Frugal Friday: Cheap Date

 

Last night Leprechaun and I had chicken enchiladas for dinner, then carved our pumpkin and watched The Shining (I think I peed a little) with some hot chocolate.  It was such a fun, low-cost, and seasonally-themed date night that it got me thinking about other cheap stuff to do together instead of automatically assuming that a good date equals spending a bunch of cash.

 

In addition to homestyle dinner and a movie, here are four others that work for us:

 

This is sort of counterintuitive, but I always sort of like spending an evening at the mall—hearkens back to my trashy high-school roots, I guess. I don’t usually buy much of anything, but I like peeking into stores for ideas on how to repurpose what I’ve already got. Plus, there’s something to be said for cruising the foot court with your cute boyfriend’s arm around your shoulders. I wish those nasty girls from my gym class could see me now. Suckas.

 

We started going to Barnes and Noble to drink coffee and read magazines when we were freshman in college and couldn’t afford to eat out at all, except once in awhile at Applebee’s, and only if they were having some kind of promotion. Now, I love an appetizer tower as much as the next girl (probably more) but this was a great way to change it up a little. We still do it once a month or so.

 

When we first started dating, we used to play games all the time—lots of cards, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly. We sort of stopped for awhile, but over vacation we played probably a dozen rounds of Rummy 500, and I’d forgotten how much fun it is. Um, especially when you’re a couple of pina coladas deep.

 

I’m about the laziest girl you’re ever going to meet when it comes to physical activity, but I definitely like to go for a walk every now and then—we live within strolling distance of a couple of parks as well as a (non-swimming) beach. During the summer we’d stop at the ice-cream window on the way back, but now that it’s cooler, hot chocolate on the deck works just as well.

 

So what about you all? What do you do to keep date costs down?

Oceans of Fabric

This fabric is finding its way into all corners of the apartment. Its latest incarnation: a cape for my Halloween costume. It also transformed a cheapo Target lampshade into something with a little more personality: