Guest Post – Frugal Fun With Kids

Welcome my fellow blogger Texan Mama from her blog Who Put Me In Charge Of These People. She is a sassy southern gal raising four kids in the DFW area. In her pre-mommy years she taught high school math, and plans to resume teaching once the kids are older. She loves a bargain, scrapbooking, reading and gardening. She says she could sit around all day doing math problems. Okay, I need an Excedrin just thinking about doing that! Stop on over and say howdy y’all!
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When my kids were little, I didn’t think too much about the cost of having them. I mean, they didn’t eat too much, I bought most of their clothes at garage sales or consignment shops, and everyplace we went that required admission was always free for young children. Well, as they say, the honeymoon’s over…

Now my kids are 9, 7, 6, and 16 months. Sending our kids to a private school pretty much bleeds our bank account. So, when summer finally rolls around, the kids look at me longingly for fun activities to keep them busy. Hey, I’m all for keeping them entertained, but… I don’t want it to send us into debt. Every time we go to the pool, BANG! $30 bucks. When we go to Six Flags, BANG! $180 bucks just to get in the gate (and that’s WITH a coupon!). The zoo? BANG! Art Museum? BANG! Even the Ice Cream man with his jolly music-playing van? BANG! So, after all these BANGS left my wallet practically dead, I needed to find a way to get more BANG for my BUCK.

Creative (and cheap) Ways to Keep Kids Entertained
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are just some of the things I have come up with in my years as a penny-pinching, fun-loving mama:

Look for Coupons
EVERYWHERE. – Many free publications (the ones in stacks near the door of the supermarket) have coupons in them, if you’re willing to look. I’ve found the best deals in the free parenting magazines. And if you find a good coupon, pick up more than one magazine and clip all the coupons! I also find coupons in the famous blue Val-Pak, the Money Mailer, and the circulars that come in the mail every week. Don’t forget to look online.

Just Gotta Have Faith
Churches are a great place to find free fun, and you don’t have to be a member to enjoy yourself. Every summer, churches will host events like carnivals, ice cream socials, picnics, and craft fairs and they invite people from the community. They WANT to see new faces. And, as a bonus, these places quite often have special activities geared just towards the under 12 crowd.

Think Exercise
What’s a creative way to get your kids up and moving? One activity I (as well as my kids) used to love is to make an indoor obstacle course. I’d set up chairs to crawl underneath, ribbons to walk on for a “tightrope walk” and paper plates to hop onto. Other ideas for keeping active: have a headstand contest, learn the crab walk, play follow the leader.

Keeping it clean
Wash your car at home with the help of your kids. Let them wash their bikes and scooters. Get a sprayer nozzle and let the kids wash the side of the house.

Go watch sports events of local teams
You don’t have to pay for the big ticket of major-league teams. Go see a minor-league baseball team play. Or, check out a collegiate team from the local college or university. And, don’t forget to support your little-league players too! At lots of these events you are allowed to bring your own concessions, so don’t worry about paying for a $5 hot dog or a $4 soda – just bring your own cooler!

Look for free/cheap community events
Our local library shows a recently released kids movie one Saturday each month. Our old pool gave 25-cent admission on the 25th of the month throughout the summer. The Art Museum has free admission on Tuesdays after 4pm. Even the local Children’s Museum is free on Friday evenings. Just bear in mind that the crowds will be bigger at these times, so plan to have an extra set of eyes watching your flock!

Take a class
Lowe’s and Home Depot offer free Children’s Workshop classes. Kids get to build stuff with their own hands and the store provides all the materials free of charge. They are usually held on Saturday afternoons. You can also check out the local community college offerings. Many will provide special one- or two-day classes on topics like bugs or photography.

Camps
Check out the Parks & Rec Department – I swear, there is no better value for your dollar than camps offered through your local Parks & Rec. Usually the camps are day-camps with a theme, like Nature Camp or Patriotic Week or Arts & Crafts week. The cost is always reasonable (we send our kids for $30 each – that’s six hours a day for 5 days! And they get a t-shirt too!) Also, most churches will hold a Vacation Bible School, which is like day camp in a church environment. You don’t need to be a member of that church to attend. It is always free and the kids can go from one church to another, attending as many different camps as they like. VBS is usually a week long, for a half-day each week.

Be creative at home
What are you recycling this week? Pull it out and – voila! It is your child’s canvas for his next masterpiece. Give him some paint and an old cereal box or 2-liter bottle and let his imagination go. Or, use that 2-liter bottle to build a terrarium. And, one of my all-time favorite home activities is to plant a garden. The cost for seeds, and the return on your investment, is immeasurable. Plus, a kid learns that tomatoes come from the ground, not from the supermarket.

Imaginative play
Got a hairbrush & barrette? Play “Beauty Salon”. Got some band-aids? Play “hospital”. Got some paper plates? Play “restaurant”. Got any books? Play “library”. Got any envelopes? Play “post office”.

Scouting
Talk about bang for your buck, the cost for a year of scouting can’t be beat. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts alike are organizations that teach responsibility and values while providing opportunities for friendship, leadership, and personal growth. The cost is next to nothing (usually less than $50 annually), and the den or troop will meet regularly throughout the whole year. Can you think of another organization that keeps children engaged for 1-2 hours every week, for only about $5 a month?

These are only a few ideas. The real secret is to keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t be lazy and just fall into what’s easy. BUT also don’t blow all your ideas the very first week of summer vacation. Store them up and spread them out. And allow yourself to splurge on the ice-cream truck every once in a while!

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