Looking for ideas for a frugal anniversary gift for DH

[mykdsmomy]

We are coming up on 17 years this Saturday and I'd like to do something special for him but we basically have -0- money for a gift....soooooooo, I was hoping for some creative ideas?

(I would say less than $10 at the MOST).

any ideas are appreciated

[daytripper75]

How about a pretty picture of you? Get dolled up and have a friend snap a picture. Drug store prints are less than 50 cents and you can find great deals on frames right now, everyone is clearancing things out. (If you don't already have an extra frame!)

[Poddi]

Does he wear a wedding band? How about you "borrow" it and take it to a jeweller to get it polished up? It shouldn't cost much. Then you can have a little ceremony and put it back on his finger.

[jewelsJZ]

Make him his favorite dinner if you already have most of the ingredients on hand?
Do you have a video of your wedding that you could watch together? Or other videos of the kids when they were born/younger?

Then you have dinner and a movie.

[Tammy in Germany]

For many years we would cook a great dinner together, share a bottle of wine and watch a funny rented movie. We've been married for 23 years and those are the best anniversary memories.

Happy Anniversary!

[annethcz]

Wear something nice (and something naughty underneath ) and make a nice dinner for just the two of you. Dance around the living room - bonus points if you happen to own any of the songs that were played at your wedding dance.

[cschick]

Get together 4-8 pictures of your years together, and make a 8x10 college print via snapfish or one of the other online photo printers. Have it sent to be printed at a local Walgreens/etc, or have it shipped.

I did 4 of these (one for my mom, one for my dad, one for each set of my grandparents) + managed to get four 8x10 frames being clearanced at our local grocery for ~$20 last summer (I think the prints were $2.50 each and the frames were a bundle of four being cleared out for $10). I made them at midnight, and Walgreens had them printed by 8:15am the next morning.

Another option: Snapfish has a "flip" book they say starts at $4.99. I've never made one, but it's also something to look into.

[cschick]

Snapfish:

Collage prints:
http://www.snapfish.com/collageit/prd=prints

Flip Book:
http://www2.snapfish.com/photobookde...oduct=flipbook

[zinemama]

Do you have a friend or relative who would watch your kids for free? Surprise him with time alone.

[mykdsmomy]

Thank you all for the great ideas! They are all wonderful and honestly I've done all of them throughout the years. We have lots of pics of us and I don't think it's something he'd be excited about. I am pretty sure we are going to go out for a few hours (possibly for dinner...the last time we got out alone with no kids was probably close to a year ago. One of my New Years resolutions is to make date night a priority!)

The other big wrench in our day will most certainly be a visit from AF (just like on our wedding day )

Wow, I'm not making this sound fun at all

I guess I shouldn't add the fact the he doesn't care for my cooking either

*sigh

[cschick]

Originally Posted by mykdsmomy

Thank you all for the great ideas! They are all wonderful and honestly I've done all of them throughout the years. We have lots of pics of us and I don't think it's something he'd be excited about. I am pretty sure we are going to go out for a few hours (possibly for dinner...the last time we got out alone with no kids was probably close to a year ago. One of my New Years resolutions is to make date night a priority!)

Would he like a kind of silly present?

Someone on another parenting group mentioned these things called hexbugs as among the worst toy presents of 2009. They are little robotic bugs: http://www.hexbug.com/

RadioShack had them on sale before Christmas (for example, the Ant was $4.99) and I bought a bunch and gave them to various adult males in my life. They all loved them. Don't give them to kids though, unless you want to be pulling them out from under couches for the rest of your life ...

[mykdsmomy]

Originally Posted by cschick

Would he like a kind of silly present?

Someone on another parenting group mentioned these things called hexbugs as among the worst toy presents of 2009. They are little robotic bugs: http://www.hexbug.com/

RadioShack had them on sale before Christmas (for example, the Ant was $4.99) and I bought a bunch and gave them to various adult males in my life. They all loved them. Don't give them to kids though, unless you want to be pulling them out from under couches for the rest of your life ...

This may work!!! DH is an exterminator too so it would especially fun/silly to give him. Thanks

[cschick]

Originally Posted by mykdsmomy

This may work!!! DH is an exterminator too so it would especially fun/silly to give him. Thanks

It looks like their website is all sold out right now . . .

In real life, they seem to be sold at Toys R Us and RadioShack. I've heard that TRU generally has the Nano, and the RadioShack by us had the Ant and the Inchworm.

[SeekingJoy]

I made a Wordle collage for DH of all the places we had traveled to -- small towns included. Would something like that be of interest?

[2cutiekitties]

There is a really cute book called what I love about you. I saw it at B&N for pretty good price. I am doing it for hubbys bday.

http://www.amazon.com/What-I-Love-Ab...ref=pd_sim_b_1

[MrsAprilMay]

Originally Posted by 2cutiekitties

There is a really cute book called what I love about you. I saw it at B&N for pretty good price. I am doing it for hubbys bday.

http://www.amazon.com/What-I-Love-Ab...ref=pd_sim_b_1

That is a really cute book!

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

What did you do on your first date? For our anniversary this year, we rented that movie and sat down and watched it together.

[mykdsmomy]

Originally Posted by SeekingJoy

I made a Wordle collage for DH of all the places we had traveled to -- small towns included. Would something like that be of interest?

We haven't traveled anywhere really. We went to Vegas when dd14 was a baby and that was the last time we were away together .....but I like that idea

Originally Posted by 2cutiekitties

There is a really cute book called what I love about you. I saw it at B&N for pretty good price. I am doing it for hubbys bday.

http://www.amazon.com/What-I-Love-Ab...ref=pd_sim_b_1

So cute! Love this!

Originally Posted by ALittleBitCrunchy

What did you do on your first date? For our anniversary this year, we rented that movie and sat down and watched it together.

He came over to my parents house (I was 17 and in my senior year of high school). We watched The Little Mermaid and ate Winter White Chocolate ice cream and cherry coke
Since then we've seen The Little Mermaid about one katrillion times due to the kiddos LOL
But....I like the idea of recreating one of our first dates
The night he asked me to be his girlfriend (I was still in high school so yes it was a little cheesy), we went to this place called Shoreline Village...it's across from the Queen Mary in Long Beach. We sat on the rocks overlooking the water and had our first kiss and became girlfriend/boyfriend Maybe we could go there since its' been several years since we've been.

[annethcz]

Here's something else I did for DH a few years ago. I'd totally forgotten about it until I was cleaning out our desk the other day and I came across it.

I took a plain brown lunch sack and wrote "I love you because...." on the outside. Inside, I filled the bag with small paper hearts on which I'd written down the reasons I love him. I wrote things like
*you're a great kisser (and more along those lines )
*you take care of me
*you make dinner when I'm crabby

There were probably 100 little hearts in the bag, and my DH must've appreciated it, since he kept it.

[sehbub]

For our first anniversary I cut up about 50 little pieces of paper, wrote things I loved about him o them, and hid them all over our apartment. He was still finding some when we were packing up to move a year later.