Frugal Friday: Cheap ways to enjoy summer with your family

Two words I don’t want to hear from my children this summer, “I’m bored”. And in order to keep these words from slipping out of their mouths, my husband and I have had to be creative and intentional this summer in keeping the kids active and involved in fun activities that don’t cost a lot of money.

Here are some of the things we’ve done so far:

:: Summer reading program at the library – the kids earned great prizes and we made trips to the library probably 3-4 times a week!

:: Park district programs – right now Breanna is doing the “Pioneer Day Camp” for 3 days at a local farm. She loves it and is really learning a lot. So far they’ve chopped wood, made corn bread and butter, and today they’re going fishing!

:: Walk – we’ve taken many, many walks this summer to Walgreens, Aldi, the Riverwalk, the park, etc….  Yesterday’s walk was eventful. We decided to take a walk and go the “long way” which involves walking a good distance on a bike trail with lots of weeds and long grass growing on both sides of the trail. Not a good idea at 7:30pm. The mosquitoes were out in full force, and we did not escape.

:: Bought a cheap pool at Aldi and let the kids go “swimming” in the backyard.

:: Let the kids run in the sprinkler.

:: Bought water balloons to throw.

:: Fireworks – the cheap kind. We bought smoke bombs and a few other varieties that were fun to take on walks or to the park to light.

:: Made a volcano – I think we had everything for the volcano around the house, and Ruben did this fun project with the kids.

:: Bike riding – the kids either ride bikes or use their scooters often.

:: Zoo – we visit the free local zoo about twice a month.

:: Took advantage of free meals at Chick-fil-A – our local restaurant has lots of family-friendly promotions.

:: Played a family game – cards or a board game. For these games, David normally sits on someone’s lap because he is too small to understand how to play, and Isaac is on someone’s team because he can’t yet play on his own. 🙂

These are just some of the fun and frugal things we’ve done this summer.

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