The Best Ways to Use Your Extra Day This Weekend

Happy Labor Day Weekend! While everyone else online (and social media) laments about summer being over, we want to use this time to remind you that you probably have a bonus day off on Monday. That’s a free day to do whatever you want! You can use it to do something fun, or something productive, or something fun and then something productive!

What to do? We’ve got some suggestions.

Labor Day mattress sales get all the hype, but the deals extend far and wide beyond sleep stuff. To prove it to you, we’ve rounded up some of the best sales happening this weekend.

Read more: The Best Sales Happening for Labor Day Weekend — And What to Buy

Summer produce is about to be a fleeting memory, so get as much of it as you can, while you can! At the very least, get a bunch of tomatoes and corn. If you’re looking for inspiration beyond those two things, let this list be your guide.

Read more: 25+ Recipes to Turn Your Farmers Market Haul into Dinner

Grab a beer or pour yourself a drink (ideally in a shatterproof cup!) and spend an hour or two playing a lawn game. Why? Lawn games are fun. That’s why.

Related: The Lawn Game That’s So Much Better than Cornhole

You’ve probably noticed that we write a lot about Costco. That’s because the warehouse store’s pricing and product quality is hard to beat. We strongly believe that a Costco membership pays for itself and that there are even ways to make it work when you don’t have a large family. Take an afternoon to go sign up and browse the aisles.

• Should You Get a Costco Membership?
  
• The First 5 Things to Buy with Your New Costco Membership
• Some of the First Things Our Readers Ever Bought at Costco

It’s a little late, depending on where you live, to start thinking about an outdoor garden. But that’s what countertops and windowsills were invented for! (Okay, not really, but you get our point!)

• The Easiest Herb You Can Grow Indoors
  
• The Easiest Vegetable You Can Grow Indoors
  
• The Easiest (Annual) Herb You Can Grow Indoors
  
• The Easiest Aromatic You Can Grow Indoors

Got some leftovers from, um, who knows when? Carve out a bit of time to clean out your fridge and freezer. Bonus: If it’s hot where you are, the cold air can help cool you off. Just don’t leave the doors open for too long!

Read more: How To Clean the Refrigerator and How To Clean The Freezer

Maybe you’ve just been batting them away because you were late for work or too tired to deal with them at the end of the day, but now is the time to deal with fruit flies if you have them. Catching them is really not hard. We promise.

Read this: Here’s the Most Foolproof Way to Get Rid of Fruit Flies

Pick a drawer — any drawer — and organize it. Don’t have a drawer? Organize something else (your countertop, a pantry shelf, and your container cabinet are all good candidates!)! Just do one small thing and you’ll feel so accomplished, you just might want to tackle another cluttered area.

• Before & After: How I Transformed My Junk Drawer Without Buying a Single Organizer
  
• How To Build a Diagonal Drawer Organizer
• The $10 Amazon Buy That Finally Helped Me Get My Narrow Silverware Drawer in Order

If you aren’t much of a meal planner, this week would be a good one to get started because it’s a shorter work week. Where to start? We’ve got it covered.

• The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Planning: What to Know, How to Succeed, and What to Skip
  
• 5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me 5 Years Ago About Meal Planning
  
• 5 Easy, Delicious Dinners for Meal Plan Beginners

You probably thought of this well before we suggested it (you love home cooking just as much as we do!). Here are some specific ideas.

• 10 Canning and Preserving Projects to Do This Long Weekend
  
• 5 New Dinners to Cook Before Summer Ends
  
• How To Make Fresh Pasta from Scratch

What are you doing this weekend?