For much of the country, cold days are on the agenda for the next few months, along with some snow and ice, which makes it tempting to stay inside most days and physically impossible on others. After a few weeks, it’s easy to get a little stir crazy.
What can you do to make those cold winter days go by without melting your credit card with online shopping and going completely crazy with boredom? Here are 10 inexpensive ways to make the coldest of winter days easily pass by.
1. Learn a new craft and make something interesting. Your home is likely loaded with materials to try out a new craft. You can learn things like origami with just paper on hand, for example, and many other crafts require minimal equipment. Many people have starter materials for various crafts stowed away somewhere that they considered trying in the past. Get out those starter kits and learn a craft. Make something simple, and decide for yourself if you want to get more advanced, or stick with another craft you’ve done for a while.
2. Discover new music or podcasts. The Internet offers an infinite array of free music and podcasts on almost any topic imaginable. All you have to do is find them, figure out what you like and sign up for more. For music, YouTube offers free music videos, and services like Pandora and Spotify up the ante from there. For podcasts, iTunes is a discovery tool that also makes it easy to subscribe to interesting ones.
3. Play a board game or a card game. Almost everyone has a few board games stowed away in a closet somewhere that can provide a few hours of fun for friends or family around a table. If you don’t have board games, a deck of playing cards can provide a similar experience with the infinite number of card games out there. Here’s a great archive of rules for different card games — canasta’s great if you’ve never tried it!
4. Learn how to play a musical instrument. Always wanted to play that guitar in the closet or that harmonica in a desk drawer somewhere? Now’s your chance to take that first step. There are many tutorials on YouTube to learn how to play instruments, so just pick up your instrument, find a video and start learning how to play it!
5. Plan your next family vacation. It’s wintertime now, but what are you going to do next summer? Are you going to a destination city? Maybe you’ll camp somewhere in a national park. Whatever your plans, a snowy winter day is a great time to start planning and making reservations so you can secure cheap rates.
6. Enjoy a movie night with a tub of popcorn and beverage. Everyone has a DVD or two (or maybe something on their Netflix queue) that they’ve been meaning to watch for a while. Have a movie night by making a big bowl of popcorn with your favorite seasonings, loading up on beverages, snuggling under a warm blanket and watching a movie with the lights down low.
7. Call an old friend — especially one who also may be snowed in. Old friends are invaluable. They can help you keep in touch with the best moments of your past, and they’ll stay with you throughout life. Still, busy lives can make friendships grow dusty. A snowy day is a perfect time to blow off that dust with a phone call to catch up and share a few laughs.
8. Enjoy a relaxing bath with a glass of wine. Remember those bath fizzers that your cousin gave you last Christmas? They seemed like a great gift at the time, but then you stuck them in the closet and forgot about them. A cold day is a perfect day to draw a bath, use those treats you stored away and maybe even pour yourself a glass of wine to enjoy while you soak.
9. Make an elaborate meal using ingredients you already have. Maybe you stocked up on food before a big snowstorm hit, or maybe you just have a lot of items stowed away in the pantry. Whatever the reason, there’s no better time than now to pull those items out and make a delicious meal that you never seem to have time to make. A warm winter’s evening is a great time for beef bourguignon or coq au vin. Or try one of these hearty, cheap and easy meals if you want more time for other activities on the list.
10. Read that book you’ve always wanted to read. There’s probably a book stowed away in your house somewhere on a shelf that you’ve always intended to read, but you keep putting it off because of the length or the challenge. The day to take down that book and start reading it is today. On a snowy afternoon, you can make a healthy dent in even the most challenging book.
The best part? All these activities are practically free. They require things you probably already own, and there’s no need to make purchases from Amazon or iTunes, subscribe to any services or go out to a store. All you need is a snowy afternoon, the things you have around the house and maybe a loved one or two.
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10 Cheap Ways to Stay Entertained When You Can’t Go Outside originally appeared on usnews.com
