Frugal Date Ideas For You and Your Spouse

Are you looking for fun date ideas that you and your significant other can do on a budget? Look no further than these frugal date ideas! I know I am always looking for new ideas for my husband and me. My husband and I have three kiddos, so most dates involve just being at home and making time for each other there.

Of course, we are human, and we still like to get out of the house as time allows. When we factor in a babysitter the night can get out of hand budget-wise.

Here are 25 frugal date ideas that we have enjoyed and I hope you will too!

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25 Frugal Date Ideas

1. Cook Together

2. Movie Marathon

3. Take a Walk Together

4. Do a puzzle

5. Play card games

6. Go for a scenic drive

7. Fish together

8. Hiking

9. Enjoy the sunrise (or sunset) together

10. Do a Bible Study

11. Go to home shows

12. Coffee shop surfing

13. Go out for dessert

14. Go out for breakfast

15. Grocery shop

16. Get takeout and bring it home

17. Bowling

18. Look at old pictures

19. Day camp (with or without kids)

20. Play video games

21. Window shop

22. Plan a future outing together

23. Take a cooking class

24. Stargazing

25. Go to a museum

1. Cooking together

My husband and I love to cook together. We usually don’t get to until the weekends because one of us will always start while the other is working throughout the week. Weekends are perfect though because we can find something that we like to make together, or my husband will BBQ and I’ll do the sides.

2. Movie Marathon

A movie marathon often involves our kids but that’s okay! Don’t get me wrong, I love my kiddos, but we all need time away and together with our spouse/significant other separate from kids! Find an awesome series, take an afternoon, and watch them! My personal favorites are the Harry Potter series. I’m a HUGE fan!

3. Take a walk together

When I first met my husband, this was one of our weekly dates together. This is easy, cheap, and fun. Plus it’s good exercise! Great for having conversations, recap your day, etc. We still do this but it involves our kiddos most of the time because they’re not quite old enough to stay home by themselves yet.

4. Do a puzzle

Find a 750 or 1,000 piece puzzle and put it together. We did this as a family awhile back and it was a lot of fun. Pro tip: find a dedicated space so you can leave it there multiple0 nights and won’t be destroyed by little hands 🙂

5. Play Card Games

We have a bunch of card games that we like as a family, but especially for my husband and me, we like Phase 10. I think he likes Phase 10 the best because he can beat me more often than not! LOL. Seriously though, even a regular deck of cards, you have a lot of games you can choose from. Some of our other favorites are Speed, Oh Sh*t, crazy 8’s, Uno, the list goes on!

6. Go for a scenic drive

This one is hands down, my husband’s favorite. While you’ll spend money on gas, it’s otherwise very cheap and you can enjoy a sunset (or sunrise if you get up early enough)! What draws us to our scenic drives is the wildlife that we encounter. We live in a mountain town so we see mostly deer and elk, but sometimes we see the bigger animals, too, like moose or bears!

7. Fishing

If you like to fish, this is two-fold because you can have a great time with your spouse and then maybe have a feast afterward! There is a lot of options out there but here is a beginner set-up for you whether you’re near fresh water or salt water.

Fishing is one of mine and my husband's most favorite things! This setup is a great option to get started.

8. Hiking

Like I said above, we live in a mountain town so that means we have plenty of gorgeous hikes to choose from. You’ll get exercise along with some alone time with your hubby. Level up and take some sandwiches and have a picnic, too.

9. Enjoy the sunrise (or sunset) together

My husband and I really love our coffee, and getting up to enjoy the sunrise guarantees some alone time before our kids wake up! Grab a blanket (if you need one) and some chairs and get outside!

10. Do a bible study together

Whether you have a formal bible study or just get up and read the bible together, this one gives you time together to learn and grow in your faith as well.

11. Go to home shows

We have a lot of home shows where I live, what about you? These can be anywhere to garden shows, home renovation type shows, and new home shows, etc. I love going to these, especially now while we are renovating our house as well. These give me lots of ideas!

12. Coffee shop surfing

I love my coffee. I am also a certified (by me) coffee snob, so I can’t just have coffee anywhere. This gives me the excuse to go coffee shop surfing and find some great coffee. Bonus if we can find a good breakfast place as well.

13. Go out for dessert

This one is a cheaper alternative than dinner, and also won’t take a long time either if you feel like you need to get back to your kids. Bring it home and enjoy it together separate from kiddos if you can’t both leave.

14. Go out for breakfast

Breakfast is probably my favorite meal of the day, and same with my husband. We could make variations of things for breakfast and eat it all day! Breakfast again is usually much cheaper than going to dinner, so get out there and find a great breakfast joint!

15. Grocery shop together

While this doesn’t sound very romantic, it is something that you can do together and that’s the whole point! We go to Winco and Costco, and the nights we go to Costco we make it a really cheap date and get either pizza or hot dog and soda.

16. Get takeout and bring it home

This will be cheaper in the long run because you won’t be tempted to get drinks, appetizers and/or desserts. If you plan it out in advance, maybe you can save up and get something you really like (we like sushi!) and take it home. Sushi is easily a $90 night for us, it’s EXPENSIVE where we live.

17. Bowling

Bowling is fairly cheap anyway but most bowling alleys have days or nights that they run specials. If you like to drink while you bowl it might add up, but otherwise, you could get out of there for probably $30 or less for the night if you end up eating there, too.

18. Look at old pictures

Take a trip down memory lane together and look at old pictures from when you first started dating, your first child (if you have any) and see what memories come up! I personally love this one, both my husband and I are saps so this one fits us perfectly!

19. Day camp (with or without kids)

Depending on where you live, you might be able to find a lot of places to day camp. Or maybe you live by the beach (jealous if you do!) and you can hang out for the day. Pack a sack lunch to take with you, grab your fishing poles if you like, and enjoy the day.

20. Play video games

My husband and I grew up in the Mario era, him more so with Mario Kart, and my love was (and still is) the OG Super Mario games. I know there are more popular consoles out there, but we bought a Switch for our Christmas present one year and haven’t regretted it once.

21. Window shop at your local stores

Since we’re renovating, most of our window shopping happens at Lowe’s or Home Depot, haha. Recently we’ve wanted to get another camper so we’ve been window shopping these a lot, too! It’s hard to find one that suits our large family but is also practical, so window shopping is all we’re doing!

22. Plan a future outing together

This can be a vacation, a long weekend, or a day trip. If you are okay with planning and knowing it won’t happen for a while, this is a great idea. If you and your spouse aren’t really planners, that’s okay, too! You can still talk about a fun place that you both want to visit and make an outline.

23. Take a cooking class

Cooking classes are fun because you might learn something new and you can add it to your dinner rotation! I’m always up for cooking new things, especially if it’s family-friendly, too. We took a cooking class that my kiddos’ school was hosting a couple years ago and it was pretty fun! However I do suggest taking one where you are sure you’ll like what is on the agenda to cook, LOL. That happened to us, but again, never hurts to try new things.

24. Stargazing

Do you live in an area where you can do this? I know in some cities you may not be able to see the stars too much, but I highly recommend this one. We like to see how many constellations we can see. Bonus if you have a microscope to look at the beautiful sky!

25. Go to a museum together

We got a year pass to our local museum and we have been loving it! In our case, the year pass pays for itself in just two or three visits. So while it can cost a bit of money, it’s worth it to have a year of fun in my opinion!

Wrapping up

As you can tell, these are pretty simple frugal date ideas! While not all are necessarily free, they’re not pricey by any means. I have done each of these with my husband and it brings us closer because it gives us time to talk about our days separate from the kiddos. There’s only so much time in the day to catch up, at least that’s how I feel lately! We are like energizer bunnies, just going, going, going. Next thing we know, it’s been a couple of weeks and we haven’t caught up!

I’d love to know more ideas if you have any you would like to share with me!