11 Cheap Date Ideas For The Frugally Minded

I hate the way this sounds. Cheap date ideas!! It sounds like you dont want to spend any money on your loved one and you are trying to keep it as cheap as possible.

Trust me when I say there are plenty of ways to achieve a great date night your loved one will be amazed at without having to spend a fortune.

I am currently having a bit of a frugal year so this got me thinking about ways I could treat my wife with a lovely date night but also how to keep it cheap so as not to break my own rules I had set about trying to live frugally.

So what follows is 11 cheap date ideas for the frugally minded. I hope you and your loved one enjoy them.

11 Cheap Date Ideas:

Take A Picnic:

Obviously living where I do in the United Kingdom this is very weather dependant. What it also is though is very romantic. Not only romantic but more importantly can be done pretty cheaply which is what we are after.

You will need a few items to start with. The good thing is you can use them for more than just that one picnic.

The most important thing is obviously a picnic basket to keep everything in. There are some fancy ones with all the right sections for your posh cutlery and champagne glasses etc but these do cost a fair bit and we are trying to do this cheaply.

A basic picnic basket for around £15-25. This should come with everything you need for 2 people to have a nice picnic. You will also need a blanket of some sorts but again this can be sourced quite cheaply.

Once you have picked up some food and drink from your local supermarket then you are all set to go and have a nice picnic somewhere scenic just the two of you.

This will still all cost less than a decent meal for two-out. After the initial expense, you now are set up for even cheaper future picnics.

Cook Something Different At Home:

Again this can be done quite cheaply just using ingredients you may already have in your kitchen. Every now and then my wife and I like to cook together.

If you are anything like us then I’m sure you will have so many cookbooks on your bookshelves. We have all types from slow cooker cookbooks to low GI cookbooks. We probably have around 30 in total and so many recipes we have not yet tried.

The trick to this is to try looking through your cookbooks and try to cook something neither of you has tried before. Not only do you gain a new recipe but you also have fun in the process doing it.

Most ingredients you are likely to have so this is going to make this one of the more fun yet cheap date ideas.

Stargazing:

This is one of my favorite things to do. Possibly because I’m a bit of a space geek. This can be done with either a portable telescope or just with the naked eye.

If you are going to do it with the naked eye it needs to be somewhere out in the countryside. Artificial light from the streets can filter out the stars/This can make it nearly impossible to see just how amazing the night sky can look.

It does help if you know what you are looking at. These days though there are plenty of handy stargazing apps that will help you locate the stars you are looking for.

You dont need to know a lot about the stars as it is sometimes nice to just sit and look up with your loved one and maybe have some deep conversations.

Go Bowling:

Bowling is one of the easiest ways to have fun with your significant other. You may think it would be expensive but there are ways to keep it cheap.

Using online vouchers is a good place to start. I always try Groupon when looking for money off deals. There is invariably a money off bowling deal when I try looking.

Bowling itself isn’t too expensive but when you add in money off coupons then it becomes one of the better cheap date ideas.

A word of advice before you have a nice date night bowling with your partner. Make sure you eat before you go and maybe take a couple of bottles of water. Eating and drinking at the bowling alley are where they make their money. It is never cheap so try and avoid doing that if at all possible.

Get Fit Together:

Ok, so this isn’t everybody’s idea of a cheap date. Having a solid workout and getting all sweaty isn’t exactly romantic I get it. However, this can be a great way of spending time with your loved one. Not only that but you are getting fitter in the process and all without spending a fortune.

There are a variety of ways of doing this. You could go for a run with your significant other. This can, however, make conversation a little difficult especially if neither of you are regular runners.

You can find that some gyms you can join which will allow a partner or friend to come along for a session or two per month. This is a much better option.

You could have a date morning instead and hit the gym together then perhaps breakfast afterward seeing as breakfast is the cheapest meal to have out. We are all about frugality here remember.

Visit A Public Garden:

This is something my wife and I do at least once a year. There are some really lovely gardens in Sussex which is where I live. Leonardslee Gardens is one of the closest gardens to us.

Usually, it only costs a small fee to gain entrance to some of the country’s amazing public gardens. With ones the size of Leonardslee, you can spend 3 hours or more wandering around.

You can also combine my first idea and take a picnic as well to make your cheap date idea even more interesting and romantic. A bonus is you are also getting some exercise and some clean air.

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Visit A Museum:

This might seem a little dull to begin with but the trick here is to pick a museum that is showing off the kind of things you both enjoy.

I love space museums, My wife not so much, So we tend to compromise and go for the natural history museums. (Unless it’s my birthday)

Most museums can be visited at a cheap price. They will provide a few hours of fun and also you may learn something new while you are there.

The choice is endless with the above-mentioned space museums and natural history. There are also art, science, technology, history, maritime, war and loads of other museums to keep you occupied.

Check Groupon:

If you are stuck for ideas then a good tip is to check Groupon. The great thing about Groupon is not only can you find some amazing deals but you can also get a few great ideas about what to do and where the two of you can go.

You could try doing a lucky dip and choosing a max price and then randomly with your eyes closed pick something. Whatever you land on you have to do.

Cinema Trip:

Another obvious one but there are ways to keep the cost down. Firstly if you have a monthly cinema card then this keeps costs low. You can always look for film weeks as cinemas tend to do cheap deals.

For example, my local Imax is doing a select few films for £3 as it is film week coming up and they do this at least once a year. It normally costs around £17. Big savings to be had.

Remember dont be fooled you can get your water and sweets from your local supermarket and take them in with you. There is a myth about the fact you can’t take stuff into the cinema with you but it is exactly that, A Myth.

Learn Something New

This is something my wife and I keep telling ourselves to do but never seem to find the time to do it, This year we absolutely will.

The two things we keep trying to do is to take a simple first aid course. There is one really close to where we live and it is ridiculously cheap. Plus this is a really good thing to do that most people should have some knowledge of.

The other thing we keep meaning to do is to take some ice skating lessons. Every week we sit there watching Dancing On Ice on the Television and marvel at the way celebrities who previously could only just about stand up manage to improve enough to skate around a rink with a partner.

The last time my wife and I went skating we held on all the way around and were truly dreadful. We would love to improve.

Discuss the things that you and your partner would love to learn. You can then see if there are any good discounts locally or check Groupon for any good last-minute deals. The list of new things you could learn is limitless.

Go Through Old Pictures:

We are always saying how we need to go through some of our older pictures and create a canvas for one of our walls. My wife and I keep telling ourselves to do the same with our holiday pictures.

What invariably happens is get back from holiday and put a couple up on Instagram or Facebook and then they stay on the memory card or on the laptop and you dont see them again for years.

Memories are a great thing and we should be doing this more often anyway, but seeing as it is usually memories of the two of you or pictures of times and places that perhaps one of you doesn’t know about as you weren’t in their lives this can make it more interesting and you can learn some new stuff about each other.

We are looking to create a canvas from all of the holidays we have taken together and have a square of photos in the middle of pictures from our honeymoon. Then we are going to put it up somewhere prominent in the house.

Summing up:

No matter which one of the cheap date ideas you like the look of above, it is more about spending quality time with the one that you love and creating memories.