5 Free Date Ideas for Valentines

Hi there! Happy Valentines Day! Happy Single Awareness Day! 

If you’re anything like me, you make plans at the last minute. And if you’re even more like me, your bank account or wallet may be running on empty. Well, fear not! Here are some sweet ideas to satisfy the romantic in you without having to spend any money!

Who said romance has a price tag?! 

Explore your city on foot

Source: allthemountains.blogspot.com via Elizabeth Graham on Pinterest

If you live in a sprawling metropolis, you probably take a car everywhere. Or maybe you’re a slave to public transport (If you are, so am I! Join the club!). Your city probably has plenty of free sights you’ve yet to experience like a museum, a park, or a quiet street. Maybe it’s the comfort of being with your lover away from the trappings of spending? Hmmmm…

Ideas:

• Pick a place you haven’t visited yet and check it out for the day. Take the trip on foot (unless it’s super far away) and relish the experience more.
• Both you and your partner name a place you love, then check the map and find a place in the middle you haven’t visited before or haven’t visited in a long time. Go there!
• Go on TripAdvisor and check out the Things To Do in your area. For romantic scenery, check out the Outdoor attractions!

Perfect for... the wanderluster on a budget, the relaxed romantic and the recovering shopaholic (Keep away from shops)!

Game the night away

Source: rawkitten.tumblr.com via Irene Dose on Pinterest

Are you both homebodies who dread leaving the house? I know I’d much rather relax with my boyfriend then go out clubbing any day! Or maybe you have a huge collection of video games and board games. Maybe you have a free sporting area nearby. Oh, or maybe you’re crazy competitive, and nothing excites you more than a challenge!

Ideas:

• Head to the nearest free basketball court or park or area where you can engage in fun sports like, ya know, basketball, rugby, football or childhood favourites like Hot Lava
• Play cooperative and competitive video games all night in a quest for victory!
• Play card and board games with prizes for the winners and consequences for the losers. It’s Valentines Day; I’ll let you figure out appropriate rewards for yourselves (Wink wink)

Perfect for... people who LOVE to win, craft-happy gods and goddesses (your houses are surely wonders to behold, why ever leave?) and the always-plugged-in technolistas!

Read to each other in your local library

Source: weheartit.com via Domi on Pinterest

For centuries, men and women have wooed each other with the power of words. Whether or not you have the oratorical prowess to rival Shakespeare matters little when you have the nearly limitless arsenal of the library at your disposal. Visit one for Valentines and whisper sweet nothings to your lover... for free (for your pocket AND your mind)!

Ideas:

• For the truly romantic, try reading out a few Shakespearean sonnets or some sweet poetry. You know you want to. And V-day is the perfect day to be outrageously cheesy and get away with it!
• For those who roll their eyes at sentimentality, try reading comics, graphic novels or good books out loud to each other. You can do it seriously or read it in such a way that will leave you both guffawing at your crazy reading. Warning: you could get kicked out.
• Each of you picks out a book you love that the other hasn’t read. Swap books, cuddle together in a nook and sigh in bliss at the wonders of the written word.

Perfect for... the hopeless romantic, the girl who loves the sound of her own voice and cosy bookworms!

Celebrate with a quiet picnic

Source: vi.sualize.us via Selena on Pinterest

Picture a day out in the great outdoors. You’re sitting with your loved one, nestled together on a picnic blanket, talking and eating delicious food. Ah, bliss. After all, they do say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and who’s to say it doesn't work for women either?!

Ideas:

• If you’re averse to cooking, bring leftovers and snacks, or persuade a good friend to do some cooking or baking for you. Maybe there’s a favour you can cash in...
• For the gourmet cook in training, wow your lover with all the amazing creations you can concoct. And please send me a care package in the mail!
• Try the local park for a picnic, OR if you want to do some impromptu camping, pitch a blanket fort in the middle of your living room or backyard and have a picnic there!

Perfect for... the ones with parents who want to keep an eye on them (behave yourselves, okay!), the foodies at heart and the timid adventurers!

Go nuts with a crazy photoshoot

Source: via Shelby on Pinterest

You’re naturally a comedienne, or you shine bright like a diamond. The spotlight has to be on you, babe! Grab a camera, pick a place and go nuts with your significant other. Take turns making funny faces, doing crazy poses, and rolling around on the ground. By the end of it, you’ll either hate each other for taking ‘stupid photos’ of you, or appreciate each other more for having a sense of humour and making you look better than you actually look great!

Ideas:

• If you have a Polaroid camera of some kind, go nuts with it! Shake it like a Polaroid picture (the photo and maybe your butt too!), and be the goofiest you can be with your sweetheart.
• Don’t have a camera of any kind? Do the crazy photoshoot anyway, but instead of taking photos, you get to make funny caricatures of each other! Artistic talent not needed!
• Have a friend trying to build a portfolio? Maybe you can rope him/her into taking your photos! Or just use a tripod or any stable surface for cheesy and hilarious couple photos!

Perfect for... people who shine bright like a diamond (Sorry, not sorry), laughing hyenas and trigger-happy photographers!

What do you think of those FIVE free date ideas?

I had a blast thinking of them, and we're going with Game The Night Away with the Xbox! Plus watching TV shows because we're homebodies like that. ;)

Feel free to add expensive elements to the dates (Like flowers? Diamonds? New camera?!), or to mix and match them as you will!

I hope this helped you with your Valentines day! 

And if you’re single, grab a friend or two and go on a big date anyway!

Let me know what you think in the comments below, through tweets or on Facebook! 

Stay beautiful,

Happy Anniversary!

Look, a cheesy couple!

Few of you may know that Justin and I celebrated our one year anniversary on January 2! We’d been unofficially going out for several months, but it was on that fateful January day that he finally (and I mean finally) asked me to be his girlfriend. (He’d already asked before, but I said let’s go out first and see haha. Woo! Courtship phase!)

Last year we went to a fancy expensive buffet restaurant that cost an arm and a leg to go to. It was very touching because I like being spoiled! But this year we went a completely different tack. I had work, so we decided to have a picnic after my shift. Not a full-on picnic with pies and cooking, mind you. It was more like ‘Let’s stop at the grocery and buy food!’ Because let’s face it. I cannot cook!

I told him the budget was $30 (because this year I was paying, yay!), but I cannot resist food, and we spent around $45 instead. This is still not even half of what he paid for last year’s special dinner, so I cannot complain. Besides I was the one grabbing food, so I could not blame him at all for my inability to be thrifty.

So fatty and yum!

This was our meagre picnic lunch! Plus fish and chips because we’re true Kiwis now, haha!

It was basically Mammoth iced coffee (it is so delicious! I hate coffee, but it is so good!), Sara Lee – my obsession, Tim Tams (his choice) as well as some Cadbury bars.

I am not sure how this amounted to around $45, but it was our anniversary, so I’m going to sweat the small stuff. :D

This is Justin! His outfit completely matches my hair, don’t you think?! I just noticed it now, to be honest… I should probably pay more attention to my boyfriend, heehee.

Justin likes to steal kisses in front of the camera. Somehow it’s better this way because he has a derpy camera smile! He actually has a really cute authentic smile especially with his dimples, but somehow when he’s in front of a camera, it turns out like BLERGH.

Look at a happy me! :D You can tell I’m very happy to have spent a year with this man because I have a scrunched up eye smile. You know, squinted eye smiles are a sign of authentic happiness! This I know from... experience! Hihi~

In retrospect, it would have been cheaper to go to a restaurant, but there's something sweet about lazing about in the park with your love, eating sweets and just talking. 

Okay, that’s it for now. :D

I just wanted to share my special day with you. I hope it didn’t make you guys uncomfortable or annoyed. I just wanted to share my joy~

Stay sweet,