Sam and I have been together for a whopping 8 years now, which is almost unbelievable. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we just met. With our crazy summer schedule and the fact that we tend to work opposite hours (with Sam working evenings and weekends when I’m more likely to be free) we tend to find ourselves falling in to a trap of not getting to spend as much quality time together as we might like it.
To be completely honest, I dislike the phrase “date night” as it sounds slightly antiquated or something only for the purvey of harried middle-class couples. But I can’t think of a better phrase and it’s always important to set aside a bit of one-on-one time for your loved one.
1 . Cook a meal together.
Keep the TV off, keep phones out of the kitchen and stay engaged in the kitchen together.
You have to eat every evening, right? So an easy and cheap date night in is to grab a bottle of wine (or beer or fizz), chose a new recipe and cook it together. Sam tends to be my sous chef as I love cooking, but get bored by chopping. Dicing garlic is a particularly tedious task, in my opinion.
2. Give them a gift experience with Tinggly.
Tinggly is a website where you can give someone the gift of experiences. They offer more than 500+ experiences over 100+ countries and once you’ve been gifted an experience, you have 2 years to redeem it so you don’t have to actually buy someone an experience for a specific date.
A lot of their experience ideas are ideally suited for two people and they come at a variety of different price points. Tinggly have two great categories that might be worth having a peek at: “fun together” and “time together”.
Fun Together experiences cost £89 – my top pick from that section if you are based in England would be the “Shakespeare’s Globe and Afternoon Tea” experience. It includes a tour of the Globe and entrance into the Shakespeare exhibition, afternoon tea at the Swan Bar and a glass of prosecco. It doesn’t include tickets to see a show later that evening, but you can always grab £5 groundling tickets to the Globe. (Which I’ve done many a time.) Afternoon tea at the Globe is £33.50 per person and tour tickets are £17 per person so the Tinggly package is a great savings! 
The Time Together experiences are slightly more expensive at £219. (My dream experience from that section would be the full-day spa trip for 2 to a Balinese Spa in Indonesia.) But if you’re looking for something a bit closer to home, there’s a Bath and Stonehenge Day Trip that looks exciting. (Long time readers of my blog will know that I’ve made frequent trips to both Bath and Stonehenge.)
3. This would technically be a date “day” idea, but drive or take an early morning train out into the countryside.
Bring a flask of coffee and some pastries with you and sit and soak up some (probably chilly) fresh air.
4. Have an at home cinema experience.
Pick out a film a few days in advance (so there’s no tedious “what should we watch” chat that always lasts at least an hour). Come prepared with tubs of popcorn, lots of pick ‘n’ mix and some fizzy drinks. Close the blinds and put your phones on airplane mode and leave them in the next room.
5. Go for a walk.
There have been a fair few studies that show that couples who exercise together tend to have happier and longer relationships. And I’m not suggesting that you have to start going to the gym together or start going on joint runs. (Though in full disclosure, Sam and I go for runs together.)
But I recommend going on a brisk walk through a new part of town, or around an gorgeous green space. And if you take a your camera with you, you might find something interesting to snap for a future instagram post. (Because it’s hard to switch off thinking about content.)
What are your favourite reasonably priced date ideas?
*** This post is a collaboration with a brand. But all thoughts and opinions are forever my own.***
