25 Free or Low-Cost Entertainment Ideas

This post is part of my continuing series, “A Family Guide to Living on Less”. If you’ve missed any of the previous posts, you can catch up here:

1. How Deep is the Hole You’re In?
2. Luxuries and Necessities
3. Creating a Budget
4. Credit Cards are for Emergencies
5. Not by Bread Alone
6. How to Cut Back on Discretionary Spending

Now on to the list! Before the days of electronic babysitters, families did things together to have fun. These “old-fashioned” ideas are applicable again. If you’ve never done many of these activities, the kids may be suspicious and reluctant to participate at first. Older children may worry about looking ridiculous. Gently insist on their participation, set the example with your own, throw back your head, laugh, and have fun!

Outdoor Activities:

• Games: ball, soccer, Frisbee, croquet, handball, badminton, volleyball, etc.
• Picnics and cookouts
• Hiking
• Biking
• Cross-country skiing
• Sledding
• Ice-skating/roller-skating
• Concerts/Plays in the park
• The zoo
• Visiting the airport/train station with little kids
• Camping out in the backyard
• Utilizing parks (city, county, state, national)
• Street fairs
• Ethnic festivals
• Parades

Indoor Activities:

• Games: board, card, charades
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Making a home video movie (write script, make costumes, plan the actions, etc.)
• Writing a play (same as above)
• Museums
• Crafts
• Reading to each other
• Cooking/baking together
• Drawing/Painting
• Lectures/slide shows at libraries, colleges, etc.

These are by no means exhaustive lists of activities. Look in the community newspaper and watch bulletin boards (at libraries and around stores) for more ideas. Many organizations have fairs, pancake breakfasts, and get-togethers of all kinds that are generally cheap, interesting, and fun.

These pastimes may be quite different from how you have entertained yourself and your family in the past. However, don’t assume they are poor substitutes. You might discover that they offer more opportunities for conversation with each other, more chances to develop skills long forgotten (when was the last time you rode a bike down a park trail?), and more ways to know your own community and neighbors better. These are valuable trade-offs.

It’s important for you to realize that you can cut back and still have lots of fun. You simply have to establish priorities that are agreeable to you as a family and be willing to experiment with novel activities that work within the budget.

**Next time I being tackling the Food Budget: Thinking Differently about Meal Preparation.**

Tagged as: entertainment, Family, free, low-cost