date

Best Money Tips: 98 Cheap Summer Date Ideas

Ashley Jacobs — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:00:35 +0000

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some amazing articles on cheap summer date ideas, remaining frugal while traveling, and free (or nearly free) summer projects for kids.

Ask the Readers: What is Your Best Frugal Date Idea?

Ashley Jacobs — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:36:31 +0000

Editor's Note: Congratulations to Lori P, Tamara, and Linday for winning this week's contest!

Having a date night with your significant other is an important part of keeping the spark alive. Whether you catch a movie, have a romantic dinner, or have some fun at a local bowling alley, date night is a fun way to reconnect with your partner. However, when money is tight, sometimes couples need to be a bit more creative in order to have a great date without breaking the bank.

What is your best frugal date idea? A picnic in the park? Going for a hike? Cooking a fancy dinner at home? Renting movies from Redbox?

Tell us about your best frugal date idea and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

Win 1 of 3 $20 Amazon Gift Cards

We're doing three giveaways — here's how you can win!

Mandatory Entry:

Post your answer in the comments below. One commenter will win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

For extra entries:

You can tweet about our giveaway for an extra entry. Also, our Facebook fans can get an extra entry too! Use our Rafflecopter widget for your chance to win one of the other two Amazon Gift Cards:

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If you're inspired to write a whole blog post OR you have a photo on flickr to share, please link to it in the comments or tweet it.

Giveaway Rules:

Contest ends Monday, December 3rd at 11:59 pm Pacific. Winners will be announced after December 3rd on the original post. Winners will also be contacted via email.
You can enter all three drawings — once by leaving a comment, once by liking our Facebook update, and once by tweeting.
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered, or associated with Facebook.
You must be 18 and US resident to enter. Void where prohibited.

Also, don't miss our Best Deals giveaway! Every Sunday for the next five weeks, we will be giving away a $50 Amazon gift card, two copies of our book 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget, and a Wise Bread tote! We will also be giving away a $100 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner who fills out our Best Deals survey. For details, click here!

Good Luck!

Tell us about your best frugal date idea and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

This article is from Ashley Jacobs of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Best Money Tips: Awesome Frugal Date Ideas

Ashley Jacobs — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:00:41 +0000

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some awesome articles on awesome frugal date ideas, tested tips for a frugal life, and inexpensive ways to keep kids entertained this summer.

Looking for Love (Online)

Andrea Karim — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:27:48 +0000

Ack! Valentine's Day is here, and you're without a date! What to do?

I used to get a few single friends together, drink champagne, and watch Sex in the City. You can opt to embrace the solitude, either through doing something that only you like doing (folding origami stuff), or by listening to Mary J. Blige and weeping your eyes out. Or, you can post a personal ad, and get yourself a date.

Many consumer-focused groups and other websites have already rated online dating sites. I don't feel like anyone who writes these articles has actually DATED, much less dated online, so I'm here to offer my perspective on a few of the top sites.

1. Craigslist - Free

I started looking for love online when I lived in the Bay Area in 2000. Craigslist was still limited to that one metropolitan area, and was largely used by techies and start-up types, which meant that everyone there was more or less, educated, literate, and fairly trustworthy. Unfortunately, the general population soon discovered Craigslist, which means that personals ads often read like this:

Looking for Affectrionate, atrractive and down-to-earth Princess - 40

I drive, I have a 2 dogs,2cats,fish and a bird the never stops talking he is funny. Any ways if u want to know more just ask.

Despite the fact that the Craigslist dating pool is now extremely diluted by illiterate mouth-breathers, there are some good people to be found on there. But you have to search. Now is actually a good time — even if you are boycotting Valentine's Day, you'll find that the number of personal ads on Craigslist spikes around V-Day. Go ahead and peruse the site and see what you can find.

Craigslist is also great because you don't have to create an account to find a date — you can just reply to other people's ads. Most importantly, and the reason why I discussed it first, Craigslist costs nadda. You can't get cheaper than free. Don't believe me? Post an ad offering a perfectly good, one-year-old, flat panel, 17" television set for $50 and see how many people offer you $3 for it.

One tip for all online dating: Create a nice, anonymous email account that does not include your real name or any personal info. There are some crazies out there.

Cost: Free.
Time investment: Considerable, there's a lot of wading to do.
Hand-holding: Nope, you're on your own.
Grievances: Some weird, weird people out there.
Exclusivity: God, no.

2. Gay/Lesbian Singles Online - Mostly Free

Okay, I haven't used this site, but they seem to be fairly trustworthy — they won't spam you or sell your info to anyone else. There are plenty of listings, which is good, because other sites have a real dearth of gay postings. Craigslist, in particular, is a difficult place for lesbians to find love - many cities just don't have that many postings, and the ones that do don't share photo. Gay Singles Online and its gal-only counterpart, Lesbian Singles Online, offer some hope for the Sapphic searcher.

Cost: They claim to be free, but seem to offer paid premium memberships.
Time investment: Medium — not as bad as eHarmony.
Hand-holding: Nope.
Grievances: None from me, but some experienced online daters might want to provide feedback.
Exclusivity: It would probably help if you were some flavor of queer.

3. Match.com and Yahoo Personals

These, I totally avoid. Once I learned that both companies have been accused of sending false emails to people looking for love, I abandoned the idea of using them. Taking advantage of the lovelorn isn't okay. Homey don't roll like that.

4. eHarmony - Not Cheap

eHarmony is famous for using really long, drawn-out surveys and Jungian archetypes to determine your best match. When I first signed up for eHarmony out of curiosity (could they really match me with someone good?), I was informed that there was no one within 100 miles of my home that would be even close to a good match for me. I sort of figured that that meant that I was either impossible to deal with (maybe) or that eHarmony had a really small dating pool.

Turned out that the latter was correct, because when I signed up again a few years later, I found that there were dozens of men that apparently matched me in every conceivable aspect of my personality. Which was kind of good, but also kind of frightening. eHarmony is really aggressive about informing you that you have a new match, and after a while, I found that I had to narrow my definition of "acceptable" to slow down the onslought of available men.

I never actually met anyone off of eHarmony, and closed the account when I became overwhelmed by the wave of communicating men. I felt cheated, first because eHarmony is really expensive, and second, because I had spent hours going through all of the surveys and questions and explanations, and I never really managed to go on a date. I can't blame eHarmony for this. But I can blame for the whopping price, the miselading emails (the ones that tell you to come back for only $19.99 a month, but negelect to mention that that's only if you sign up for another 12 months).

Cost: Not frugal — roughly $50/month, less per month if you buy more months.
Time investment: Intense. Many questions to answer.
Hand-holding: So much so that you might forget how to feed yourself without eHarmony there.
Grievances: Mainly the price, but also the fact that founder of eHarmony has, in the past, beeny against same-sex coupling.
Exclusivity: Yes — the people on here make enough money to spend at least $40/month looking for a mate, and you are matched based on a very extensive list of factors, so you are less likely to get stuck on a date with someone who has an entirely different value system than you do. Also, someone who can afford hundreds of dollars per year in online dating expenses probably has most of their own teeth. Still in their mouth.

There are many specialized sites out there that cater to every type, and new ones are popping up every day. Explore your options! Date! Love! Go now!

This article is from Andrea Karim of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: