)
We are within walking distance of lots of great coffee shops (remember those…coffee proprietors that are not a massive corporation?). Not that I have any problem with massive corporations, I just like the personality of the little guys, and bizarrely enough, they are often cheaper over here.
Diane loves coffee, and I love her, so we go to the coffee shop and read the paper together, chat and then walk a bit more around the park. Twitter free, even though we both love twitter.
I love walking, and coffee shops sell stuff other than coffee & tea, so this serves us both well
Our (and by "our", I mean "myself and my former lady friend") favorite was Change for Dinner. You get whatever change you can find (in the car, the couch, jeans pockets, "Make-a-Wish" jars — just kidding), count it, and then go to the grocery with the plan of making a full meal paying only with the change you have found.
It's surprising how much you can get for $6.43, and the challenge of putting together an entree, side dish, and dessert while still staying classy and under budget is a winner.
Plus, there's something rebelliously fun about counting out several hundred pennies at the checkout.
If you want to watch a movie, check one out from the library–it actually has new releases now, and you can't beat free.
The art museum in Chatty is free on the first Sunday of the month.
Hiking and taking a picnic is fun. And other active stuff like swinging, see-sawing, tennis, basketball is a good time too.
Oh and volunteering together…visiting people at a nursing home, serving at a soup kitchen, baby-sitting for a family so the parents can get out, etc.
Of course, the hard part is finding someone worthwhile to go on these dates with
Not for me… for me, the hardest thing is transitioning from finding the worthwile person to actually going on a date.
My Mrs. and I used to go (and still do at times) pick out paint chips of how we'd like to paint the rooms in the house we didn't have/still don't have (woohoo for non-paintable apartment wall……not so much). I also did a mosaic art project out of paint chips 'cause they're F-R-E-E!
We also rent movies from Blockbusters on Wednesdays because they have a rent 1 get 1 free deal on Wednesdays. If you get a gallery movie for $0.99 then it's only fidy cent per movie and they're not due back until after the weekend. Sweet deal.
Hey Man,
I have 4 kids – including 2 month old baby. We take her out on our "hot" dates to the movies, to dinner, etc. Don't let the little one keep you in the house!
My top 3 favorite date ideas:
1. photo-shoots around the city, old churches, parks…its fun to go back & look at them. plus, it's great memories to have once we're old & gray
2. Smoothies & hiking. It cost nothing to enjoy nature & get some exercise
3. We like to Redbox $1 rentals (here in GA they have them at publix and walmart)
We do Subway 5$ footlong, split one which keeps the cost down.
Then we thrift store hop. We found 5 books we've been dying to read at Thrift world for only 3.75$!! It would have cost us 60+$ in a regular store.
We live in West Palm so the beach is always an option as well.
We have a zoo membership. We only have to go twice each year for it to pay for itself. It always provides a nice walk, place to read, event to watch, summer concert… all kinds of educational activities.
We also like to pop popcorn, make a home made pizza, and watch movies we get from the library! They do have newer ones, though sometimes we wait 6 months after a movie comes out. Yet, it is free… better than paying a rental fee or the theater price!
Perry Noble gave this idea out to the guys and its magic. I did this without telling my date ahead of time and she loved it. Take her to wal mart. Give her a pen and paper and tell her she has 15 minutes to find 5 things that describe her and to write them down. It can also be fun to tell her to pick 3-5 things she thinks describe you. You each split up and go about making your list. Then go find some good place to talk about it. Between her list and mine we had over 2 hours of conversation. Main key is planning and being creative.
We've got a 3 yr old, an 18 month old, and one due in May. In addition to "real" dates (more than 1 hour, includes a meal, etc.), we like to have micro dates (15-20 minutes). One of our favorite micro dates is loading all the kiddos into strollers and taking a walk around the neighborhood when I get home from work. The kids are occupied (or at least immobilized in the stroller) and we actually get to talk. It's money.
The first date I ever took my wife on was a pretty cheap date. We had a really cheap meal, stopped by a dollar store, bought the cheapest camera we could find and the cheapest roll of film we could find. All told, I think it was about $1.35 worth of photography equipment. I then told her that the date would be over after we figured out creative ways to take all of the pictures. We drove all over town to thrift stores playing dress-up and even went and test-drove a pick-up truck (for the pictures). When the roll was done (6 hours later, or so) we had to wait the extra hour to get the pictures developed. Neither one of us minded.
Now, nearly 4 years and one baby later, we have pictures of our first date!
Feel free to steal my idea. I stole it from someone before me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qx6pmXG1Ug
a lot of places let you have free stuff on your birthday. For Brians Birthday he wanted to go do all the free stuff you could do in one day. hahaa. we went to Red Robin, movies, icecream. haha. It was awesome. totally working the system. not only did we have a GREAT day, WE FELT SOO GOOD about our accomplishments. hahaa. .
Considering I have never been on a date, I didn't really have any ideas. But I'm stealing some from here.
I was thinking the driving range or batting cage. Those are fun things to do… And then food after of course…