Spend Quality Time with Loved Ones: 8 Free or Frugal Activities to Do Together

1. Create, rather than buy, gifts for others.

Take a free or low-cost knitting lesson together at your local craft store or library. Learn to knit a simple scarf. Give the handmade scarf to someone you love. Know they will always be warm.

2. Learn or improve upon a second language.

Check out language learning books, tapes, CDs, and videos from your local library for free. Sign up with your loved one for free or low-cost language classes as well. Practice your new language skills together. 

Consider learning a language such that you can converse with native speakers of that language. Plan a trip to an area where people speak that language. You will show that you made an effort to respect their culture.

3. Learn an art.

Take a pottery class. Learn to sketch with charcoal or learn to paint. It is never too late in life to begin. My mother began taking oil painting classes when she was in her 50s, and she has produced many beautiful paintings.

4. Adopt an animal.

Your local animal shelter or nonprofit adoption agency has lots of great pets in need of homes. Consider fostering the particular pet you fall in love with. That way, everyone will benefit by a good fit between pet and person. Shortly after purchasing our home, my husband and I first fostered, then adopted, a retired racing Greyhound through our local Greyhound rescue agency, Hounds of the Heartland. Of course, our Greyhound, Bridget, is the best companion ever. We cannot imagine life without her.

5. Learn to play an instrument.

Sign up for low-cost music lessons taught by your local college's music program graduate students. Consider learning to play an easily portable instrument such as a native bamboo flute or a harmonica. Both of these simple instruments can be quite inexpensive to acquire.

6. Live in a foreign country.

If you teach while living in a foreign country, you can actually make money while living there. This goes beyond the 'free or frugal' theme. Of course, living in a foreign country would require a fair amount of planning and a big change in your lives.