The Ultimate List of Ways to Reward Yourself

When my children were small, the easiest way to get them to work hard on something was to promise them a reward at the end. It might be “If you guys work together and get all your toys picked up from the downstairs in under 30 minutes, I’ll let you watch an episode of Eureka after lunch!” Or “I know you’re all tired, but if you can hold it together through the rest of the grocery shopping trip, I’ll make chocolate pudding to go with dinner”.

The same principle works just as well for me as it did for my kids. When I complete some household project that I’ve been procrastinating about, I reward myself from my “House decor” Amazon wish list. And while I was going to through the process of losing 70 pounds, I had a different reward listed for each inch I lost in my waist.

Sometimes you need a reward to de-stress and pamper yourself after a particularly stressful or drawn out experience, as a way to reset your physical and emotional health. Sometimes you feel totally stuck in a rut and you need something to shake things up. But most commonly you are facing something that you want or need to do, and you just need an extra boost to get yourself moving. That’s when you need a handy collection of rewards at your fingertips.

There are tons of tasks in everyday life that are easier if you reward yourself along the way.

Weight loss or getting in shape.
Career projects.
Things you’ve been procrastinating about.
Decluttering your house.
Getting through a super stressful event.
…and so many more!

Some of the rewards on this list are about physical pleasure, some give you an emotional lift, some are adventures to spice up life, and some make amazing memories. There is something for every situation.

Don’t just skim through. Really stop and picture doing each one in your mind. You might be surprised at what resonates, if you give it a chance.

This list is organized by price category. But what each person has easy access to is different. What might be a huge trip for me, including airfare and accommodations, might be right in your backyard and vice versa. So please adjust as fits your situation.
Also, some things seem awfully expensive if you go through official channels, but my numbers are based on the prices you can get through Groupon and sites like that. There are deals to be had if you look for them.

This list is MASSIVE, so go ahead and Pin it so you always have it for reference.

Free or Nearly Free

Attend an open mic night and just enjoy the newness of it.
Try out for a community theater production.
Sign up to be a Big Sister. (http://www.bbbs.org/)
Attend a pow wow. (PowWows.com)
Attend a super high-end auction, just for fun.
Give yourself a home manicure and pedicure.
Give yourself a facial.
Take an afternoon to yourself.
Go to an art gallery event, dressed to the nines.
Go to a new shop or store to browse and get out of your normal routine.
Find places within a couple hours drive, that look intriguing. Make a list and use that for your next group of rewards. Contact the tourism bureau for your state and request tour guides and to be put on the email lists of upcoming activities. You will be amazed by how many options there are within a couple hours drive, that didn’t know existed. Each major city also has a tourism department, so get on the lists of all the cities in your area.
Make a music playlist. This is a relaxing way to spend a couple hours. You can create your playlists based on themes such as travel for an upcoming trip, or an emotional uplift for your daily commute, relaxing music for before bed, background music for dinner parties, or songs that make you laugh out loud and sing along, for the days when you are depressed. Also you can create exercise playlists based on Beats Per Minute (BPM) and the mood that you want to have during that exercise. Here’s a handy chart for determining your target BPM (https://www.workoutmusic.com/tempo.html)
Explore new parts of your neighborhood.
Write a letter to someone. You can even decorate it and make it fancy.
Take a bath. Pull out the bath products that have been languishing in the back of your cabinet, or buy or make new fun options. Select your favorite combination of scented bath milk, bath salts, bubble bath, flower petals, candles, wine, music, a book, essential oils, or lotions. But don’t try to do it all, just pick a couple of things and enjoy the luxury.
Go to a shelter and play with animals. This is tons of fun, the animals benefit, and you have all the happiness of having a pet, even if you can’t have one of your own. Call ahead first though. Some shelter strongly encourage this and others strongly don’t, so check first.
Do a face mask with ingredients from your kitchen.
Schedule a girls night in.
Find local pockets of nature that you can escape to. Vistas, scenic bodies of water, little tucked away picnic tables in the corner of a local park, whatever your locale has to offer. Keep looking for new ones where you can escape for an hour of treat alone time. Over time you will have a collection of special places you can go when you need that hour or two to recharge and reward yourself.
Makeup night. Pour a glass of wine or brew a cup of your favorite tea, and dial up a Youtube tutorial on a new makeup technique. You can be as bold as you like, nobody else will see. Have fun with it, experiment with something new!
Make a list of new things that you’ve never done, big or small, and go through them as your rewards.
Go Geocaching.
Go birdwatching and see how many you can identify.
Go on guided tour of your city and see if you learn things you never knew about before.
Tour a winery.
Go for a scenic bike ride, slowly, with no goal other than to enjoy yourself.
Go window shopping in the most expensive district.
Spend a hour or two in public place, people watching and journaling fictional stories about who they are and what their story is.
Bake cookies. Just a small batch, and you can put the extras in the freezer, but really have fun with it and make your favorites.
Finger paint. There really isn’t a rule anywhere that people older than ten years old can not finger paint.
Spend a couple hours scrapbooking or doing other mixed media art.
Drive someplace and sing really loudly in the car!
Rearrange the furniture and the art in your home. No seriously, this is a reward. It will make you feel amazingly refreshed.
Try finger knitting for relaxation.
Find a guided meditation you like on Youtube or CD and do it.
Layout in the sun. Naked. It’s amazing!
Write a love letter to yourself. It can be as romantic or steamy as you want. Tuck it away somewhere private.
Stand in front of the mirror naked and tell yourself all the loving, appreciative, and complimentary things you’ve always wished someone would say. If you are on a roll after ten minutes, keep going.
Want to move, but can’t afford it? Go to open houses, just for the thrill of window shopping. Plus, by the time you eventually can move, you will have a much better sense of what you love and won’t settle for someplace meh.
Spend a couple hours browsing house listing, window shopping for your dream house.
Dry your sheets on a clothesline. The smell when you climb into them that night is life changing. But don’t go hog-wild and try it with jeans. Trust me.
Make sachets for your drawers and closets.
Put all your clothes in great big storage tubs, and then assemble a gorgeous small capsule wardrobe from them to put in your closet. You will always be able to grab something that goes with everything else, you will feel serene each time you open your closet, and you can use it as a reward again in a few months. Fashionista heaven!
Sleep naked. This is wonderful for weight loss goals and for learning to be happy in your own skin. Be like Marilyn Monroe and only wear perfume to bed.
Get back in bed in the afternoon with a mug of coffee, some cookies, and a great book.
Do a session of trance dance. Probably best if you live alone or can get rid of your housemates for a while.
Go to the library and read magazines that you don’t subscribe to. Especially ones that you would never have thought to pick up. Get outside your normal bubble.
Do a hot oil treatment for your hair.
Go out onto an overpass and smile and wave to every car that is passing underneath. Se how many you can get to wave back.
Go camping with friends.
Run, walk, or do yoga in completely new location. Preferably someplace outside.
Do a totally new type of workout you’ve never tried before. Youtube is da bomb for this. Whether you are interested in dance workouts, pilates, yoga, HIIT, Zumba, kickboxing, hooping, kettlebells, or just good old-fashioned bodyweight training, whatever your mind can come up with, Youtube has a video or fifty to help you do it.
Download a free ebook. You can get lot of free books on Amazon (There is a “Top 100 Free” and “Top 100 Paid” setting at the top of the page for each category, that you can toggle back and forth: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zgbs?encoding=UTF8&tf=1), as does your library. Also since you aren’t investing any money into them, it is easy to try things that you might not have thought you would like, with no risk.
When you are trying to develop a new habit, track it on the calendar. For each day that you complete the habit activity, you earn $1 towards something fun. This is great if you have lists and lists of stuff on Amazon that you desperately want, but aren’t crucial, so they never rise to the top of the priority list. The most you will spend is $31 a month, and the anticipation of how many days it will be before you can order your next reward is a huge motivator to not miss a day!
Spend an evening singing karaoke LOUDLY with Youtube videos. Bonus points if there is a hairbrush or remote control involved.
Do a full-on at-home spa day.
Schedule a poker night with your friends. Or if you are from Indiana, Wisconson, Ohio, or Michigan, a euchre party.
Spend some scheduled, quality time with your porch swing or hammock, and a pot of tea. If you do not possess any of these things, then your next medium-sized reward should probably be a hammock, porch swing, or a pretty teapot.
Schedule a day to spend exclusively on that hobby that you love, but which never makes it to the top of the priority list.
Schedule a day in bed. Snacks, reading material, freshly washed sheets, freshly shaved legs, scented bedding spray, and a vase of flowers next to the bed. – This is a great reward for finishing a very stressful or drawn out set of events or work. When you might be likely to get sick after the strain has eased. Instead, by using scheduled relaxation and downtime, you can restore and nurture your body after its sprint.
Order a bunch of tourist literature for your own state, and spend a relaxing afternoon creating your travel bucket list.
Sleep outside under the stars. No tent. Just you and the fresh air. You can even use that hammock you got.
Plan a picnic with your family or a group of friends.
Take your camera and go to a scenic locale at sunrise or sunset, and try to get a picture worth framing. At very least you will get ones worth setting as your phone wallpaper.
Go to a local free concert. Dress like someone more stylish than you think you are.
Find a place to volunteer. You will feel amazing afterward. If you aren’t sure where to start in finding a place to volunteer, ask your friends. You will find connections to all sorts of organizations who do extremely valuable work at a local level.Volunteering is immensely satisfying and leaves you feeling like you’ve truly accomplished something real.
Create a personal sanctuary space in your home, and decorate and arrange it to be the place where you can totally relax. If you can incorporate fresh air and a little nature, all the better.
Dance outside under a full moon.
Dance in the rain.
Find a lake and go swimming by moonlight.
Find a new place to meditate. Find twenty new places to meditate and try them all, one by one.
Find a dusty used bookstore and intentionally get lost there for a few hours.
Participate in a flash mob.
Give yourself a foot massage with a little coconut oil.
Find a park with a paved path and go rollerblading.
Find a scenic public waterway and go fishing.
Go to a public park and swing as high as you can.
Try guerrilla gardening. If you don’t know what this is, Google it.
Make a list of all the different types of dancing that you’ve always wanted to try, then one by one, use YouTube videos to go through them. Each time you hit another milestone, learn a new type of dance. And they can be as quirky or unique as you like. Line dancing, club, street dance, ballet, belly dance, Latin, African, or whatever piques your interest, go for it.You are in the privacy of your own home. Nobody can see.
Put on body glitter and makeup and perfume, slip into some little pretty thing, and then stay home and luxuriate glamorously. You are worth dolling up for.
Invite family over for dinner and photo-albuming. This should NOT only happen when someone dies.
Make a list of things that you associate with that fun glamorous Pinterest lifestyle. Add these to your bucket list. Pick something easy on it to start with.
Each time you lose 10 pounds, update your Facebook profile picture. Even if it takes 30 shots to get “the one”, do it because every time you log on, you will see a celebration of what you’ve achieved. You don’t have to tell anybody why you are updating so often. It’s perfectly fine to look amazing without any explanation.
Each time you go down a size, take all your too-big clothes that are in good shape, to a women’s shelter. Not only will you feel great about your personal accomplishment and burning your bridges behind you, but you will have enormously blessed others as well.
If you have a lot of weight to lose and a closet full of stuff you can’t wear, do a massive purge. Take out everything that doesn’t fit, and if you love it, put it in storage boxes. One box per size, labeled please. Each box then becomes a gift, a treasure chest that you get when you earn them. Your closet only holds things that fit and make you feel good about yourself, and you can just focus on earning that next box. Each time you drop enough inches to wear the next size, you receive a whole new wardrobe of clothes that you already love and hold all sorts of memories for you.
Shower until the hot water runs out.
Go skinny dipping.
Have a candlelit dinner, either by yourself, with your honey, or even with your whole family. Kids think this is the coolest thing EVER!
Start a blog. If you don’t know what to write about, start with a challenge. Julie Powell started a blog on the basis of trying to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in under a year. Lu Ann Cahn started her blog on the basis of chronicling doing something new every day for a year. Pick a project that gets you outside your normal rut, but is still doable when life gets busy, and get started. This is a lovely reward to perk up your life when you feel stuck.
Participate in a drum circle.
Play in the sprinkler.
Spend an evening watching funny movies, with the goal of laughing until your sides hurt. It’s like taking an antidepressant and getting a great ab workout at the same time.
Be bold and cut your own hair. If you feel the need to watch twenty Youtube tutorials first, I won’t judge.
Plan an evening of dance, just for the pleasure of it. Put together a playlist of the songs that compel you to move, and dance your heart out. You will feel alive, emotionally flying, and physically spent. It will work all your accumulated stress hormones out of your body and you will fall asleep like a baby, blissfully happy, then wake up refreshed.
Have a tea and TED evening. Brew up your favorite tisane and cue up those TED talks that you have been meaning to get around to. Make sure to keep a pad of paper and a pen close, to write down all the new ideas that pop into your head.
Write a letter to a celebrity you admire.
Tour a working farm.
Find when your favorite author is touring and go meet them.
Find a recipe for a pampering product on Pinterest and make it. If it works great, you will love it. If it is a disaster, you can write a hilarious journal or facebook post about it.
Get your family together and recreate an old photo.
Do a random act of kindness.
Create a message in a bottle with your contact info, send it off, and journal about it.
Get some friends together and recreate a famous photo.
Make little adorable pieces of art, and leave them around town with tags that say “free to good home”. You can paint rocks to be ladybugs, or create little wire people, or whatever you and Pinterest can come up with. Not only will you have relaxing fun making them, but it’s a blast to sneakily plant them around without being seen, and imagine who might find them. You can even write a couple short stories in your journal of your imaginings of who would find them, and how it would affect them.
Make yourself breakfast in bed. Yes, I know that means getting out of bed to do it, but it’s still fun, and you can prep some of it the night before. Really go all out, and then carefully carefully carry your tray back to your lovely bed and snuggle back in for your meal, coffee, a little reading, and then maybe drifting back to sleep.
Build a snowman.
Collect pinecones, flowers, pretty branches, fallen leaves, or other beautiful bits of nature to decorate your house.
Go play in a fountain. You might have to be sneaky about this one so you don’t get in trouble.
Have your girlfriends dress cute, take them someplace scenic, and do a photo shoot. Take a gazillion photos, group shots, portraits, silly things, serious ones, everything you can think of. You will have a blast, and at the end everybody will have photos that make them feel amazing about themselves. If you all have kids, it makes this even more satisfying (and needed). In that case schedule a simultaneous Dad’s Party. Perhaps playing RISK or a grill-out or a video game fest, and let them take care of the littles. This will also cover any single moms in your group of friends because they won’t have to arrange a babysitter.
Stand under a waterfall.
Give blood.
Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.
Volunteer at a soup kitchen, and not just at the holidays.
Attend a free seminar that intrigues you.
Memorize a poem, to impress nobody but yourself.
Bake a loaf of homemade bread.
Catch, cook, and eat a fish.
Take a new route to work, on roads you’ve never driven before.
Try out to be an extra in a movie.
Try being a street performer.
Test-drive an incredible car.
Make a sign and give out free hugs in a public place.
Do NaNoWriMo.
Go on a hayride.
Throw a coin into a fountain and make a wish.
Leave an inspirational message on a post-it note in a public bathroom.
Do a Couch to 5K challenge.
Totally plan your dream home, down to the smallest detail.
Write a note and leave it in a library book.
Have the restaurant staff sing to you for your birthday.
Get a book signed by the author.
Take some friends and their kids, and go sledding

Low Priced (Under $50)

Remember that prices are different based on where you live and what you have access to, but before you get too skeptical about whether these things can be done for under $50, look them up on Groupon or other deal sites. You’ll be surprised at how many inexpensive options you have.

Go to a shooting range and feel the power.
Karaoke. Take some friends.
Go whitewater rafting.
Try a new class at your gym.
Attend a rodeo.
Rent a community garden plot for the summer.
Go to a Japanese tea house for tea.
Throw a progressive dinner with a few of your friends.
Golf 18 holes. If you have a friend who golfs, take them so they can give you pointers.
Go to a range and shoot skeet.
Climb a rock wall.
Pan for gold.
Rappel into a cave. Groupon often offers wonderful deals on this.
Go zorbing.
Ride a camel.
Get a hot stone massage.
Go hiking or camping at a state or national park. You can take a friend if you want, but seriously consider going alone. If you have issues with confidence or feel trapped in your life, it is incredibly empowering to step outside your normal routine and do something bold, something just a teeny bit scary. If it’s super scary, pick something small like going with a friend, and work your way up. Each experience will make you more courageous, confident, and eager for the next one. Put together a list of all the places within driving distance that you would love to visit, and use each as the next stepping stone goal.
Buy yourself a book. If you are a bibliophile, put together an Amazon wishlist of all your favorites that you want to own. Set your incremental goals and at all times know which book you are working towards.
A new garment of clothing. This is excellent for weight loss goals.
A new piece of jewelry. Another great one for weight loss goals, especially if you don’t want to spend money on something that might be too big in six months.
A pair of shoes you’ve had your eye on.
A massage. Groupons are lovely for these.
Professional manicure or pedicure.
A new nail polish or set of nail art decals.
Write in a coffee shop. This is glamorous if you’ve never done it.
Go to the movies by yourself.
Go out to eat at a fancy restaurant, by yourself, dressed to the nines.
Go to the opera.
Go to the theater.
Go to the symphony.
Go to a bookstore with a coffee shop, buy a book, and read and sip for a couple hours.
Buy a gorgeous new journal to write in. Maybe even start a bullet journal or an art journal. Never heard of these things? Pop over to Pinterest and prepare to have your mind blown.
Go for a picnic at a local park. Wear a dress and pack glamorous food, or make it casual and simple.
Buy something small that makes you feel glamorous.
High-end chocolate. I definitely recommend locating the best chocolateries in your city, so you have a place to go to browse the best when you have earned your reward.
Spend a day being a tourist in your city.
Go antiquing or browse at a flea market.
Buy a new food you’ve never heard of.
Buy a luscious cookbook of your eating style, and endeavor to make a new recipe from it every day. In the margins write a grade and your notes. It’s a fun adventure, it cements your new lifestyle, and at the end you know what you loved, and can laugh at the ones you hated. This is lovely for weight loss goals because it makes whatever eating style you are using, fun to do. Instead of feeling deprived, food is a daily adventure that you look forward to.
Get a new tea variety. This can be something off the grocery store shelf, or something from that little dusty herb shop that smells like the beginning of a fantasy novel, or it could be a glass teapot and a bag of blooming tea bundles that slowly open up and blossom in front of your eyes.
Get a haircut or color that you’ve always wanted.
A new perfume.
Buy a movie that you’ve always loved, make popcorn, put on something glamorously loungy, and pour yourself a glass of wine. Anne of Green Gables. Pride and Prejudice. The Proposal. Bend it like Beckham. Memoirs of a Geisha. Practical Magic. Whatever makes you smile.
A nice bottle of wine. Or get two, one for now, and one for a specific occasion in the future.
Buy yourself flowers.
Sign up for an especially fun style of race. Mud races, costume, color runs, scenic races, whatever sounds like a blast. You can do it alone or with friends. Since it is on a specific day in the future, it gives you a deadline to achieve your goals by. If you do it with friends, it will give you all something to work towards. It will be a fun group project.
Buy yourself a potted plant. Even if you kill it, it will give you pleasure for weeks or months.
Go to an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, peach orchard, strawberry, or blueberry farm, and pick your own. Then make something luscious from your haul. – Since these are date specific, you can plan this ahead as a “day off” reward and figure out what you need to accomplish between now that that date.
Go to the zoo. This can be a great reward for a family goal such as paying off a credit card, that involved everybody having to give up a few pleasures during the belt-tightening. Pack a lunch with favorite foods (since buying stuff there is quite expensive) and get creative in making the picnic part of the fun.
Go to a botanical garden. Bring a sketch pad, your camera, or just your senses. Inhale the peace and tranquility and exhale the stress.
Go to a museum. In each large city there is a museum to fit almost any taste. Look round and see what’s out there. If you love the exploration of museums, and you have a large multi-part project, make a list of all the museums within two hours drive and go to one as a reward for each mini-goal in your project. You can take a picture of yourself in front of each one, and post them on social media along with your impressions, good or bad (sometimes the worst ones are the funniest). Your friends will have a blast following your adventures and will be cheering you on. If you check their websites, many museums have free days, so you can do this on next to nothing.
Love to entertain? For each reward, throw a party and get a new piece of pretty to add to your entertaining collection. Over time, you’ll have a lovely collection of beautiful accessories that make you feel glamorous and are a joy to use (Wine glasses, water glasses, new napkins, silverware, serving dishes, wine glass charms, nice tablecloths, a wine carafe, or whatever makes you smile)
Get a book on how to draw or how to take better photographs, and do one exercise from them every day. This is a lovely reward for goals where you are overhauling your life.
A new lunch box or bento box. This is another great weight-loss reward because the more fun it is to pack your lunch each day, the easier it is to get yourself to do it. There are a whole range of fun accessories that you can add as you hit milestones, such as utensil sets, wax cloth wraps, etc.
A lovely water bottle that makes you smile. Infuser bottles are especially nice if you aren’t sold yet on the taste of plain water.
Take a yoga class.
Get a new exercise video. This is one of my favorite rewards! I have a whole Amazon list of exercise videos that I want to eventually get, and it is so much fun browsing through them. You can use these as weight loss goals, or reward yourself for each 30 days of exercising. Over time you will have a fantastic collection of options for whatever mood you are in.
Go to a comedy show.
Get new sheets, or a new comforter or duvet cover. Brand new bedding with the covers turned down, and a vase of fresh flowers and a favorite novel next to the bed, is a source of pleasure.
Take a self-defense class.
Get beautiful and efficient travel accessories, like packing cubes, or a nice toiletry bag. It is so much fun to get a new addition to your small, well-curated collection of travel tools, and it makes it easier to travel comfortably and with just a little bit of glamour.
Get an adult coloring book or a set of great colored pencils. There are some amazingly gorgeous coloring books out there, and something for every taste.
Get a subscription to a magazine that uplifts and inspires you. Wherever you aspire to live someday or whatever types of hobbies and activities you want to do, there are glossy beautiful magazines that cater to it. Subscribe to a few so you have a regular bump of inspiration and monthly reminders of the life that you are working towards.
Buy a trashy romance novel and a bottle of wine. If anyone asks what you are doing that evening, just tell them you have a hot date. 😉
Get yourself a nice French press and a container of high-end coffee.
Buy yourself a pretty new yoga mat that makes you smile.
Reward yourself with nice new fitness equipment. A kettlebell, hand weights, yoga blocks or straps, etc.
Get yourself one really great ingredient to play with. Really high-quality cheeses, a block of high-end chocolate to grate on top of desserts, truffle oil, caviar, really good olive oil, a leeeeetle bitty tin of saffron, a gourmet salt sampler, etc. This can be a lot of fun, and if you plan your purchases ahead of time, you can have a lot culinary adventure without breaking the bank.
A silk or satin pillowcase and a lovely bedding spray.
Schedule a girls night out.
Make a super fancy meal. This can be for friends, or just for you. Spend some quality time with Pinterest, Tastespotting, or Allrecipes, and design a fabulous menu. You can even make this a monthly tradition. If you are cooking just for yourself or your housemate, you don’t have to worry about the occasional epic failure. Laugh about it, write a hilarious description of it on Facebook (complete with pictures), and make it memorable. If you do it monthly, you can set a very attainable goal each month that you have to achieve before your gourmet evening each month (this would be excellent for goals about getting rid of stuff). Who knows, eventually your friends may want to join you for your monthly evening so they can experience the celebrations of your successes and the hilarity of the failures. At the dinner, you can go around the table and everyone can share their successes that month!
Take a culinary tour. If you don’t know what that is, Google the name of the nearest large city plus “food tour”.
Go to a wine or whiskey tasting. You don’t have to know ANYTHING about them, just have fun.
Visit a new farmer’s market.
Make up bags of necessities and distribute them to homeless people. Here’s a good link to get you started (http://www.portlandrescuemission.org/get-involved/learn/pack-a-care-kit/) but you can Google “blessing bag homeless” or “homeless care packages” and that will yield tons of information.
Get yourself some fake lashes and wear them just for yourself. I promise they actually make fake lashes that won’t make you look like a drag queen, but you might have sort through a bit to find them. It’s like a facelift in 30 seconds!
If you have a gym membership, go and just spend some time in the sauna or hot tub. You can get a day pass if you don’t have a membership.
Treat yourself to a set of nice paints and spend some time playing with them. If you don’t know where to start, let YouTube help you.
Buy the DVD of an opera or musical that you love.
Go to a tanning bed in the winter. Not for a long session because you want to protect your skin, but long enough to get a mood lift and absorb some vitamin D. You can even put a little sunscreen on your face (the face lights are often too high anyway) since your face gets enough sun as it is, so your face is usually a little darker anyway.
Can’t afford big travel yet? Go to the airport and sit and drink coffee and eat a pastry, watch the people, and absorb the excitement and enthusiasm of the place.
Get new pillows for your bed!
Get a silky set of jammies that are comfortable enough to sleep in every night. Not the put-them-on-and-parade-around-for-your-man-for-three-minutes-and-they-are-on-the-floor type of jammies, but something that you look forward to wearing and snuggling up in.
Get a new hair accessory that you love. My favorite ebony hair stick, which I wear almost daily, was a reward to myself
Assemble a big planter with all sorts of fresh herbs for cooking. You will feel luxurious every time you go snip some.
Marabou slipper heels. Yes.
Get a new charm for your charm bracelet, that has meaning for you or commemorates an accomplishment in your life. No. You. Are. Not. Too. Old.
Go to a bead shop and get earring wires and pick out a pair of matching charms or bits of pretty and make yourself a pair of earrings that make you smile.
Get yourself a locket and put the photo of someone you love inside.
Get or make a luxuriant new body lotion in a scent that makes you happy, and use it everywhere.
Get a piece of jewelry that you can wear underneath your clothes, and that only you know about. A belly chain, body necklace, navel piercing, etc. Every time you feel it, it will make you happy. Like a little secret.
Get a selfie stick (yes, I know) and do a photo shoot for an hour, with different clothes and backdrops. Don’t worry, you can delete all the ones you don’t like. Be goofy and have fun with it!
Buy inexpensive scented candles and light up your space for the evening. Luxuriate.
Chocolate fondue. Get a high-end chocolate bar and some of your favorite fruits for dipping and indulge yourself. Maybe with a mug of really good coffee with cream (but no sweetener, to balance out the chocolate). You can get creative with the dippers. Cookies, bite-sized pieces of brownie or angel food cake, aged cheese, nuts, cream cheese cubes, dates, dried figs, candied ginger slices, or frozen peanut butter balls. If you stick to a single bar of chocolate, it limits your ability to overindulge. You only need one or two bites of each dipper, to give you a wide range of flavors.
Get just one of your favorite luxurious indulgence from that one amazing bakery in your town. Pick up a great cup of coffee and go to one of those natural hideaway place’s you located in a previous reward, and eat your treat ever…so…slowly.
Get a new lipstick. Wear it with confidence.
Get a gorgeous scarf that goes with at least a half-dozen things in your wardrobe.
A new board game. This is a great reward for family goals.
Go to your local mega-craft store and get some stickers that make you smile. Use these on your calendar or journal tracker each day you succeed in your daily goal, not only to reward yourself, but also to give yourself visual feedback of your successes.
A new body scrub, bubble bath, bath salts, essential oil, or other bath indulgences.
Go out for sushi, or get a rolling mat and make some yourself (our family does this a lot).
Buy yourself the DVD of your favorite foreign movie. This is a great reward for milestones in learning a new language.
Get a subscription to Audible.com and start enjoying audiobooks each time you are in the car or doing boring jobs around the house.
Go to a carnival, gem and mineral show, arts and crafts show, or a festival. Set your goals for what you want to accomplish before that date to earn your outing.
Splurge on a couple of those printed photo books for your pictures. You will love flipping through them.
Meet a friend for coffee or lunch.
Have your car detailed.
Get a really pretty bird feeder and hang it outside a window where you will see it all the time. This can make your whole day so much brighter and more cheerful.
Find a lap pool and go swimming. If you are good at it, this can be incredibly relaxing and a great way to end a stressful day or week.
Buy a tree that you love and plant it where you will see it all the time.
Spend an afternoon making gorgeously decorated designer truffles, fudge, or other goodies. You don’t have to make a ton, just spend the effort to make them fabulous. Quality is so much more satisfying than quantity, and they freeze really well.
Host a gourmet pitch-in with your friends. Each person brings one amazing dish and a fancy beverage, and everybody gets to have an amazing foodie experience, without anybody breaking their budgets.
Visit a local aquarium, and drink in the tranquility. I highly recommend finding a place to sit by the jellyfish tank. Ten minutes of watching them has about the same effect on your stress level as getting a massage, imho.
Paint, draw, or craft a piece of art and display it in your home. If you don’t have a creative bone in your body, call it “impressionistic” and act like it’s very posh and important.
Go ice skating with friends.
Go through your photos and find one worth blowing up and framing for your wall.
Buy a gorgeous jigsaw puzzle and put it together. This one is best if you don’t have children between 6 months and 5 years old. But if you have kids six and up, it can be way more fun than doing it by yourself. Just set up a table where you can leave it up, and work on it here and there.
Arrange to meet friends at a park with a fire pit, and grill out together. Take blankets, and hoodies, and lots of food. Don’t forget to buy your firewood from a home improvement store or at the park, to minimize the risk of insect hitchhikers (it doesn’t cost much).
Get a day pass to a gym and go hit the punching bag until you have worked all the stress out. Very good after a breakup, after dealing with difficult people, or as a reward for completing a particularly stressful project at work.
Go get food from that favorite restaurant that is just a little too far away for you to normally get around to going to. You know the one. That hole-in-the-wall spot that makes the best [fill-in-whatever-food-makes-your-eyes-roll-back-in-your-head].
Buy or check a copy out of the library of I Dare Me, and use it to make your list of firsts to try.
Buy that cool roll of washi tape that’s been sitting in your Amazon wishlist for the last six months.
Buy or check out a copy of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and make your home a sublime retreat.
When you hit your goal weight, go get a new driver’s license photo, and be absolutely honest about your weight.
Download a new fitness app on your phone that makes working out more fun. My little sister has an app that plays out a scenario where she is being chased by zombies as she runs. I’ve never tried it, but she says it adds a lot of incentive to get a move on it. 🙂
Get your rings resized to fit your new slender fingers.
Try Zumba.
Take a few friends and order one of each thing from a dessert menu. Then everybody can try everything.
Buy a luxurious scented soap from a local soapmaker, to use in your regular pampering sessions. There should be at least a couple soapmakers at your local farmer’s market, and you get to smell all of them first (the best part!).
Take a drawing class with a live model.
Get your caricature drawn by a street artist.
Anonymously pay for someone else’s meal at a restaurant. This may not sound like a reward for you, but you will feel AMAZING afterward.
Sign up for a nighttime cycling ride.
Smoke a cigar.
Try scotch, cognac, brandy, or bourbon for the first time.
Go to a hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurant, and order something entirely new.
Buy yourself some cashmere socks.
Go to a nice grocery store and buy a collection of small cheeses and a bottle of wine, and then come home and have your own private tasting party.
Visit a local artisan dairy, where they make cheese, and tour the facility and then sample EVERYTHING.
Visit a local craft brewery and take a tour. Get a beer tasting sampler, and buy a few bottles of your favorite to take home.
Visit a local artisan bakery and buy something to eat right then, and a loaf to take home for later.
Do a painting. Not for display (though you can if you want), just for pleasure. If you are going through a stressful patch, and you are rewarding yourself to keep your spirits up, you can do a painting every night. Get a large art pad and do a new page each day. This is not only a reward, but a fabulous way to de-stress (though do a few stretches first to work the accumulated stress hormones out of your muscles). If you are going through something miserable, this reward can keep you sane. Just be careful to not rinse your brush in the mug holding your tea. No, seriously, voice of experience here.
Make a list of foods you have always wanted to try, and make one for each milestone. Make small portions because it’s not about the chowing down, it’s about the pleasure experience of making and tasting them. Plus if some are more…interesting than pleasurable, you don’t want to be stuck with a whole lot of it.
Get a piercing that you’ve always wanted.
Grab a girlfriend and get your pictures taken in a photo booth.
Go to a carnival and try to win a giant stuffed animal.
Get ice cream from an ice cream truck.
Go to a murder mystery dinner.
Buy a big intimidating fresh fish that still has the fins and head on, and bring it home and cook it. Yes, you can ask the internet for help, that’s fine.
Order a drink you have only ever heard about. A martini. A White Russian. Sex on the Beach.
Take some girlfriends and schedule a day to play paintball or laser tag.
Visit a Buddhist temple or monastery.
Have some girlfriends over for a summer dinner outside, buy a bunch of sparklers, and take pictures playing with them.
Buy a big batch of fruit at the Farmer’s Market and make jam with it.
Buy a bottle of champagne, some strawberries and whipped cream, cover the bed in rose petals, and… nevermind, I’m out of ideas. I guess you’ll just have to wing it.
Pay the bridge toll for the person behind you. Yes, this a reward. It makes you feel all glowy inside.
Go clean up trash along a roadside for an hour or two and then come home and grill yourself a nice steak, paired with chocolate and your favorite wine. You will feel great about yourself, the sunshine and exercise will give you a huge mood boost, and you can go to bed feeling satisfied and content physically and mentally.
Go to a fashion show. Google “fashion show” and the name of the nearest large city, and you should be able to find upcoming events.
Go to a home show and tour beautiful homes. I do this each year and I always come home excited and high on ambition. It’s a fantastic mental high. You tend to gravitate to whatever is familiar to you, and you can’t do anything that doesn’t feel “realistic”. When you tour super fancy houses, you can see yourself living there and it makes it feel real. Plus after a few, you start to think “I don’t like the kitchen layout” or “I’d have to have a different color in that office”. At that point you are no longer starry-eyed, and that lifestyle is starting to feel totally doable. It makes for a fantastic day as well as juicing you up for projects you want to do next.
Buy a stock if you don’t own any. Just for funsies.
Tour a lighthouse.
Go for an airboat ride down in the swamps of the South.
Take a cave tour.
Tour a vineyard.
Release sky lanterns.
Get yourself a gorgeous new yarn for your knitting or crocheting.

Medium Priced ($50-$200)

Get a Fitbit.
Go skiing.
Buy a one-year pass to your state parks or a National Park pass. Then endeavor to get your money’s worth ten times over.
Rent a cabin in the woods.
Go to the park in your nearest large city and take a carriage ride.
Join Toastmasters and face your fear.
Go indoor skydiving. Groupon often has deals available for this.
Go rappelling.
Go parasailing.
Sponsor a child.
Try acupuncture.
Take a mud bath.
Go dog sledding.
Spa weekend.
Shopping spree (with a set $ limit). Pick someplace that makes you happy, whether that be the mall, the antique stores, the nearest mega craft store, an outlet mall, IKEA, your favorite mega ethnic-grocer, TJ Maxx, or whatever brings you joy inside. Your mission is to make your selections to get the absolute maximum of joy and pleasure for your dollar limit. Are you up to the challenge? This is a great reward for achieving a financial goal. Pay off that credit card and then the next $200 goes towards your reward shopping spree. You will have totally earned it.
Replace something old and worn in your home with one that makes you smile.
By a piece of art from the artist. If you go to art shows and community events, you can find beautiful pieces at very reasonable prices, and the whole price goes to the artist, without a large portion going to a gallery.
Contact lenses.
Go on a nice date with your man.
Road trip, on your own or with a girlfriend. Seek out little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, shops, places of interest, beautiful vistas, and museums.
Concert tickets.
Schedule with your girlfriends to go dancing. Find a club, pull out that gorgeous little number from a previous reward, and have fun.
Do a project from your Pinterest boards. I know that it doesn’t seem like doing a project is a reward, but so often we want to do those things, but put it off because everything else is “more important”. Make that one fun project the most important thing. Throw yourself into it and have a blast!
Join a meal service. If you are a super busy career type, this could be a fabulous reward for you.
Take a cooking class. There are ones that teach you all the basics, artisan baking classes, ethnic cooking, knife skills, pretty much anything you can think of. – Just think, a couple months from now, you could be able to cook like hibachi chef!
New exercise clothes. This is a fantastic weight loss reward, as nobody is motivated to work out in ratty old sweats. Each time you lose a size, you get a new workout outfit.
A gym membership. If you don’t want to commit, use a Groupon for a free trial and endeavor to get as much use out of it as possible. Put it on your calendar when it’s time to make a decision.
Take a dance class. Have you exhausted all the videos on YouTube? Take it up a notch!
Splurge on a personal trainer. You can score Groupons for certain number of training session, rather than plunking down the money for a subscription.
Try different kinds of martial arts. If you keep an eye out for Groupons, you can taste a wide range of types and see what you like.
A new bike. This is a lovely reward for weight loss, because it makes you smile each time you use it. Make sure to invest in a high-quality cushy butt seat!
Throw a party! A game night, dance party, grill-out, wine and cheese tasting, movie marathon, formal dinner party, pajama party, or whatever works for you. Or pick something new each month. This is a great reward for decluttering and home improvement projects. Reward and deadline all in one!
Get a genetic profile done and find out about what makes up who you are.
Get a new hiking backpack, hiking poles, or other accessories that you’ve been wanting.
Get a new piece of luggage that makes you want to go adventuring.
Get a passport.
Get an Instant Pot. It’s amazing!!!
Get yourself a new set of lush fabulous bath towels that make you want to wrap up and never get dressed.
Get a dog or a cat. This is a high-responsibility reward, so go into it with consideration. It is a wonderful reward for when you do something a little scary and move into a new phase of your life. Getting through a divorce, your last child moving out, getting your own place, or starting a new career.
Get new throw pillows for your living room. They make the whole place feel freshly decorated. Make sure they feel as good as they look. You don’t want to fall asleep in front of your favorite comfort movie, with your cheek squashed into an ever-so-fashionable button.
Go to a nursery and buy some perennials to plant around your home. They will bring you joy year after year. You can go get a new one each time you hit a milestone.
Get a new high-end kitchen knife that is a pleasure to use. If you don’t understand what I mean, you have not yet used a great knife. You are going to love this!
Take a weekend trip to someplace outside your normal area and explore. Plan ahead so you have a list of wonderful experiences to try, but be open to spontaneous opportunities. Take your journal or take pictures, and really immerse yourself in the experience.
Replace your most annoying low quality kitchen tool with a really high quality one that is a joy to use.
Hire a housekeeper. This is excellent for career or finance related goals. You will really feel like you hard work has paid off.
Get a robot vacuum cleaner, new regular vacuum, carpet shampooer, or other house cleaning tool that you’ve been drooling over. This is ideal for major stuff culling goals. After you cart off twenty bags of clutter, it is such a pleasure be able to clean your new serene house with excellent tools.
Get a season pass to the theater or opera.
Attend a sporting event that gets you very excited.
Go to a charity ball and dress up in that evening gown that is hiding in the back of your closet for “someday”.
Get a new set of lovely underthings, then WEAR THEM. Sometimes the best rewards are the ones only you know about.
Have a professional photo shoot done. Whether it’s elegant, casual, boudoir, or pin-up style, you will have a blast and you will be glad for the rest of your life that you did it.
Attend a dinner theater.
Find a place to go horseback riding.
Find a Groupon for a scenic bed and breakfast and schedule a romantic weekend getaway with your honey.
Buy a dress or swimsuit in the next size down and hang it on your bedroom wall for inspiration.
Go on a boat tour.
Schedule a canoe trip with friends.
Get yourself an electric toothbrush, water pick, bidet, or other luxurious hygiene item that makes daily self-maintenance that much more enjoyable.
Go see a performance that you’ve only ever heard about. Circe de Soleil, Blue Man Group, or whatever intrigues you.
Buy yourself an instrument that you have always wanted to learn.
Get a Bluetooth transmitter for your TV (if it isn’t already capable of transmitting) and some Bluetooth headphones, so you can exercise, dance, or whatever without waking up the household.
Buy yourself a piece of nice jewelry that you can treasure for years.
Buy a gorgeous evening gown, and then start researching places to wear it.
Write your will. I know, not the first thing people think of when they want to reward themselves, but afterward you will have such a sense of calm and peace. Or if it is truly difficult for you, set it as a goal and use something else from the list as a reward.
Attend a food festival. Even better, go to an international food festival. Google the options in your nearest large city, and you will find a wealth of exciting festivals to reward yourself. Put them on your calendar and set your goals accordingly.
Run a marathon. Pick a really fun marathon and use it as your reward for the work you put in to be able to complete it.
Rent your dream luxury car for a couple days, and savor it.
Attend a masquerade ball.
Go to a drive-in movie theater. Take some snuggly blankets and a group of friends, but make sure to buy snacks there. We gotta keep these places open, and the gate ticket money goes almost completely to the movie companies. The theaters support themselves with concession sales.
Get family portraits done. This is a great reward for a whole-family goal.
Leave someone a $100 tip just for the feeling you get inside.
Hike every trail at your favorite in-state state park.
Set up a free mini library in front of your house. See Pinterest for inspiration and ideas.
Set up an emergency fund that exists only to give you peace of mind. If you aren’t sure what I mean, Google “Dave Ramsey emergency fund”.
Eat at the swankiest restaurant in your city. Research ahead to find out what they are legendary for, and order that.
Take some girlfriends and go to a hookah bar, and actually smoke the thing.
Go to a ballet.
Go to a renaissance festival. And bring enough spending cash to all the different foods. It’s wonderful!
Attend a black-tie event.
Do a zipline canopy tour.
Take the mule ride down into the Grand Canyon. You spend the first hour convinced you are about to die, and the rest of the time feeling incredibly alive. It’s something you will never forget.
Whitewater raft through the Grand Canyon.
Canoe the United States-Canada boundary waters.
Kayak Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, in Wisconson
Go fly fishing in the Ozark Mountains.
Rent a yurt to stay in for a couple days.
Ride in a limo.
Get an adjustment from a chiropractor.
Eat at a fancy restaurant and then go see a foreign film in the theater.
Have a romantic dinner on a rooftop or high balcony in a big city.
Buy a nice gas grill and invite your friends for a cookout.

Big Reward ($200 and on up)

More expensive rewards are ideal for bigger projects. Major career achievements, losing 40 pounds, paying off a fat credit card, taking the sting out of turning an age with a zero on the end, or celebrating a huge milestone in your life. These are the sorts of rewards that you save up for, look forward to for months, and which feel AMAZING!

Rent a sailboat (and maybe an instructor) and go sailing.
Go rock climbing.
Take a scuba class.
Rent a houseboat for a few days.
Rent a boat and spend the day on the water with friends.
Do a travel volunteer experience. Not sure what that is? Start here (https://www.projects-abroad.org/volunteer-travel/).
Take a hot air balloon ride.
Take a trip on a train.
Take fly fishing lessons.
Swim with stingrays. This isn’t as dangerous as it sounds.
Take an improv class.
Take fencing lessons.
Take part in an archaeological dig. Here’s a site for finding dig opportunities to get you started. https://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/afob
Pick an exotic location and rent an Airbnb there for a week.
List all the places you want to go, and terrain you want to stay in, and start going through the list, one trip at a time. By going in off-seasons, you can stay in gorgeous accommodations, at a reasonable price. Use this as your big goal reward for each year. Each year pick a different one, determine what benchmarks you have to hit to earn it, and go for it 1,000%.
Get hypnotized.
Take a cruise. There are tons of Groupons for these.
Book a trip to a yoga retreat.
LASIK surgery. It’s time to stop looking at life through a window!
Get yourself a Vitamix or other high-end blender.
Get a KitchenAid or other high-end stand mixer.
New pots and pans that make cooking a pleasure.
Take a fitness-centered vacation. Hiking, cycling, snorkeling, climbing a mountain or volcano, skiing, swimming in a waterfall, etc. If you are drawing a blank, spend a couple hours perusing the travel section of Pinterest and that should cure you.
Learn a new language and schedule a trip to a country where it is spoken. This is great reward to schedule a year out, giving yourself plenty of time to prepare both linguistically and financially.
Take a trip to the ocean.
Keep a big reward jar, and each time you hit a mini-goal, put $10 in there. Pretty soon you can finance that great big dream experience.
Get yourself a hot tub or jacuzzi.
Hire repairs done around your house. This a great business or finance reward. We all have a list of things that need to get done, but never actually happen. – Determine what it would take to earn it, and then let a pro take care of it.
Get a pop-up camper so you can take your adventure wherever you want to go, and not have to spend money for hotel rooms.
Take a class at your local community college. Not a preparing-for-serious-work course, but one picked solely for the pleasure of a new experience.
Take sailing lessons.
Take flying lessons.
Rent a beach house for a couple weeks.
Go to the Grand Canyon.
Go see the Northern Lights.
Take a trip to go whale watching.
Go to Paris, and visit the Louvre.
Attend Mardi Gras.
Visit Machu Picchu.
Hike up a mountain.
Change careers.
Buy a camper and live a location-independent life for a year.
Move to a new house.
Ride a gondola in Venice.
Visit the Great Wall of China.
Snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef.
Tour the South of France.
Ride an elephant in Thailand.
Go out West and go on a cattle drive. Yes, it’s a thing that tourists do.
Spend a week in Bed and Breakfast in Maine, just experiencing the atmosphere.
Go to Ireland.
See the pyramids.
See the salmon run.
Release baby turtles into the ocean at a turtle sanctuary.
Go see the redwoods.
Tour a castle.
Fly first class.
Go on a safari.
Attend a luau.
Bike the Great Divide.
Hike Yellowstone National Park.
Hike Sedona AZ, and experience the vortexes.
Go on a glacier-spotting boat tour in Alaska.
Hike in Monument Valley, UT.
Run with the bulls in Pamplona (or take pictures from a balcony, safely out of goring range)
Backpack through Europe.
Hike in South America.
Backpack the Appalachian Trail.
Backpack through New Zealand. They say there aren’t actually hobbits there…but you never know…
Climb a mountain and camp on top.
Hike the highlands of Scotland.
Swim with whale sharks in Mexico.
Rent a Tuscan villa in Italy for a few weeks.
Take a helicopter tour into the Grand Canyon.
Take a helicopter tour around Sedona, to really experience the red mountains.
Take a hot air balloon tour of Sonoma County CA vineyards.
Tour the catacombs beneath Paris.
Do a horseback tour in Patagonia.
Drive among the buffalo at Custer State Park, SD.
Go to Carnival in Brazil.
Participate in the tomato-throwing festival La Tomatina, in Valencia, Spain.
Go snorkeling with manatees in FL.

And there you have it! If you have a favorite reward that you don’t see on the list, let me know in the comments so I can add it in.
Also, don’t forget to Pin this so you can find it each time you need it.