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We only do matinees movies to save money. A lot of times our dates are usually during the day and we're home at night. We'll rent movies or play games. We'll get tickets to concerts occassionally or go to an amusement park (we have season passes).
A really inexpensive date we have is wine tasting at wineries. It's so much fun, tasting sometimes run from $10 to even being free (complimentary from the winery for visiting). The scenery is always nice and it makes for a great day trip!
Sometimes we'll rent a movie at redbox, grill out, have some wine/beer and make big chocolate chip cookies with ice cream and hot fudge. Or we'll invite some friends over for dinner or go over to their place for dinner. If we go to the movies we usually sneak in snacks :) Another great movie option is the drive in! $7 per person to see two brand new movies!
Honestly, we both lead such busy lives, my favorite date night is just curl up with some take out and watch a movie. Its a nice contrast because we're always going out to dinner or for drinks for events or with friends. I love doing that, but it gets tiresome! Other times we've just gotten one drink at a bar/lounge and gone to Barnes & Noble to get a couple books from the sale rack. Or, you guys can cook an inexpensive meal together. Pizza works because its easy, cheap and you can get creative. Also, I don't know what kind of area you live in, but I'd check the papers or local websites for some free community activities too.
Most big cities have a local magazine/newpaper and publishes the best "cheap eats" in your city, so i'd start there. But our other cheap dates nights include:
hiking and biking on local trails, visiting the free museums (DC has tons of them), drinking some good wine while working on a puzzle together, visiting local flea and farmers markets, grilling out on the patio with friends, checking out local parks, screen on the green (movies on the giant lawn in front of the capital building that are free), local dive bars that have really cheap beer, going out for just coffee and cupcakes...and thats just a few things i could think of randomly!
We live in a small town outside the big city, and the movie theatre has "Cheap Tuesdays" It's $10 for admission, a large drink and a large popcorn. Do you have somewhere like that near you? We used to play Wii a lot and would get competitive, so it was fun. We also golf a lot together, but that's not really inexpensive. Do you have a coupon book that offers 2 for 1 deals to local zoos/amusement parks/theatre etc? We've used a lot of those.
We have been thinking of ideas of new things to do lately and some things my FI came up with are grabbing a basketball and heading to an outdoor court to play 21, grabbing the camera and taking pictures around the city "photography night", going to a local tea house and bring the laptop to research our next trip or something, going for walks, having a backyard bbq or picnic.
There is tons of things to do (i'm really big into cheap date nights cause i'm cheap, haha)
Instead of supper, just go out for dessert or cocktails. That way you can go to a swanky restaurant and only spend $10.
As far as movies go, tape movies when they come on tv. Or rent dvds (for free!) from your public library. Also, in my city, there are some gas stations and drug stores where you can rent new releases for a dollar.
It can be fun to be creative. Walk around the local farmers market or go to some garage sales. Go biking. Have a picnic. Go to a free outdoor skating rink.
and honestly don't underestimate the awesomeness of stay-in dates. Melt some chocolate for fondue, light some candles, lay down a blanket on the floor and viola!... awesome, romantic (and sexy) night.
I am a huge Netflix fan! Seriously, love it. You get a new movie every few days and if you like movies, you can find anything in the database. You also get a DVD that can hook up to your TV (or if your FI is like mine, it goes through a PS3) and you can download movies instantly.
Ok, sorry, that sounds like a commercial but if you find the prices of movies theatres high, I would recommend that.
A little takeout, a Netflix, a bottle of wine=Perfect.
Pasta+Godfather movie+bottle of wine... there's a theme going on here! :)
Check out local parks or museums too, they often have discounted tickets online or dates/times of discounted rates.
My FI and I will do dinner at home then go out for dessert. It's just a little treat but I love it oh so much. (For other Boston Bees, I'm talking cannolis from the North End, yum!)
Some ideas (some we have done, some we haven't)
- Walks in a city park
- Visit a museum or planetarium
- Art galleries
- Having friends over (can be expensive - but not if you are careful about $$$)
- Just having a special dinner at home (ie - eating at the table and not in front of the TV)
- Take a class - yoga, crafts & hobbies, cooking... the course fee may be $$ but over weeks it ends up being much cheaper than a movie.
Last night was our date night. We went to see an Aerosmith concert and got the tickets for $5 each. It was a weeknight so there was no drinking but we had a great time anyway. I use a separate email account purely for junk mail that I can use to sign up for deals and promos. Live Nation happen to offer $5 tickets for 12 hours on a random Tuesday that I came across so I snapped them up. My local GroupOn site sometimes offers deals for Clay n Latte' (ceramic painting) so that's another one we've done. We've done bowling, the driving range or go-carts. We've made use of free admission on the first Tuesday of every month at our local museum. We've collected a variety of red and white wines to do our own wine tasting then hot tub later in the night. There are so many deals and offers out there that you can make use of as long as you are flexible.
We have a few theaters that show movies about 2 months after they are in the regular theaters...If we go there, it's $1.50 for admission per person or 75 cents each on Mondays! We do this when we are in the mood for a movie but not for a specific one.
We also like to go to Fazoli's and split a meal. I know it sounds silly, but the portions are big enough and the breadsticks are free, so dinner for two for us is like $6.
Another thing we do quite often is go thrifting or antiquing. It's fun to look at old stuff, you can find some pretty neat things at pretty good prices!
We have a few theaters that show movies about 2 months after they are in the regular theaters...If we go there, it's $1.50 for admission per person or 75 cents each on Mondays! We do this when we are in the mood for a movie but not for a specific one.
We also like to go to Fazoli's and split a meal. I know it sounds silly, but the portions are big enough and the breadsticks are free, so dinner for two for us is like $6.
Another thing we do quite often is go thrifting or antiquing. It's fun to look at old stuff, you can find some pretty neat things at pretty good prices!
We have a few theaters that show movies about 2 months after they are in the regular theaters...If we go there, it's $1.50 for admission per person or 75 cents each on Mondays! We do this when we are in the mood for a movie but not for a specific one.
We also like to go to Fazoli's and split a meal. I know it sounds silly, but the portions are big enough and the breadsticks are free, so dinner for two for us is like $6.
Another thing we do quite often is go thrifting or antiquing. It's fun to look at old stuff, you can find some pretty neat things at pretty good prices!
Last week we did Restaurant week in the city which happens usually twice a year and you can go to a fancy restaurant for $15 for lunch or $30 for dinner. Of course it can run into some money if you start getting drinks, etc. but its a fun way to try out expensive restuarants you normally couldn't afford.
Do you have a minor league baseball (or other sports) team in your area? We go to baseball games for $7 in the summer. You can bring a blanket and a picnic and enjoy the game.
In the summer we take a lot of walks at the parks and have picnics. We also have netflix and its usually how we spend out friday nights haha ;) I agree with the others-we are so busy during the week that the best dates are take out on the couch and watching a movie! But we hardly ever go to the movie theater anymore...way too expensive.
My fiance has a collection of movies he collected over the years (2,000+ DVDs) so most of our date nights involve us watching a movie from his collection. We mix it up with walks around the neighborhood, fancy dinners, going for drives with the moon roof open (that's my favorite). We usually pick up ice cream, frozen yogurts or shaved iced (his favorite).
We do our own movie nights sometimes. We either rent movies from RedBox or off of Netflix, pop our own popcorn, and buy snacks. I also use lots of coupons :)
Has anyone ever tried using groupons.com or livingsocial.com? If your city is participating, I suggest signing up cause you can get really great deals on cheap dinners and other activites! I love these sites for saving money!
You could try going out to dinner and then renting a movie instead.
My favorite date night is when one of us makes a special dinner, we have some wine, and take a bubble bath together.
My fiance gets movie tickets at work for a few dollars cheaper then maitniee but they are valid for any movie. We usually do that and eat something before so we skip the popcorn.
Or latley since we are really down to crunch time for the wedding we go to the red box and rent some movies.. & buy some beer and relax
We also take our doggie for a walk or to the dog park LOL
We have a tea bar we love to go to- it is fun to talk and drink healthy caffeine and it is only $6-10 total. It is very quiet and peaceful there, never overly busy and the people that work there are nice.
Sometimes, we will just go for walks, get some ice cream if we feel like it. Walk along the lakes and downtown. I love it.
We also love movies! Stress relief! Our theater is $5 on weekdays, and then popcorn- so $20 total. I would love to go every night :)
@jackie-o: I do too! I just bought a $40 massage thats normally $75! I can't wait to use it!
Look around for free things! I know in STL there are a ton of things to do for free, we can go to the zoo, art museum, history museum, park, etc. Also check out some groupons! We've gotten sporting even tickets and dinner for half what it should cost!
In your search engine type in "free" and the name of your city, or "tourist" and your city. Plus, you can go to the city website to get a list of all of the outdoor concerts and stuff like that!
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ok - so I'm curious - what do you all do for your "date nights"?...We love going to see a movie and get dinner - but anymore it's close to $70 to do that, in one night! $20 (or more) for two tickets + $10 for pocorn/drink - and usually about $40 - $50 on dinner...and that's just at a place like Red Robin!
I know one thing we are planning on doing - come September - is hit up the high school football games around here. I used to be in Marching band in high school (yes, i'm a geek, lol) - and remember that football games were always fun (and cheap!)
What do YOU guys do for In-Expensive and/or plain CHEAP date nights?