Yesterday I touched on adult education classes as making a great Mother’s Day gift, but they can also be a great gift for yourself. They’re usually short, taught in the evening, and fairly inexpensive.

For example, my wife just completed a basic-to-intermediate cooking class offered by our county’s public school system. She attended four three-hour classes taught by a Hyatt executive chef who has prepared meals for U.S. presidents. While she wishes there were more classes left to attend, I can tell she’s already learned a lot of new cooking techniques, and it’s already reflecting in her everyday cooking. My stomach and I both agree that it was well worth the sub-$200 price tag. (Though what in the world was that horrendous potato salad from class #3, sweetie? I know you didn’t have a hand in it, but… yikes. I can still taste it sometimes.)

To find adult education offerings in your area, simply run a search engine query for “adult education your-geographic-area,” where “your-geographic-area” is the name of your city, county, or state. Try all three because you may notice pricing differences between similar offerings depending on whether your city or your county runs the class.

Here are some of the many topics you may find offered in local adult education classes:

• Arts and crafts
• Ballroom dancing
• Boating and fishing
• Cooking
• Foreign languages
• Gardening
• Parenting
• Personal finance (though you can get that here for free!)
• Self-defense
• Sports
• Yoga

Your area might also hold child education classes to help keep your kids busy during the summer, so be sure to check that out, too.