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52 Mini Date Ideas that Won’t Break the Bank

The Mini Date Monday Jar

No cost date ideas

Sometimes the cost and hassle of a traditional night out on the town make the idea of another night relaxing in front of the tube look pretty appealing.
Last Christmas we decided the perfect gift for a spouse who has everything was quality time together.  We each came up with 26 mini date ideas: enough to fill a year of Mini Date Mondays.
Each date had to be free or cheap and had to be something we could do at home after the Little Miss was tucked in bed.

First date activities(+ fun indoor date ideas)

  1. Paper airplane contest
  2. S’mores on the BBQ
  3. Carve our initials in the apple tree
  4. YouTube ballroom dancing lesson
  5. Try to make espressos
  6. Craft for the house
  7. Make mug cakes
  8. Mamauana.  Do I need to explain it?
  9. NHL (if it exists in our house)
  10. Do some gardening
  11. Make cookies.  Only one person can see the instructions and the other person can talk.
  12. Make crepes
  13. Sketch each others profile
  14. Give each other tattoos with a marker
  15. Backyard picnic
  16. Take a picture tour through Iceland
  17. Massage date
  18. Do a Rock Band world tour
  19. Get holiday cards ready in advance
  20. Boardgame (like Scrabble)
  21. Read our wedding book
  22. Build a puzzle
  23. Mani-pedis
  24. Lattes with a special flavor we find in our kitchen
  25. Relax on the back porch
  26. Plan a dream trip
  27. Scrabble match
  28. Make a photo album of Little Miss
  29. Build a snow family
  30. Dance
  31. Fry up some donuts
  32. Logic puzzles
  33. Tie our ankles together for the rest of the night
  34. Fancy tea date
  35. Build an awesome fort
  36. Find the best campsite/hotel in the world
  37. Learn some constellations
  38. YouTube couple’s yoga
  39. Look at Little Miss’ picture book and fill in some of her baby books
  40. Double bubble bath
  41. Popcorn and a movie
  42. Basement camping
  43. Pick out an Iceland adventure tour to take on our next trip
  44. Try to invent a mug brownie
  45. Figure out what to put in our wills
  46. Card games (Go Fish or something harder)
  47. Learn some Icelandic phrases (i.e. I love you)
  48. Darts: first to get a bull’s eye gets a kiss
  49. Make a travel picture book
  50. Mug cakes
  51. Franz Ferdinand dance party
  52. mini golf date

Five Things We Learned From Mini Date Mondays

cooking
Mini Date Ideas
cookies
food
Mini Date #2: eight is too many mores
  1. We enjoy the same types of things.  Did you see all those duplicates?
  2. We have accumulated a lot of entertaining stuff that we should use more.
  3. A little healthy competition doesn’t hurt.
  4. Your neighbors will laugh at you when they catch you climbing over our snowbanks with a pocket knife on your way to carving your initials in the frozen tree on your front lawn.
  5. We shouldn’t stress out if we miss a week or we can’t communicate well enough to make cookies.  Enjoying our time together is what counts.

What about You?

Has this list given you any good ideas that you can use?  
Do you have a successful cheap date?  
If you’ve got kids, how do you fit in alone time?  
I don’t want this blog to get put on any naughty lists, so please keep the comments PG!


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