10 Frugal Activities to do with kids.

I have to admit, I’m in a sweet spot with the frugal kids, Frugal Kid #1 is starting kindergarten in the fall, and even though he went to preschool he still doesn’t really care about the hot new toy or special new vacations that his friends are going on.

Additionally, right now I work all day on Saturday and Frugal husband works all day on Sunday so we each get a full day to spend with the kiddos and like to keep them entertained ( we take every 4th weekend off and have a family weekend).

So what kinds of fun and frugal things can you do with your kiddos this weekend that they will love and that won’t break the bank? Here are my top ten and I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

1. Have a movie night! We rent a redbox (there are lots of codes for free redbox movies) and pop popcorn. Total = about $2 if you pay to rent the redbox. Considering how expensive it is to take a family of 5 to the movies, I consider this a win.
2. Find a playground in your area and make a day of it. We have a couple of beautiful playground in my area and I’ll take the kids around 10:30am so that they have time to play and then eat lunch. We pack our lunch and drinks so for less than $10 we have several hours of entertainment. Bonus: the kids are generally so tired that they take really good naps.
3. Go to your public library. If you haven’t been to your library recently GO! In my experience public libraries are really upping their games and have lots of fun things for kids to look at and explore.
4. Bake something together and then have a snack picnic outside or inside if the weather isn’t great.. kids love to make an event out of things, if you spend just a minute making it special they’ll be so excited.
5. Make play dough! This is my favorite recipe, but we mix it up and add different scents and have done things like add glitter or flowers and even things like cocoa powder to see what happens. We buy the cheapest white flour we can get and use store brand salt and oil, each batch is about 35 cents and the above recipe lasts for several weeks if kept in an air tight container.
6. Color! We have a great big dining room table and we’ll make a whole set up of different items to color with crayons, markers, paper, the works! We’ll put fun music on while we do it. This is the time of year to stock up on coloring supplies, they’re all super cheap and you can also pick up stickers too. Bonus: break up your old crayons and make multicolored crayoned by melting them in a muffin tray or silicone molds if you have them.
7. Have a Hygge day. Hygge is a defining characteristic of Danish culture. We’re not Danish, but Hygge is defined as “A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being”. When I know the weather is going to be chilly or rainy, a Hygge day in which we take time to slow down and enjoy each other and our house is so nice! The kids can stay in their PJ’s, if it’s cold we’ll crank up the wood stove and have soup for lunch, basically a nice snuggle day where we take time to slow down.
8. Create an obstacle course- this one is on my “to do” grab some boxes, and let the kids come up with the plan.
9. Have an ice cream sundae bar, ice cream at home is WAY cheaper than going out for ice cream, buy the good stuff and a few different toppings and you’ll even have enough to have ice cream 2 nights in a row!
10. Go to a book sale and read your buns off! We have 5 different book sales that happen throughout the spring and summer, most have children’s books for 50 cents a piece, and one of them allows for you to pay $3 for a bag on the last day and fill your bag! I’ve volunteered in the past to get first pick at the books, but no matter what, if you take the kiddos and let them pick (you can edit when they aren’t looking), you get 2 good frugal activities, the outing and then the fun of going home and reading!

These are our top 10, what are yours?