Top money-saving blogger and founder of frugalfamily.co.uk Cass Bailey offers her top tips on how to keep the kids entertained this summer without spending a fortune
Top money-saving blogger and founder of frugalfamily.co.uk Cass Bailey offers her top tips on how to keep the kids entertained this summer without spending a fortune
If your children are anything like mine, they'll be counting the days until the school summer holidays start. My two are planning lots of lazy lie-ins and long summer days filled with fun.
Fun doesn't have to cost much, it's not essential that you pay a fortune for a day at a theme park or that you pay £20 for a family trip to the cinema. It's possible to have just as much fun (if not more) and spend a fraction of the money – you just need to be a bit more organised.
A few weeks before the holidays start we make a wish book, which is basically 10 card shapes with holes punched in them and tied together. On each shape we write something we want to do during the holidays and then use that as a starting point for our Summer holiday plan incorporating as many of these as we can.
To plan our days out, we visit our local Tourist Board and collect a stack of leaflets to look through. We've found lots of museums and interesting places right on our doorstep that we didn't even know existed. A lot of museums and local attractions have free entry and have planned children's activities throughout the holidays so it's worth looking on their websites to see what they have going on and timing your visits to fit in.
We don't go out every day though, we have plenty of days at home and they're just as much fun. We might do some baking together or have a teddy bears picnic, we might build dens or draw with the chalks on the patio or even have a water pistol fight in the garden.
We like to read books together and do some crafts based on the book – the internet is brilliant for ideas for this. We've made our own board games which we've spent hours playing and we even enjoy playing some of the games I used to play when I was little, like beetle. We also have movie afternoons, games days and the odd pyjama day to recharge our batteries.
I could go on with ideas on how to have fun without spending much money but the most important thing is that you spend time with your children, no matter what you're doing. That's what they'll remember when they're grown up, not the amount of money you spent.
Got any more live more for less tips? Share them in the comments box below...
Cass Bailey blogs at www.frugalfamily.co.uk
