1. Cook something for your date.  It’s thoughtful, since it takes into account his/her preferences and forces you out of the college student ramen diet comfort zone.

2. Cheap gift idea: Snow globe.  Just get a mason jar, glue what you want inside to the lid, fill it with water and glitter, and then screw the lid on tight.  Voila, cheap snowglobe!

3. If you’ve been with your significant other for a while, try creating a time capsule together.  Get a bunch of sentimental things from your relationship together—photographs, movie ticket stubs, little gifts, snow globes *wink wink*—and put them in a coffee can.  Then go out and bury it (you might have to wait until spring for that one), and dig it up in a few years.

4. Write your significant other a poem, even if you’re not a poet.  Especially if you’re not a poet.  Cheesiness can actually go a long way here.  Even if your poetry is as bad as Heath Ledger’s line in A Knight’s Tale: “Your breasts… they’re beneath your throat.”

5. Don’t know what you get your boyfriend/girlfriend?  Have them guess what you got them.  Their guesses are probably what they secretly want.