Several months ago, a frugal friend of mine told me about something that her family does to save some money and have some serious fun together. I waited to try it, and kept it in the back of my mind. July was the month. Try this free fun idea for thirty days and grow closer to your family while having loads of fun and trying thing you might not have tried before.
When we started this venture, I wanted to explain the concept to the kids in a way they might understand. I also wanted to be sure I wasn’t taking anything important to them away. So I decided to explain to them about the concept of TV free week, which we were not going to do. TV free week is something that many people do to get back that family connection and remove their kids from the television set. So after I explained this, and told them this was not what I was suggesting, they breathed a sigh of relief, but they were curious.
So here is what we did. We spent no money for one whole month on any family activity that we did. We did not rent any videos, eat out (ok, we did three times but twice the kids ate free), we accepted no invitations from anyone with the requirement of paying anything. Everything we did was free. We looked in the local paper for free festivals, and other things to do.
When we weren’t finding free activities around town, we were playing board games, watching movies that we already have, we went to the library and borrowed two and checked out loads of books, we rode our bikes together, we visited new parks we hadn’t visited before, and we even hosted a BBQ twice with two separate families. Yes, we had to purchase food for the family BBQ, however we explained to our guests our “Free month” idea and they thought it was cool, and brought desserts, a movie and a board game for us to play.
So what is the purpose? Aside from increased family bonding, it is also a money saver. If your family goes out to eat at least four times in a month, that winds up being about $100. If your family rents videos a lot, that can be about $25-$50 a month. If you frequent attractions around town at least once or twice a month, again that can be about $50-$100 depending on how often you go in one month. Overall savings by having a free month? About $225-$250! That’s some money I didn’t mind saving!
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