5 Great Ideas to Spend Time With Friends Without Spending Money

In this economy, some of us are trying to save money as much as we can. We are trying to cut back unnecessary things that had become a luxury that was too obvious to ignore . Starting from taking the bus, cut back from eating out, shopping, and even restrain from buying coffee.

Many of us whose lifestyle involve social-gathering through eating out and watching cinema with friends have becomes desperate to find ideas on how to hang out with friends without spend money too much in this economy.

Here are 5 great ideas and tips spending time with friends without spending money:

1. Scavenger Hunt.
Do Scavenger Hunt around your local neighborhood or Downtown Seattle. Set up a fun game activities among your friends. Gather a group of friends and divide them into several groups. Leaders should prepare clues, places to go, things to do, and questions to be answered by group members. See article from Seattle Times titled "City on a Scavenger Hunt" as an example.

2. Take Your Camera and have a Picture Day.
Capture your moments with friends going around new neighborhood and take a zillion pictures. Make funny faces, star-action poses, etc. Find some unique spots, and be sure to take a lot of pictures. At the end of the day, share your moments with your friends over dinner or coffee at home. Some great background or places to take pictures: Seattle Public Library, Gasworks park, or even walk around our Fremont neighborhood and visit Center of the Universe, Statue of Lenin, and the Fremont Troll.

3. Visit the Art Walk
Pioneer Square is having First Thursday Art walk, as well as Fremont with their first Friday Art Walk. This could be a fun activity to spend time with friends.

4. Explore Seattle's History
Some of us just love History class! The greatest thing about living in the Northwest is that we have many history. You can have a day with friends where you just bring yourself and explore Seattle's history. You can visit MOHAI (Museum of History and Industry). It's free every first Thursday of the month. Check out also these places that are considered historic district by Seattle, such as Ballard Avenue; Columbia City; Fort Lawton; Harvard-Belmont; International District; Pike Place Market; and Pioneer Square.

5. Volunteer to Help the Community.
Have you ever heard the phrase "Two is better than One"? When you have a group of friends, you become part of a small community. Seattle has many resources on where you can bring your friends to volunteer together. From feed the homeless, donate food to food bank, helping elders, to build houses for the community, all those opportunities are available in Seattle area. Some of the places that you can contact for more information to volunteer as a group are: Ronald McDonald House, Habitat for Humanity, and Elder Friends.

Although we are tightening our budget in this economy, it's a great time to actually use this time to train ourselves to spend more on other non-material things for our friends and family. This is something that money can't buy. Surely money can't buy us love! I hope you get to share a really good moments with your family and friends.