Welcome to Frugal Photo Friday! This month, I am partnering with Rebekah from SimplyRebekah.com. Each Friday we are sharing pictures of simple ways that we save money. This week’s themes are kids and bath & beauty.
We love the library! In fact, my kids would go there every day if we could!
We invest $25 per year to get the Gold Card to our local library so that we can have unlimited holds (they usually cost $0.25 per hold) and this is probably one of the best $25 we spend all year. Thanks to our local library, we have all sorts of adventures through books, make precious memories while cuddled up sharing a book together, and learn many new things each week — all for practically free!
{You can see the chapter books we’ve read aloud this year so far here. We also go through dozens of picture books each month, plus the girls and I check out lots of books to read independently.}
Cooking together is a such a fun way to get things done, while enjoying being together at the same time. Plus, I’ve found that it can double as math practice for youngsters: we count the cups and teaspoons of ingredients as we put them in and talk about simple addition and subtraction.
{Pictured: Making Homemade Pumpkin Spice Lattes with Silas.}
Who says you have to buy expensive toys to have fun? Our kids love playing with boxes, creating with paper, and pretending their playset in the backyard is their spy team headquarters. A little imagination and creativity can provide hours of free fun!
{Pictured: The Paper Doll Chains we made for our Early American History study recently.}
Kaitlynn made a picnic for us to enjoy outside on the deck while we worked on our homeschool lessons one day this week (she even put a fresh flower she’d picked on each of our trays!). Free Vitamin D, fresh air, and memories all while getting lunch and lessons in = score! 🙂
Um, I’ve got pretty much nothing on the bath & beauty part as that’s not really my cup ‘o tea. Unless you count the fact that I don’t use shaving cream or that I only have six mix and match outfits. 🙂
Head over to SimplyRebekah to see the savings that Rebekah is sharing today.
Now it is your turn to share the simple ways that you save. Share your link below or on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #FrugalPhotoFriday. All of the link-up details and themes for each week can be found here.
I just recently realized that some library’s charge/have a limit on holds. We have unlimited book check-out and holds. I frequently have at least 40+ books on hold. We can also check out materials (books) for a month and renew them twice. Our library has tons of programs going on all year-round. They also provide many classes for adults on how to use computers, the interent, microsoft word, etc.
Our library levy is on this November’s ballot and I am praying it passes. I have never realized how awesome my library was until this school.
My library doesn’t charge for holds, but I appreciate the service so much that I’d pay for it if necessary. With little children, it is so wonderful to walk into the library and have my books waiting for me at the front desk! I love it!
I love the idea of unlimited holds. I wish our library offered it as an option.
Count me among those who are shocked that your library charges for holds! Our normal cards allow up to 15 holds at a time with a 4 week check-out period. But if you homeschool you can request a teacher’s card which allows unlimited holds, a 6 week check-out period, and no overdue fees! It’s nothing for me to have 50+ items on hold at a time – I just read your post to my husband who said “We’d be bankrupt in no time!” :o)
Wow , I also didn’t realize that libraries charge to hold books. We also can get any book from a different library and there is no fee. They also have story time hour for up to school age, and after school programs. and summertime programs and there is no charge for any of this. I knew our library was great!
I spy your climbing super-boy again! 🙂
Your little one’s school book looks familiar- my 1st grader is enjoying one just like it. 🙂
I am a big fan of reading aloud to kids. I just made a list the other day of a few favorite chapter books for reading out loud: http://www.examiner.com/article/chapter-books-to-read-aloud-with-your-family.
Love the little tag on your library basket. Very nice touch. 🙂
Our library lets us put things on hold for free. But we do pay quite a bit in taxes each year so I am sure it all balances out in the end. We also can dowload 3 songs for free from our library each week through freegal which is really great. My mom-in-law is a librarian so she always lets me know of any new services we can get through the library.
Boxes are always a big hit around our house too. The kid will make things out of them or just use them to store things. Their most recent project with a box was making our cat a new bed.
It seems like little Kaitlynn will be quite the hostess as she gets older. 🙂
Crystal, my library doesn’t charge for holds either, but I would certainly pay the fee if they did! $25 a year to use the library?? That is a no brainer!! 🙂
My two oldest kids (4 and 5) can also spend hours outside involved in some imaginary game and the playset is often their spaceship, boat, or something else.
And it’s obvious that you don’t have any very little ones anymore. 6 outfits would never do (unless I wanted to spend my entire life doing laundry, which I often feel like I do as is) for me. It seems like I go through 3 each day lately. One in the morning to exercise, a clean one after I shower, and more often than not I get spit up on, or a snotty nose wiped on, or spilled on or something so I usually have to change again if it’s a night we have church or some other commitment!
Haha! I actually have *more* clothes now than I did when I had babies — but I sure did laundry often then! 🙂
I’m so glad our library doesn’t charge! I request books all the time. It’s nice because our closest library doesn’t always have the books, but another book in district does, so after a few days I can pick them up.
Yeah, I’m shocked that places charge for holds. I live in a large city and our library doesn’t charge us anything.
Crystal, do we have to link up only pictures for the theme? I write my frugal accomplishments for the week on Saturdays, so I linked up my list of things (including a picture, sometimes there are lots of pictures!) that we do each week to save money. Mine includes some things I did for the children but also things I did for the whole family.
I am shocked that your library charges for holds!
Last weekend when the grandchildren were here they played outside with me for 2 hours and all they had was an empty Italian ice cup. They had a blast finding things to put in their cups and filling them up with hickory nuts to roll down the slide.
Oh man, I didn’t realize some libraries charged for reserves! Ours lets us ask for things all over the county, and we get 15 free reserves at a time, which rotate out once they arrive. That is usually plenty for us considering each adult has a card. I didn’t know what a blessing this was!
When we lived in other towns, they didn’t charge — which was really nice. However, for how many books we put on hold and check out, I’m more than happy to pay a little fee each year for all the money it saves us! 🙂
We can have unlimited holds. I didn’t realize other places charged!