How does your family have fun and stay frugal?

[ajrsmom]

I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say that I am always looking for frugal entertainment ideas for my family. With prices rising on everything all around us, "free" or "next-to-free" entertainment is music to my ears!

Fortunately, we are lucky to live in an area where we can take advantage of numerous activities that cost next to nothing. YAY!

I found a lot of great suggestions in the article "Frugal Entertainment for the Whole Family". We have put many of his suggestions to good use!

Take a look at the article then let us know if you found it to be informative by taking part in the attached poll. This is a multiple choice poll so you can choose more than one answer. If you have other activities that you take part in, please share them with us!

I will add some other activities that we've done, in a later post,

Thanks!
Tami

[Crafty Amanda]

Something else we do is go to our local beach. We live in a lake town, so we have a small beach that is open to the public. It doesn't cost anything to go and there's sand as well as grassy area, and even a few picnic tables. There's also a pier area the kids can jump off of.

Another one is fishing. In our neighborhood we have a pond. We have an association fee that we pay through the HOA and that covers the maintenance of the pond. My youngest son fishes in there several times a week and spends hours down there. It's stocked with bass, croppy and bluegill. There's tons of turtles in there too!

[Mish]

Ok my beach here does charge.You put the money in the box.But we go to the park use the splash pads,.I have some coupons from when the kids did their reading and going to try and use them up.Aslo some for the indoor places.I still have alot of coupons from the booklet that I got from the pta.My family doesn't really complain too much.We try to have as much fun as we can and they appreciate it when mom has to spend some money to do the other stuff too.
Mish

[DeBora4BobbyL]

I haven't thought about minor league sports that we have in West Texas. We also have a river in NM that affords people who like to go fishing to do their sport for free.

That was a good article and I hadn't thought about the Farmer's Market. I need to figure out when it is and where it is and go. I believe it is Saturday morning.

[craftchick]

Almost every town now has a discount theatre. We have a $2.00 movie theatre a town away from us. My husband and I love to invite other couples to come with us, we carpool & we usually find a place to have dinner that is running a special for two, like Texas Road House has dine for 2 for $14.95. Or we find a coupon deal for a special on dinner.
It's a great way to enjoy friends, conversations and a good movie. We even share pop corn, they refill for free at most theatres.

It's not free but it's frugal and memorable.
We always say we need to do this again.
craftchick
Ceci

[Pag36]

We get movies/DVD's from the library and both Adam and Judy can watch a movie over & OVER. Not me tho'
But we have concerts in front of the Gazebo at Ft Monroe that are free and they are on Thur nites thro' out the spring/summer

[ajrsmom]

We have taken part in all of the activities in this article except minor league sports (but we want to take the kids to a basketball game around here and to a hockey game somewhere.) and the zoo passes because we don't have a zoo that's really close to us. We did visit an NC zoo and it wasn't too expensive for the fun that the kids had. I would love to live closer to be able to buy passes to go whenever you wanted to!

We have a movie theatre that shows free summer movies for kids and one that shows summer kids movies for $1.00. We've gone twice this summer and plan on going to one more in Aug. We've already seen the rest of them.

We have a movie/game rental place close to our house that has a lot of movies 2/1.00, $1.00 or even free kids movies--mostly aimed at younger kids my DD's age. My DH brings home a lot of newer movies that his buddy from work will lend us so that's free, too!

Last summer we toured our local TV news station for free! We live close to Charlotte where they broadcast so it wasn't a far drive for us. We got to sit in while they were doing a live broadcast and they were sooo nice to us!! You can do it in your towns, too. Just find the "contact us" link on their website and write to them about it.

Today (Thursday) we are going to tour a local radio station. YAY! I hope that it turns out to be as much fun as the TV station tour.

We've also toured a firestation this summer. Very cool! Most police, fire and EMS stations will give tours if you call ahead of time to set something up.

Our farmer's market is Sat. morning. I've missed it every day this year because I keep forgetting about it! I went to it last year but I can't say that it was all that frugal.

My kids and I go to the library once a week. My DD just got her own library card. Their storytimes are great and the kids get to make a craft to go along with the story--free, too!

We have a small park across the street from the back of our apartment complex. They are building walking trails there now. There's not much to do there but at least the kids can run around.

Santa loaded the kids up with board games last year and we've picked up a few more from yard sales and GoodWill. We have a family game night once in a while--not nearly as much as we should, though. I know that my kids would love to do it more often.

Coloring and drawing is another frugal activity for younger kids. You can pick up coloring books at a dollar store or print pages off of the Internets (here on FC! ). Great artwork to display!!

I really enjoyed the article and I love reading everyone's extra tips!! Keep them coming!!

[Crafty Amanda]

Good point about the coloring pages Tami, we keep a bunch of coloring books around. And believe it or not, once in a while my teenage daughter will color too. Here are FC's coloring pages if you want to print off some freebies

[DeBora4BobbyL]

I have software that turns photos into coloring pages. My GKs love it when I make them coloring books out of events, such as NASCAR races or birthday parties, that they've been to. I don't know if there is something similar online for those who have photos they want changed into coloring pages.

[Crafty Amanda]

Originally Posted by DeBora43

I have software that turns photos into coloring pages. My GKs love it when I make them coloring books out of events, such as NASCAR races or birthday parties, that they've been to. I don't know if there is something similar online for those who have photos they want changed into coloring pages.

Really? Cool What's the name of it, I'd like to look into that