5. Create a food themes night and cook each other a dinner and appetizer at home.

6. Check out local arts festivals, craft fairs, flea markets or antiques fairs. Admission is typically under $10.

7. Attend a beer or wine tasting. At less than $10 each, you get more buzz for your buck!

8. Swing is back. Take a dance lesson and tear up the dance floor with the hottest moves. Often, the first lesson is free.

9. Attend a student art show. Often the shows are free and refreshments follow.

Dating does not have to mean breaking the bank...

As much as we like to think that dating is about finding a life-long soulmate, more often than not it's about spending lots of cash, too.

Cash most college students don't have. But who's to say financial strains should be a barrier to one of our most basic needs? No one.

Kent State students, like students everywhere else, are finding creative, cost-cutting ways to have fun and perhaps go to bed satisfied without breaking the bank.

Chris Culver, a freshman psychology major, doesn't think it's tough to avoid big-money courtships at all.

"There's a lot of stuff you can do without spending money," he said. "You know, if you meet a girl on campus, you're both on the food plan, you can just go to the student center and both use your card. That doesn't cost anything."

Culver was going to attend a party thrown by the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority at the Student Center ballroom last Friday. Combine a free party with a reasonable dinner and you have a memorable night for roughly $20 dollars, Culver said.

Nick Kazaglis agrees that one of the best and cheapest dates possible is a raucous college party.

"I'll take her to a party," said Kazaglis, a freshman business major. "But at the same time you have to worry about other guys."

Kazaglis added how much he spends on a date depends largely on his intentions.

"If I meet a girl on campus and I think she's nice, I take her out to dinner, but also a party if I'm looking for a good time," he euphemized.

Low-rent date opportunities abound on and around the Kent State campus.

The Student Wellness and Recreation Center is free to all students with a valid KSU ID, and the Eastway Center offers pool for $2.50 per hour and bowling for $2 per game.

Sometimes the best date is a cheap date, said Jon Drew, a senior athletic training major.

"Go to a metropark," he said simply. "Girls like that shit, walking and talking, and that doesn't cost me anything."

Jodi Lume, a junior family and consumer studies major, attributed the abundance of cheap dates to the small-town atmosphere.

"Honestly, I lived here over the summer, and there's not much to do in Kent besides a bar, and those aren't expensive at all," she said. "The thing about a bar is, if you don't want to talk to them, you don't have to."

Richard Witt, a physics graduate student, and Elena Cimpoiasu have been married for more than two years and have been dating for almost four years. Watching their money has become second nature for the couple, and Witt said the best way to keep costs down on a date is to cut corners on food.

"We eat fast food a lot, like everyone else," he said. "That's one place we really watch our money because it's so easy to spend a lot in a restaurant. And there's so much else you can do with that money."

Witt repeated the oft-heard phrase that if two people get along well, the setting for a date isn't as important.

"We go to the park ... or when it gets colder, a coffee shop and we enjoy each other's company," he said. "It really depends on how the two personalities get along. We both enjoy talking, so we can do stuff like that."

Culver also has a typical date schedule.

"We go to a party, or the Underground, spend about five bucks to get in, then go back to her room or mine and just chill," he said.

But even though finances constantly enter the mind of most fun-seekers, if the weekend offers possibilities tantalizing enough, money worries take a back seat.

"I just go with it, if I like her," Kazaglis said. "Then worry about money later. I'd rather use money for that than eat."

Drew might be more careful with his money, but will still jump at a chance to have a good time, if properly motivated.

"If I get tickets to the Browns or something, I'll take it," he said, but then added, "Right now, I ain't got money to spend on myself, let alone a girl."

Another possibility for an interesting but affordable date can be as simple as trying something new, according to Witt.

"Another non-traditional thing is find a place you both have never been to before and hop in the car and check it out," he said.

"Somehow I think the more important thing is finding something you both enjoy doing," he concluded. "We as guys often make plans for something we like to do, not thinking about what the girl wants to do, which may be very different."