In the Gathford household we don’t always agree on everything. However, there are a few key facts of life that we do reach a consensus on: Jam and butter do not belong in the same sandwich; chasers are the jocks of Hogwarts; Disney’s Tarzan is an under-rated gem of a movie; and, most importantly, planning a date is hard.
It’s not so much the actual planning that’s difficult. It’s coming up with something fresh to do. Inspiring a sense of adventure – as opposed to lounging on the sofa and bingewatching the latest series of You.*
*Spoiler. We do not agree on the fact that Joe is, at heart, a good guy.
So, we’ve got all the stress of coming up with date ideas out of the way in one fell swoop with our very own jar of popsicle sticks. We know, fun date right? What you do is take it in turns to tip it over and time how long it takes the other one to pick up the sticks….
Juuust kidding.
It’s a date jar. One jar, 48 date ideas. At one date a month, the date jar has us covered for the next four years! Result!
We love it because it gives us a bit of structure while also enabling us to try both new things and some tried and tested favorites. It’s our ultimate stress free dating hack. The best part? Creating it was a date in itself. Want to make your own? Stick your favorite music on, pour yourself a glass of red wine, and DIY your own date jar!
What you’ll need:
- A Mason Jar (or any holding utensil)
- A Pen and Paper
- A Sharpie
- Craft Popsicle Sticks (we’re particular, so have colour coded our dates)
Instructions
Step 1) Write down a list of date ideas on a note pad.
We sorted our date ideas into three categories based on cost: low, medium, and high.
Step 2) Write each date idea on a popsicle stick.
If you’ve sorted your ideas into categories, you can choose either a coloured sharpie or coloured popsicle sticks to represent the budget.
Step 3) Place assorted popsicle sticks into mason jar
Step 4) When date night rolls around, pick a stick out of the jar to find out what you’re doing.
Some ideas (to get you started)
Coming up with ideas can be hard. When we started thinking about our date ideas, we looked online for inspiration online as well as asking some of our friends for their date ideas. In the end, we ended up with a pretty eclectic mix of ideas. Here’s what we’ve got in our jar.
Low Budget
- Go to an art gallery in the local area
- Write letters to each other, take a photo of your day and make a time capsule to open later
- Breakfast in bed – decide among yourselves who’s in charge of the cooking
- Learn some songs to play on guitar
- Go and visit that weird monument on that hill that you’ve always seen but never actually walked up to
- Teach your other half a skill (In our case, Jon is going to teach the art of the sports massage)
- Youtube a dance class
- Grab some sheet masks and some scented candles to host your own at home spa night
- Make homemade pizza
- Camp out in the living room – complete with s’mores (obviously)
- Give yourself a budget of £10 to plan the best date you can for your other half
- Netflix (a tried and true)
- Go out for icecream
- Go on your favorite walk
- Go stargazing
- Go for a walk on the beach
- Pack your bag full of snacks and go to the cinema
- Go to the driving range
- Watch a sunset
- Create the greatest blanketfort known to man
- Find a minigolf range
- Have a board games night
- Bake your favorite treats
- Watch a sunrise
Medium Budget
- Break out the maple syrup and go get Sunday brunch
- Make a candlelit dinner
- Create a scavenger hunt for your other half
- Buy each other a new outfit using only what you find in the local charity shops – give yourself a budget to keep costs low
- Visit the local Farmer’s Market
- DIY a home project
- Go record shopping
- Challenge each other to the highest score and hit the arcade
- Find a Pinterest craft to see who can make it best
- Go on a picnic
- Spend the day at a museum
- Find your favorite cut of meat and have yourself a steak night
- Go Bowling
- Get your glad rags on and go out for cocktails
High Budget
- Take a cooking class
- Go for a day out in a local city
- Get ready for meatballs and head to IKEA
- GO TO COSTCO (This, in our humble opinion, is such a fun date – but BEWARE your wallet won’t thank you)
- Be cultured Go to the teatre/see a comedy show/rock out at a gig
- Go to the zoo
- Finally, a classic, dinner and drinks.
There you go, just a few ideas to get yourself started. We’re a young couple trying to save, so our date nights are mainly low budget. Plus, a lot of them reflect our own interests – if costco doesn’t float your boat, we won’t be offended.
Let us know what your ideal date night would be in the comments or on our social media. Be warned though, if we like them, they might end up in our jar!
The Gathfords 