🙋Accept the next invitation you would usually turn downFree. Decide now, before it arrives, so the answer is already made.
👵Ask an older relative one question you never askedFree. Try this one: what did you want to be at my age?
💐Buy yourself flowers for no reasonSmall cost. Choose one bunch on the way home and put it where you sit most.
🎒Check out something other than a book from the libraryFree. Ask at the desk what else it lends.
🖋️Do a crossword in penSmall cost. Pick an easy one and write each answer without testing it in pencil.
🥦Give a food you hated as a child one more trySmall cost. Have it cooked by someone who likes it.
🎷Listen to a whole album in a kind of music you avoidFree. Ask someone who loves it which one to start with.
🍽️Order the dish on the menu you have never heard ofSmall cost. Next time you eat out, order first and ask what it is after.
🎲Play a game you have never played, by the rules on the boxFree. Borrow one from a friend and read the rules aloud before you start.
✍️Send a note to the author of a novel that stayed with youFree. Look for an address on the author's own website and say which page you reread.
📮Send yourself a postcard from the town you live inSmall cost. Buy one where visitors do and mail it to your own address.
🎞️Sit in the front row at the moviesSmall cost. Buy the seat nobody picks and lean back.
🍰Start one meal with the dessertSmall cost. Announce it at the table and serve the plates in reverse.
🎬Stay for a film's credits to the very last lineFree. Next film you watch, stay seated until the screen goes dark.
👋Talk to a neighbor you have only ever waved atFree. Next time, cross the street and start with your name.
🥭Taste a fruit you have never triedSmall cost. Pick the one in the produce aisle you cannot name.
🌍Try a food from a country you then find on a mapSmall cost. Choose it by the name alone, eat it, then look up where it is from.
🎀Use the thing you have been saving for a special dayFree. The good soap, the candle, the notebook: start it today.
🏪Walk into a shop you have passed a hundred timesFree. Go in on your next walk past and look at every shelf.
🧣Wear a color you have never wornFree. Borrow it from a friend's closet before you buy anything.
At home 20
🪴Bring home a houseplant and give it a nameSmall cost. Ask the shop for one that is hard to kill.
💃Dance to one whole song with nobody watchingFree. Shut the door, pick the song and do not stop until it ends.
🕯️Eat dinner by candlelight on an ordinary TuesdaySmall cost. Set two candles on the table and switch off the big light.
🫖Eat tonight's dinner off the plates you keep for guestsFree. Take down the good set and lay the table as if someone were coming.
🏷️Find out why you were given your nameFree. Ask whoever chose it, and what the other choices were.
🔊Hear a song you loved at fifteen at full volumeFree. Find it, stand in the middle of the room and turn it up.
🐈Lie in a patch of sun on the floor like a catFree. Find where the sun lands in the afternoon and bring a cushion.
🧵Mend one thing you were about to throw awaySmall cost. Glue, thread or a single screw: find out which it needs.
🖼️Put a picture you love in a frame where you pass it dailySmall cost. Choose the picture first, then a frame to fit it.
🚿Sing a whole song in the shower at full voiceFree. Choose one you know every word of and do not stop for the high part.
🛏️Sleep with your head at the foot of the bedFree. Move the pillow tonight and see what the room looks like from there.
🛋️Spend a whole afternoon in pajamas with a stack of booksFree. Choose the books the night before and keep the afternoon clear.
😴Take an afternoon nap without setting an alarmFree. Pick a day with nothing after it and draw the curtains.
☕Take the first cup of the morning out to the doorstepFree. Carry it out before you look at a screen, and stay until it is finished.
🎥Watch a film from the year you were bornFree. Search the films of that year and borrow one from the library.
👔Wear your best clothes for an ordinary day at homeFree. Lay them out the night before, shoes included.
📝Write a four-line poem and tape it inside a cupboard doorFree. Write about what is in the cupboard.
🧥Write a note and hide it in a coat pocket for next winterFree. Write one line about today and push it deep into the pocket.
🌞Write down every good thing that happens in one dayFree. Carry a slip of paper and note each one as it happens.
🔟Write down ten things to do before the year endsFree. Keep each one small enough to finish in a day, and tape the list to the fridge.
Out the front door 20
🤸Balance along a low curb the whole length of a streetFree. Arms out, one foot in front of the other, and start again if you step off.
🧺Carry dinner to the nearest patch of grass and eat it thereFree. Put tonight's meal in a bag and bring a blanket.
🔢Chalk a hopscotch on the sidewalk and play itSmall cost. One stick of chalk and a flat stone to throw.
🌔Find the moon in the daytime skyFree. Look up on clear afternoons until you spot it.
🌳Lie under a tree and look straight up through the branchesFree. Pick the biggest tree in the nearest park and lie with your head by the trunk.
🏢Look up at the upper floors of a street you know wellFree. Walk it slowly on the far sidewalk with your eyes above the shop signs.
🪧Read every plaque and sign on your own main streetFree. Walk one side up and the other side back.
🪑Sit on a bench you have walked past for yearsFree. Sit down today and stay until three people have passed.
🌉Stand on a bridge and watch the water for ten minutesFree. Lean on the rail of the nearest footbridge and follow one leaf downstream.
🌄Stand on your own street before anyone else is awakeFree. Set one early alarm and stand at your door until the first light comes on.
🕰️Stand under a clock tower as it strikes the hourFree. Find the nearest clock or bell that strikes and be there two minutes early.
🎻Stay for a street musician's whole song and say thanksSmall cost. Stop walking, listen to the end and leave a coin.
🛝Swing on a swing as high as it goesFree. Walk to the nearest playground at a quiet hour.
⛲Toss a coin in a fountain and make a wishSmall cost. One coin, your back to the water, and tell nobody the wish.
👟Walk somewhere you would normally driveFree. Choose one errand this week and leave early enough to go on foot.
✈️Watch a plane until it is out of sightFree. Lie back on the grass and follow one from first sight to last.
🐌Watch a snail cross the whole pathFree. Look on a damp morning and stay until it reaches the other side.
🚂Wave at a passing train until someone waves backFree. Stand on a bridge or a path with a view of the line and keep waving.
🐦Whistle back at a bird until it answersFree. Copy its call as closely as you can and wait.
🌟Wish on the first star of the eveningFree. Be outdoors as the sky darkens and watch for the first point of light.
With someone 20
💬Ask a couple you know how they metFree. Ask them together and let each correct the other.
🛍️Ask a shopkeeper what they would buy in their own shopFree. Ask it at the shop you use most, and listen to the whole answer.
🍅Bring a neighbor something from your kitchen or gardenSmall cost. Make a little more than you need and carry it over warm.
🍳Carry breakfast up to someone still in bedSmall cost. Find out the night before how they take their coffee or tea.
🤳Fit your whole household into a single pictureFree. Prop the phone on a shelf and use the timer.
🍲Get the whole family to the same dinner table on one nightFree. Name one night and ask each person to bring one thing.
⭐Invent star shapes of your own with someone on a clear nightFree. Lie back, join the dots your own way and give each shape a name.
🖍️Let a child draw you, and hang what they makeFree. Hand over paper and a pencil, hold still and tape the result to the wall.
🧒Let a child teach you their favorite gameFree. Ask for the rules and play it their way, however odd.
🎈Make a birthday card by hand instead of buying oneFree. Fold a sheet in half and draw the thing they love most.
📞Phone a friend for no reason instead of textingFree. Call now, and open with: nothing is wrong, I just wanted to hear you.
🎯Play a two-player game best of five, loser does the dishesFree. Use whatever game is already in the house.
📖Read a child a bedtime story, doing all the voicesFree. Let them choose the book and give the villain your best voice.
🎢Ride a seesaw with a friendFree. Bring the friend along: it is the one ride at the playground that takes two.
👩🍳Share a dinner where everyone at the table made a courseSmall cost. Hand out appetizer, main and dessert, and shop together.
🍨Share one big sundae with a spoon for each personSmall cost. Order the largest on the menu and set it in the middle.
🎂Surprise someone with a cake on a day that marks nothingSmall cost. Choose the flavor they order when they have the choice.
🚶Take a walk and let the other person choose every turnFree. Say only yes until you are home again.
🥪Trade lunches with someone for a dayFree. Pack what you would eat yourself and swap bags at noon.
🍿Watch a friend's favorite film beside them, start to finishFree. Ask which film they have seen most, and let them talk through it.
Once a year 20
🍁Bring home one fallen leaf in each color of fallFree. Walk the same block until you have red, orange, yellow and brown.
🍋Buy lemonade from the next stand a child sets upSmall cost. Keep a little change in your pocket through the summer.
🎃Carve a pumpkin together and put a light in itSmall cost. Draw the face in pen before anyone picks up a knife.
🍂Catch a falling leaf before it touches the groundFree. Stand under a tree on a breezy day in fall and keep your eyes on one leaf.
🧊Crunch across a frozen puddleFree. Go out early after the first hard frost, before the sun is on it.
🍑Eat a peach in the week the local ones come ripeSmall cost. Ask at a market stall when they come in.
🍦Eat ice cream outdoors on the hottest day of the yearSmall cost. Watch the forecast and walk to the nearest scoop.
👼Leave a snow angel in a fresh fall of snowFree. Find a stretch of snow nobody has walked on and fall back into it.
🌼Make a daisy chain long enough to wearFree. Slit each stem with a thumbnail and thread the next one through.
🍓Make a jar of jam from one basket of fruitSmall cost. Buy the fruit when it is in season and find a recipe with three ingredients.
🪟Open every window on the first warm day of the yearFree. When the day comes, go room by room and leave them open until dusk.
🌻Plant a sunflower seed with a child and measure them bothSmall cost. Sow it by a sunny wall and mark both heights on a stick each month.
📚Read under a tree until the shade moves off the pageFree. Take a book and a blanket on the next warm, dry afternoon.
🌬️See your breath on the first cold morning of fallFree. Step outside before breakfast and breathe out slowly.
🌦️Smell the air after the first rain following a dry spellFree. Step outside in the first minutes of the shower and breathe in.
🌸Stand beneath a tree at the peak of its blossomFree. Find the tree now, so you know where to go when spring comes.
🌨️Stand in falling snow and listen to how quiet it getsFree. Step outside during the next snowfall after dark and stand still.
🦶Walk barefoot across a lawn wet with dewFree. Step out early on a mild morning, before the sun dries the grass.
🎆Watch fireworks together from a blanketFree. Find out which night your town sets them off and where they can be seen from.
💧Watch raindrops race down a window and back a winnerFree. Pick two drops at the top of the pane and call it before either moves.
How this list was compiled
All 100 lines were written for this page; nothing is copied from another list. Some of the ideas are also, in other words, on another idea page of this site. The rule for getting on the list: it takes an afternoon or less, it needs no booking, no trip and no skill, and it costs nothing or very little. Each line gives the cost in words (Free or Small cost; no prices are given), then the first step. The Once a year group holds ideas that wait for a season or a kind of weather; the other four groups can be done in any week. Left out on purpose: anything that depends on alcohol, gambling, dieting, cold-water dips, heights, trespass or pranks. No place, price, date or rule is stated as a fact. Groups: 20 ideas each for Small firsts, At home, Out the front door, With someone and Once a year; by cost, 73 Free and 27 Small cost. 73 cards are tagged With kids. Read and counted on 2026-10-15. Licence: own work
How it works
These simple bucket list ideas are 100 small things that take an afternoon or less and no trip: taste a fruit you have never tried, swing on a swing as high as it goes, crunch across a frozen puddle.
Read the full guide
What simple means here
Nothing on the list needs a booking, a journey, a skill or much money, and none takes more than an afternoon. The 27 that are not free cost little: a postcard, a stick of chalk, one bunch of flowers.
Four kinds for any week, one for the year
Small firsts, At home, Out the front door and With someone can be done whenever you have a free hour. The 20 under Once a year wait for a moment the year brings around, such as the first hard frost, a tree in blossom or the week the peaches come ripe: read them now and be ready.
Questions and answers
What are simple bucket list ideas?
Small things you have not gotten around to: send yourself a postcard from the town you live in, sleep with your head at the foot of the bed, find the moon in the daytime sky.
What are easy bucket list ideas to start with?
Start with Small firsts, which need no planning: walk into a shop you have passed a hundred times, start one meal with the dessert, stay for a film's credits to the very last line.
What are small bucket list ideas that cost nothing?
73 cards are marked Free, such as lie in a patch of sun on the floor like a cat, whistle back at a bird until it answers, and trade lunches with someone for a day.
What are simple bucket list ideas for kids?
73 cards are tagged With kids: balance along a low curb the whole length of a street, let a child teach you their favorite game, catch a falling leaf before it touches the ground.