Guest post from AnnaLaura of AnnaLauraBrown.com
Having fun with the family is important to increase family bonds; however, it can also get expensive if you aren’t careful. Here are 50 ways you can have fun with your family for $10 or less:
1. Go to the dollar movie theater.
2. Rent a Redbox movie.
3. Go swimming at the community pool.
4. Go ice skating at the community rink.
5. Play at the park.
6. Do chalk art on the side walk.
7. Play Frisbee.
8. Go rollerblading.
9. Go bowling.
10. Have fun with bubbles.
11. Play with silly string.
12. Get some books at the library or go to a library reading time.
13. Make homemade play dough.
14. Dance to music.
15. Play with paper dolls.
16. Explore community gardens.
17. Run through the sprinklers in your swimming suits.
18. Make homemade ice cream.
19. Play Pictionary.
20. Play hangman.
21. Have a Long Jump contest.
22. Play a card game.
23. Make edible playdough.
24. Bake cookies.
25. Plan a scavenger hunt.
26. Play foursquare.
27. Jump rope.
28. Make homemade flubber.
29. Act out a scene from a play.
30. Play hopscotch.
31. Paint with water colors.
32. Make paper airplanes and see how far you can throw them.
33. Play marbles.
34. Play a game of tennis together.
35. Have a teddy bear tea.
36. Learn some magic tricks and then have a magic trick competition.
37. Find a free puppet show to attend. (Libraries and community centers have them all the time.)
38. Get cheap craft supplies and create your own puppets.
39. Learn how to juggle.
40. Go bobbing for apples.
41. Make marshmallow & toothpick structures.
42. Play with silly putty.
43. Have a pillow fight.
44. Make Homemade Oobleck.
45. Make a tent with boxes and blankets and play house.
46. Go camping in the backyard.
47. Have a water balloon fight.
48. Find a children’s museum with a free admission day.
49. Make soup for someone who’s sick and take it to him or her.
50. Write letters to someone who is in the military or far away from home.
What other ideas would you add to this list?
AnnaLaura Brown is a health and wellness coach who loves helping people get healthy and save money. Learn more about her on her blog at AnnaLauraBrown.com and get your free audio and over 100 healthy and inexpensive recipes.
Take a stroll on a nature trail, or take the kids to the pet store or shelter to see the pets and play with the puppies.
So many fun things that don’t cost a dime 🙂 You can also find free places to camp (in addition to your backyard) and most states offer free fishing weekends where you don’t need a license or permit. We also love to get out and explore some of the free attractions on local college campuses — many have great museums, parks and science centers that don’t charge admission.
Geocaching is fun for the whole family!
Don’t know if someone said this or not, but making bottle cap boats (or boats out of anything you can think of) and having races down a stream. You could even do it in a pool if you make light waves. Great list though by the way!
Love the list! Disc golf and geocaching are a big hit with both my 10 yr-old (and his friends) and our 4 year-old. I have the geocaching app on my phone. Both of these are usually at parks, so they are perfect stops when you are traveling.
Hiking!! We have a county wildlife preservation park not far from us. They have several different trails. We pack a few snacks and drinks in a backpack and head on out. Sometimes we are lucky enough to see some of the wildlife too!
We don’t have a dollar movie theater near us…….but our local one does have free movie viewings (usually from the pervious summer’s releases) during one day every week. Our library will show movies for free too. There are also lots of stores that do free kids’ projects over the summer as well. Home Depot and Lowe’s do them monthly year round, though I know some of the local garden shops will do gardening/plant workshops for kids too. Our local grocery stores will have times when the kids can decorate a cake or a cookie (about $10 each) for Mother’s Day.
Haven’t tried this yet, but it sounds fun.Have a family at-home spa night. Each family member will commit to a “station” where they will perform their service for the other family members. The youngest child has a “rubbing” station where he rubs each one of our feet for 30 seconds. Our daughter does manicures, Mom does facials, another child does a “lotioning station”, and Dad gives back rubs!
Peruse a local pet store
Go on a scavenger hunt. (physical or digital)
Invite friends over for dessert.
Have a family puzzle night.
Shop the used bookstore at the library.
Volunteer to do yard work for a senior citizen or single mom you know.
One summer, our family volunteered to care for a small local cemetery.
Make homemade banana splits and catch lightning bugs.
Play wiffle ball or kick ball.
Thanks for sharing these ideas!
We’re fortunate that we live 10 minutes away from the beach. A dollar’s worth of quarters is enough to pay for parking for an hour. Since my son is only 9 months old, we only spend a bout that long there. We put him in his carrier and just walk up and down the boardwalk, looking at the waves, animals, and people (the beach closest to us is near 3 retirement communities, so it’s mostly a lot of old people sitting on benches and reading the paper, not half-naked women running around and drinking). I tried taking him near the water once, but he got scared, and he likes to eat the sand, so we don’t do that, yet!
But I’m sure we’ll have lots of beach fun when they get older. And still for less than $10. 🙂
Bowling? Have you checked out the prices lately? Average game costs $3.50 a game and that doesn’t include shoe rental which averages $2.50. That $24 for a family of 4 to bowl one game. Let’s not even mention the food prices. They are as bad as the movie theater. Bowling is not a cheap date anymore.
It can be really inexpensive if you participate in the Kids Bowl Free program: https://moneysavingmom.com/2014/04/kids-bowl-free-summer-long.html — check it out if you have younger children!
This sounds like a regular week at my house! In the last two weeks, my children have camped out in the backyard, played hide and seek, acted out a story together, read books out loud, read books alone, blown bubbles, played Othello, watched movies, danced together, sang together, picked mulberries from a neighbor’s tree (with permission; we gave her lettuce from our garden in exchange), drew pictures of dream tree houses, cut flowers from the garden together, went to archery (no range fees for children under 18 here), went to Cub Scouts, went to friends’ baptisms, rode bikes to friends’ houses, attended a youth activity, played in the backyard (swings, in-ground trampoline, and a merry-go-round, plus a patio big enough to ride bikes on and roller skate on, and they did both), and did some leather working.
I loved the games kick the can, red rover, red rover, break them out of jail, and kickball while I was growing up. I played these with my kids when my kids were young. Looking for fireflies at night and putting them in a canning jar and watching them in the house with the lights out. Turning out the lights and playing hide and go seek with flashlights and a buddy. Checking out a book from the library demonstrating how to make different kinds of paper airplanes making them and then seeing which ones fly the best. Also, I was involved with delivering meals with the organization Meals on Wheels when my kids were young. I had a route once a month, and the kids loved seeing the elderly, and the elderly loved seeing my kids.
Another great idea for families would be disc golf. Buy a decent mid-range disc for each player (like a Roc or a Buzz can be under $10). Most disc golf courses are free. (If you aren’t familiar with disc golf, think “frisbee golf” but frisbee is a brand name and would never throw well enough for a disc golf course.) We literally look up disc golf courses along road trips and stop to play and stretch our legs.
What a fantastic idea for a break while traveling! Never thought about that one before. I’d love to hear how you find courses on your route.
What about a good old game of hide and seek.
Great idea!
I would love to see a list to do with older kids! Think 10 and 14 :). It can be so hard to get that out of their rooms and interested in anything past tv and video games at this age. Need some family bonding help! Btw I have a teenage girl and my ten year old is a boy which makes it even harder to get them interested in the SAME thing!
Well, maybe not only $10, but way less than $10 per time . . . invest in some good games like Ticket to Ride, Word on the Street, or Rise of Augustus. There are a ton of really great games out there that might get those teens out of their rooms. (There are a ton of great games made by companies like Out of the Box and Mayfair.)
We bought Settlers of Catan plus the 5-6 player expansion, plus Seafarers and the 5-6 player Seafarers expansion spending $120. We have owned it for 14 years now and have played it well over 100 times (probably more like 200-300). Not a cost-per-game, huh? Settlers has a high learning curve so if you aren’t used german games, it might not be a good first-pick.
Love Settlers of Catan!
I too would welcome ideas for older kids.
I have a 13-yo, and I’d love for her to get involved in a service project of some sort this summer, but I’m not sure what she could do given that I work full time outside the home and she’s not old enough to drive yet.
I would recommend looking into Sole Hope. Their website is http://www.solehope.org. I purchased the 10 person shoe party kit which gives you everything that you need to get started. I have spent some good times with my 15 year old twin daughters making shoe kits for children in Uganda. I have also watched as my daughters begin to realize that kids in other parts of the world struggle much more than we do. The teenage years are very self-focused years so this has been a fantastic project to draw them out of themselves.
Think board games such as aggravation or even jenga(though I know it isn’t a BOARD game) thinks like that. We often bake things like cookies or homemade pizza. We would somethimes “go crazy” as my godchildren would call it. For this we left electronics at home and all got in the car and drove somewhere. No one knew where we would end up- not even the driver! The point wasn’t where we went but the fun we had getting there with music and talking about things. Acting sill is critical to this mission!
Don’t think I saw a picnic on this list. We have had them indoors when the weather isn’t so pleasant.
Also a museum membership can be expensive up front, but we use our zoo membership so frequently it definitely works out to be less than $10 a visit.
Such a great list Crystal! It actually brought back a few memories.
Remember the movie Matilda? At the end, she and Miss Honey had that big old house to themselves. And what did they do? They read together, ate chocolate, went rollerskating in the living room, and rolled around on the carpet. And of course, danced around and acted silly. Total cost? $0.
I’ll have to rent Matilda on RedBox and watch it with my granddaughter! 🙂 Thanks for a great post and another idea!