by Jim
Kids + Summer = Budget Blown?
This is a question I am asking myself. How do I keep summer activities from blowing up my budget? We have found some cheap ways and some not so cheap ways to enjoy our summer instead of taking a vacation which would really blow our budget out of the sky.
For the last two years since my son was born we have forgone vacation to try to do stay-cations. But the thing is we live in the middle of nowhere, there isn’t much for anyone to in my county. Every Skook (what people call another from our county) jokes that there is just as many bars as there are churches. It is half joke, half reality, unless you want to go to a bar every night there is nothing to do.
I want my kids to enjoy their summer, but I know I have to be mindful about what we are spending, how we are spending it, and the benefit of the activity.
Here are some ways we have managed to do, plan on doing, or want to do. Each will hopefully give us some fond and everlasting moments.
1. Swimming – There are three possible places that we can swim all have their pros and cons.
Community pool – This is by far the whole family’s favorite out of the three. It is a walk in pool that is split of into two sections. The one we stay in goes up to 4 1/2 ft. I believe. It has activities in the shallow end that include 2 teeter totter that shoot water at each other, a umbrella that mists at the end, a giraffe that also shots water, and buckets that dump water. My wife and I can basically relax knowing the kids will have a good time and it is less stressful. The con is that it is $15 a day for our family. We are contemplating on getting a season pass that would cost $120, but will we go there eight more times before the end of the summer? We have gone twice this past month. So far the cost has been $30, with I am not sure how much.
My mother’s house – I am not partial of going here not because of the company, but the pool. It is a walk in – in ground pool, but it immediately goes to one foot and continues out to 8 feet. After the flood a few years ago, they have yet to get the safety up to par. This makes my wife and I a little hesitant to go often. The only cost however is the gas it takes to get to my mom’s, which I estimate at around $7.50. We have yet to go swimming here.
Local Lakes – There are two local lakes that allow swimming in the national park. They even have a little beach front. They are free to get in, and you can even reserve a pavilion that includes picnic tables and a grill to cook on. When we go here we make a whole day out of it. I would estimate our cost to drive there to be around $5.00. So what’s wrong about this? The lake isn’t that clear and my wife really can’t stand swimming there. So far we have gone once here.
2. Movies – Every Tuesday the movie theater has a family movie for only $1 per person. This also includes a kid’s activity and lunch at the conclusion. This is amazing, and we can’t wait to take the kids to these. We also plan to do the local drive-in once this summer. On car load night, it will only cost us $14 to fit as many people in our Grand Caravan.
3. Festivals, Fairs, and Block Parties – By far probably my favorite part of the summer. I love all the music festivals that pop up during this great season as well as all different other festivals. A few I have went to over the last few years include a Pow-Wow, Folk Festival, Jazz Festival, Pepper Festival, and Craft Fairs. Most of the time these are dirt cheap, we spend the day, and have lots of fun.
4. Hiking – The whole family don’t get to do this much, because of my wife’s medical conditions. But I do try to go at least once a year to my favorite place in the world (a hiking trail that includes waterfalls.) Earlier this month my daughter and I were able to share this place with both my wife and son for the first time. As well as her brother and his family.
5. Zoo – This is a must in our family. Our kids just simply love this experience (we go at least six times a year.) Only thing is, this is yearly expense as we buy a membership and it is coming up on our renewal. I actually plan to upgrade the membership this year to be able to do a few additional things while we are there. Last year, I estimated the cost that it would pay itself back after the second time. This year, it probably will be closer to four times. But it will be well worth it.
6. Home Improvement Workshops – All the major Home Improvement Stores hold a monthly free workshop for kids. This is great for my daughter, as she gets to learn to build cool things and have fun doing it. This month she will be building a Bug House at Home Depot and a Turbo snail with a motor and a TurboTaco Truck at Lowes.
7. Museums & Factories – We haven’t really gone to many of these yet as the kids are a little too young to understand, but I think we might start to implement them this year. We have gone to some cool places that I wouldn’t technically consider a museum but more of a factory… Such as HersheyPark Chocolate World and the Crayola Factory. One cost money, the other was free.
How about you? How are you trying to enjoy the summer?
What a fun post. I like to hear what folks do in their neck of the woods to have fun in the summer. Especially when it includes free things. You might also look into free programs at your local library. Ours has a storyteller once a month, and a summer reading program. I don’t have kids but I remember loving those programs when I was a kid.
There is a good library program around here, which my daughter would love. I really wish we could do this, except that the day it lands on is the day she is with her father. :-/
That’s a great list, Jim. I love, love summers here in Minneapolis, especially after our brutal winter this year. In the summers I am not teaching, of course, so I spend a lot of time just enjoying being home, cooking with more imagination (!), catching up on crafts and needlework, walking, and enjoying our beautiful city and its summer events. We also take our granddaughter to different city parks ( I have never seen any city with so many lovely parks as Minneapolis) and to Home Depot, too, for their woodworking for kids. We may take a couple road trips, but for me a true vacation is relaxing at home.
I can only imagine what Minneapolis was like this last winter. PA got hit bad, and I hear that area is always worse.
I love all the things that you do. I really love to cook, but I have a problem with this at our home. I actually start hating some cooking at the house since our kitchen is so small and I have no room to actually prep or anything. But with the summer I do love my grilling!
I also would love to take up quilting, but realized that I need to know how to sew first. I looked into classes at craft stores and everything. I just couldn’t justify paying that price for a hobby I am not sure I would like. Plus the craft store is a hour away.
With my paper route, we really can’t take a road trip, but we were in talks of going to a campsite near my mom’s. Long enough to be away from it all, but short enough to have me back every morning.
The library is a great idea – when my kids were little we spent many, MANY hours there, especially during the summer! Our town also has Friday concerts in the park that are free – you just bring a picnic dinner and listen to music – perhaps yours has something similar?
I really wish there was Sue, but to be honest there isn’t any parks in my town. I am however, looking to expand our reach into towns 1/2 – 1 hour away.
Our town does a Thursday Night Market that has entertainment, food trucks and a farmer’s market. But, it can get expensive if we let my daughter do the bounce house and big slide, so it isn’t always a frugal option. We also have a Friday night concert in the park. We sometimes have a movie in the park (last month we went to Frozen in the park – it was quite fun, but my daughter, 5yo, fell asleep before it was over). We also have a lot of stuff at the library during the summer for all ages. We are lucky that our city has so much to offer. I definitely want my daughter to start doing the builds at Home Depot and Lowe’s though.
I would really love to move to a town that they do more for the community. I just don’t see that happening without a big legal battle with my daughter’s father.
Where did we get the idea that we must be entertained all the time? Teaching children how to entertain themselves with simple pleasures is extremely important, especially if you want to break the cycle of debt. They need to learn that there are ways to entertain and soothe that don’t involve the spending of money.
Sprinkler in the yard and/or a kiddie pool provides wet play and cooling down. Cost? Whatever water is in your area plus maybe $30 for a pool and some inflatables. You can float in just a few inches of water so one year I bought one of those 16″ deep, 8′ across pools, filled it up and floated on a $2 pool mattress. Sure, it was only a few inches from side to side but the floating was the same as if I was in a fancy pool. And no travel time!
Sand box and reclining lawn chair Let the kids play in the sandbox while you recline in your yard reading a book from the library.
Bike riding. Explore. Put on backpacks and bike to the store and do the shopping (everyone carrying an item or two in their backpack.) We were rural so couldn’t bike to the grocery store but we could bike to the fishing hole and kill a few hours there.
Playdates. Invite friends over to play. I ran a daycare so my kids had built-in playmates for some of the summer (families would take holidays so that gave me time alone with my kids.)
Drive into the city and take a public bus ride. That was a big hit with my daycare. We’d drive into the city, park the car on a side street, wait for a bus to take us downtown, and then ride the glass elevator in an office building. Where we lived, there were no elevators so I was teaching the kids two life skills 1) public transit and 2) how to use an elevator. They loved it. We’d pack a picnic lunch and sit on a pedestrian mall bench and people watch. I remember the first time I did that, I had 4 kids with me and my daughter, who was about 7 asked how much the bus ride was costing. “Two dollars” I replied (children under 10 rode free) and she replied, “This is excellent value.”
BTW: that daughter still doesn’t own a car, they always select homes near excellent transit. She can drive (after all, she grew up in the country where there was no transit) and she inherited a car from my dad, but she sold it in order to avoid the monthly expense of car ownership. My son owns a car but he works hospital shift work so the buses aren’t always running when he gets off work and it isn’t safe to bike home in the morning rush-hour after a 12 hour overnight shift. Financially, my daughter is doing better than my son as a result.
Just playing. They need to learn how to amuse themselves. Toys that encourage them to make up stories while they play (doll houses, lego, cars, Barbies) help them exercise their imagination. Play is how children process everything in their life and when we deny them play time by scheduling too many activities, we deny them time to process and overcome the events in their lives that need addressing.
As a homeschooler, I second CanadianKate’s idea. Just getting out of their way and letting their imagination carry them is a great gift a parent can give a child! Not to mention, learning to entertain themselves is an invaluable skill that they will use for the rest of their lives!
This is a great post, but the truth of the matter is that at the moment not many of the things are possible with our family for ALL of us to enjoy. The first two you mentioned (sprinkler and sandbox) we have done and still do.
Without going into much detail, there aren’t many kids in this neighborhood. My son has one boy his age. Out of friends and family this is the only boy we know of. My daughter is better off now that she is in school where we are meeting new kids.
The two are getting better at amusing themselves. For the longest time my daughter wouldn’t play with anything. Now all she wants to do is play with her brother’s toys.
Oh, I forgot checking out play structures in parks farther away from home. Our village had two, but when I’d go grocery shopping, we’d go earlier, and have a picnic in a park in that town and play there before the shopping trip.
This was a Sunday afternoon favorite growing up. I’m from a large family so we’d go for a Sunday afternoon drive and play on a different playground structure every time. It was great fun and we’d finish off with an ice cream cone on the way home.
I’m not sure of your religious leanings, but one of my fav free activities for my little ones, especially when I’m just craving a break is the local churches’ Vacation Bible Schools. They are typically 2-3 hours either day or night hours and they are FREE. My kids love them, they learn silly songs, make cool crafts and just generally have a really good time.
As a single mom, these have been a life saver for me in the summers. I space them out about a month, giving them a break from activities and then me a break 🙂
This is an excellent idea Hope. I did this as a kid (I believe we went to three a year.) I will look into this more, for we want to really look for a church that we feel at home at.
Great post Jim! I’m glad to hear about what your family is trying to do the enjoy themselves for free and very cheap this summer. Best of luck!
These are pretty good ideas for cheap fun. We’re also looking into fun and cheap if not free things to do this summer. Of course, we start off with some wilderness camping this week …but since it’s for a family reunion it’ll be in northern california, ouch..with gas being this high.
How much is Gas in CA right now OC?
I really love camping and I want to show my children what it means to me. I never knew how much I loved that kind of stuff till the military. As a child, we didn’t these kind of things. Like for instance, my daughter really wants to go fishing. I don’t really know how to fish or where to begin in getting the equipment I need for this. But I don’t want to hold her back you know?
Great post, Jim. One of my kids’ favorite summer things to do was pitch a tent in the back yard and camp right there. We would grill out and have s’mores, have flashlight wars, tell stories … all the stuff you do at a campground. They still talk about those fun summer nights in the back yard.