Ideas for a bargain night in

Life is expensive. What with paying the bills, and buying groceries and clothes, there isn’t always much left out of each month’s payday and sometimes the expense of another night out is enough to put you off going out and having fun.

by  Tony Crider 

However, when you’re trying to be frugal and decide to cut back on nights out in order to save the cash, life can feel a little bit dull. When the only place you go during the week is the office, you need to be creative on how you can make nights at home more interesting. The key to making a night in fun is to have some friends to share it with. If you all enjoy meeting up and going out together, there’s no reason why some of those times can’t be spent at each other’s homes. It ends up being cheaper for everyone, as you don’t have to pay for drinks or meals out, or things like entry fees to clubs.

It’s a good idea, though, to have a focus for the evening, otherwise you might all just end up watching Eastenders or Casualty and having quite a boring evening.

Arranging a bingo night at home is just one idea. All you need is to have a decent internet connection so that everyone can login to the same bingo site such as bgo, Gala or Cheeky Bingo and you can then all play the same games, sharing the highs and lows as the numbers on your cards get marked off and you get closer to shouting ‘house’! When a new player joins bgo.com/bingo, they qualify for a 200% welcome bonus, which means if you put in £10 you get £30 to play with. That amount could pay for many bingo nights as a lot of the games only cost pennies to play. Most of the time you’re not going to get the winning ticket but, hey, you’ll have fun playing anyway.

If you’re in the mood for something more energetic than bingo, you could always nominate a night as ‘get fit night’. Perhaps you and your friends could arrange a meeting place where you can all gather to go for a run, or perhaps a bike ride. Committing to do some kind of exercise as a group will provide you with more incentive than if you go by yourself, and there’s a sense of camaraderie in making it a regular fixture. As you get fitter, you’ll be able to chat as you run, or bike, and catch up on all the gossip while getting trim.

by  adactio

There are times for being active and burning calories and there are times for consuming lots of calories! Making a nice meal for friends or with friends can be fun, especially if you feel like you lack culinary skills and you want to get better at cooking more interesting dishes. Ask your friends to dinner and attempt more challenging meals than you’d usually cook for yourself. Eating at home is far cheaper than dining out and as you become more practised at cooking, you’ll realise that you probably end up eating better at home than in most restaurants anyway.

There are plenty of other ways to spend an evening at home with friends. Try it out and you never know, you may find that you start looking forward to the nights in more than the nights out!