So continuing on from last week's post about dating your spouse, I am going to share a simple idea that will make date night even easier: preplan your dates in advance. For our last anniversary I gave my husband an envelope that contained 12 date ideas. My inspiration came from this idea that I had seen online (and Tara even did it for her husband a while back!). While I love the idea of having one envelope per month and everything inside the envelope for the date, it seemed a little expensive upfront and it would have taken a bit more planning to get everything together (and since I procrastinate on my gifts I did not have time to do it that way).
So anyways, my idea was that I would have 12 preplanned date ideas inside the envelope and Taylor would pick one out once a month for us to do (without looking of course because that is more fun). Inside I included 6 dates that can be done at home after the girls are in bed and 6 that are out. Also, I gave myself a limit of $120 total, or $10 per date. I kept this in mind when choosing what date ideas to include in my envelope and if I knew that one date was going to be a little more $ I made sure to include a free date in the envelope as well to offset it. When we go out on our date (or stay in) I make sure to have $10 in cash and that is all we can spend. It is a fun challenge to only spend $10 and also I can enjoy myself more because I know we aren't spending more $ on ourselves than we should be :). We figure out ahead of time if we are going to do an at home date or go out for our date that month and then I will hold up the set of dates and let him blindly pick one out.
Here are the date ideas that I included in my envelope (none of mine are fancy, but the point is to spend time together with your spouse!):
At home dates
1. Fondue (dinner or dessert) and make a 101 in 1001 days list together
2. Sleepover in living room -pillow talk questions (maybe a little cheesy, but worth a try) then redbox movie
3. Fire pit date -make a campfire dessert and snuggle up by the fire
4. Board game night -maybe a trip to the liquor store for a favorite drink beforehand
5. "How to on Youtube" night -learn how to do something new by watching online videos (for example: a card trick, a new swing dance move, or how to fold an awesome paper airplane then see who's can fly the farthest, etc.)
6. Order in pizza or take out and do a puzzle
Dates out of the house
1. Grab a blanket, cards, and instructions for a new game and head to the park
2. Indoor climbing and browse REI (our store has a huge climbing gym connected to it)
3. Disc golf and then enjoy a beer at the local brewery (my husband is going to LOVE this one)
4. Drive in theater (with candy of course)
5. Go swing dancing
6. Comedy club (if you go to open mic night it is usually a ton cheaper than the shows!)
We go out on other dates during the year besides what is in our envelope, but it is so nice to have one fun (and cheap) date to look forward to each month. Plus, I think it would make for a fun anniversary tradition to fill up your envelope with 12 more dates for the next year! You could even switch it up and have your husband plan the envelope dates one year or maybe only include things you have never done before or if you are tight on money, challenge yourself to include only free ones... so many possibilities!
(I won't be able to post pictures for a few more days so check back if you want to see how mine looks!)
No comments:
Post a Comment