Skint Dad’s budget at home date night ideas

When money is tight the idea of date night may be the last thing on your mind. With simple planning and very little cost, here are some fab at home date night ideas.

Do you feel neglected in your relationship? Even worse does your partner feel like this?

Skint Mum and I feel like this quite often.

What with the children and working we really don’t have much time for each other.

By the time dinner is done and the children are bathed and in bed the only thing we want to do is go to bed, to sleep.

Come the weekend we throw ourselves into the fun world of children.

We don’t stop until late Sunday night when you’ve guessed it, we just want to sleep – please!

We’d probably have more of a relationship if we were online dating, rather than living in the same house!

So what have we decided to do about this?

Yep, you’ve likely guessed it: we are going to set aside a couple of nights per month for date night.

We don’t want anything extremely fancy even, just some time, together.

Below is our guide to stay at home date night ideas.

At home date night ideas

Whether you are looking for fun date night ideas for new parents, or are looking for date night ideas for couples, there are lots of ways to have a romantic date night at home.

Leave the TV remote alone, you don’t need Netflix – this is what you want to be doing with your time.

Ready steady cook night

Do you remember the old cookery show?

Instead of heading out and buying ingredients specifically for home date night, just use what you already have in.

PIck 5 ingredients each, then come up with something fun.

Even if the meal is awful, you will have great fun creating something unique!

Have an indoor picnic

Picnics are just about being in the park.

You can have a fun at home date with a rug on the floor.

Not only does that mean you don’t need to go out (if kids are already in bed), but you also don’t need to worry about the weather.

Bake off

Avoid the soggy bottoms and challenge your partner to a bake off.

Set up rules beforehand so you can score each other’s creations.

Wine tasting

Buy a few different bottles of wine (even the smaller ones). Instead of just drinking them, find some information about different grapes and tasting notes.

There are even places you can get at home wine tasting kits.

Do a work out

Instead of heading to the gym to do a class with your partner, get a work out up on YouTube.

There are tonnes of different workouts to have a cardio exercise in your living room.

Online yoga class

If a full on exercise is too much for you, why not try a relaxing yoga instead.

Again, there are loads of videos online.

Get artistic

Pick up a paintbrush and a canvas and get painting.

You could try a still life or even life model for each other!

Have a home spa

As a fun date night idea, bring the spa to your home.

Get some fluffy slippers and a dressing gown, then enjoy cheap face masks, and a bubble bath.

You can always offer each other a massage too.

Imagine you’re a millionaire

For fun at home date night ideas why not pretend you’re a millionaire for the evening.

Imagine you have one, two or even twenty million pounds to spend, then start a list of what you’d do with it.

Head to RightMove and start with a property search – will you blow your whole budget on a new house?

Enjoy a game night

Get the board games out and enjoy a few hours of competition with each other.

Some of our favourites are Monopoly Deal or even just playing cards like bridge or rummy.

Stay at home date night tips

Planning 

Plan the night in advance. Don’t wake up on a Saturday morning and think “Oh, let’s do date night tonight!”

I promise you that this will not turn out the way you expected. With no planning comes disorganisation, rushing around and stress. If you plan in advance you also have something to look forward too.

Set a time for the children to go to bed and let them know what time this is going to be.

#SkintDad tip: tell the children that if they are good and go to bed that “Santa will come at Christmas” and may leave some presents if they go straight to sleep. This always works for us ;-)

If you have friends or family who normally pop around unexpectedly, make sure you inform them that you are busy and you don’t want to be disturbed. The last thing you want is for the mother-in-law to catch you on the sofa with the baby oil.

Food

Because it is a date night it’s nice to let the children eat at a normal time and have more of an “adult” meal later on. What I suggest to do to combat having cooking multiple meals is to batch cook in the week. Even better, you could invest in a slow cooker and save even more money where cooking is concerned.

Once you have decided what the children are having, you now have to make the decision about what you and the other half are going to eat.

Well if you are a regular reader of my blog then you will know I create Fakeaways for under £5 and for date night I would stick with what I know. Whilst you or the other half are getting the children ready for bed the other can be in the kitchen cooking up a romantic cheap feast.

#SkintDad tip: do as much preparation as possible earlier in the day so cooking can be about actually cooking, rather than having to do all the hard work. Oh, and save washing up till the morning. It really won’t hurt.

Finally if you can, move the dinner table. We have a smallish table which is easily movable so when date night comes, the table is moved into the centre of the room. The space around us makes a real different, almost restaurant like.

Setting 

There are a number of different things you can you to change the setting and mood of your home for date night.

Music: We like listening to music on the radio but when it comes to date night we will change the station to something different, this in turn changes the mood.

Why not set up a playlist rather than listening to random music? Perhaps not songs about money, but there are plenty of other tracks out there.

Lighting: Turn off the main lights and use a dim lamp. Or, why not just turn them off altogether if you are cuddled up on the sofa watching a film. Even better if you have some candles, light them up instead.

#SkintDad tip: place the candles in the freezer the day before use to make them last twice as long!

Theme

Mix up what you do on a Date Night, otherwise you may end up wasting two hours in front of the TV watching CBBC without realising, just cause you forgot to turn it off.

Not that I’ve done that…

Sit opposite each other at the table, share a bottle of wine and just talk, rent a DVD that isn’t Disney, grab a pack of cards and play/learn poker, get some towels and massage oils out and turn your living room into a spa.

There are so many different things that you can do.

Whatever you choose to do, just try not to go over the top. Waking up after a few too many drinks, and after having not enough sleep, is never easy with bouncy children who no doubt wake up extra early at the weekends (I know mine do) and if both parents have “headaches” then it’s even harder.

Just remember to spend time together.

Remember that before the kids, and the jobs, and the house, it was just the two of you, enjoying each other’s company.

Do you have date nights at home? What sort of things do you do? Keep it clean!!! ;-)