If you’re looking to put a smile on his or her face without emptying your bank account or going to yet another movie, here are a few ideas to help you out.

The bowling date: $20

Recommended for competitive daters

Let the good times roll! Set up a replica bowling alley in a backyard or on an empty street. Get 10 two-liter bottles of soda and set them up like bowling pins.

Use a watermelon for the bowling ball and see how many soda-bottle-pins you can knock over in 10 frames.

Eventually the melon will bust open and that’s when you use the ball (watermelon) and the pins (soda) to have a sticky, messy food fight with each other.

After you win, rub it (and the watermelon) in his or her face!

The Picasso date: $15

Recommended for confident, sensual daters

Make a masterpiece together. Buy some cheap and colorful non-toxic paint from your local craft store, along with a big piece of white butcher paper or a cheap white queen-sized bed sheet.

With a bathing suit or some sexy underwear on, start painting each other’s bodies. You can use brushes or, for a closer experience, finger paint. When finished, lie on your sheet or butcher paper and press your bodies on it. The picture won’t look perfect, but who cares? Pour the remaining paint on each other and without using your hands make sure every inch of your partner is covered in paint. So be creative!

Make art and have fun doing it.

The hiking-notes date: $10

Recommended for adventurous daters

Get to know your date the affordable and cute way. Find a few sheets of bright colored paper and paperclips.

Together, go shopping for picnic-type lunch items (e.g. ham, chips, water) and, before the hike, tear up the paper and write facts or funny secrets (e.g. I always wished I had a third ear) about yourself that you want the other person to know. If you already know each other fairly well, write messages about what you love about the other person or what you want to say to each other.

Then go on a day hike in the mountains. As you hike up to your destination, attach these notes to thin tree branches with paper clips so they don’t blow away.

Enjoy a picnic at the top of the mountain. Then on the way back down, take the same path as you did going up, picking up the other person’s notes and reading them.

When you reach the bottom, you will have plenty of cool information about or compliments from your date.

A side benefit is that you get to exercise while forming a deep connection with the person you love. (Or want to love.)

The ice-block date: $3

Recommended for extreme daters

Here is a little something for those who don’t mind getting down and dirty.

Go purchase an ice-block from 7-Eleven or Safeway. (Most stores have it back-stocked.) Pick up a towel or two and couple of blankets from home and you’re all set for your date.

Find a hill nearby and go up to the top with the ice-block and the towels. Put the towel on the ice and slide down the hill together! Cheap and totally fun!

Other free and fun dates:

Read to each other in a library, go bicycling or go to the beach.

Remember, when planning for this year’s perfect date, the focus is not the amount of money you spend, but the quality time you are spending with that special someone.