Frugal Friday

This week for Frugal Friday at Biblical Womanhood, Crystal is sharing about keeping things simple and how a simple family outing that only cost a few dollars can be the most memorable thing.

It can be difficult to find simple, low cost family outings for my family. It can be difficult just trying to get a family of seven out the door to do an outing! LOL Most of our family outings are either to do shopping(usually the grocery store! UGH!) or to relatives' for a visit. However, hubby and I are trying to incorporate other things to do as a family.

Here is some of the things that we like to do...

When the weather is nice and there is not a bunch of snow on the ground, we like to go bike riding. So we are not just seeing the same scenery all the time biking through our neighborhood, we will load the bikes up into our trailer and go to one of the paved rail trails (old railroad lines that have been turned to bike trails) or to one of the local parks that has bike trails and just ride around. If we are at a park, we will stop and let the munchkins play on the playground for a while.

When the weather is not so nice, it can be rather expensive for a family of seven to go to the movie theater to watch the latest flicks. So instead we wait for Dove Family Film Festival, where the kids can get into the movie for free and go see a family friendly flick! OR we rent movies from the local video store for $3.00 and then have a movie night at home where we watch the movie and pop some popcorn or have homemade chocolate milkshakes.

If we want to visit a museum or other places that would cost a small fortune for a family outing, we watch for discount days or we plan our visit as a mini vacation. We also found getting a local zoo membership which is about the price it would cost our family for just one visit was a simple way to visit other zoos for free or at a discount! However, the kids got a little bored just going to a bunch of zoos/same zoos over and over so we didn't renew our membership for this year.

One other thing that we enjoy doing as a family is having friends over for a cookout together. It is hard to do cookouts when there is tons of snow on the ground, but once the weather turns nice and we can get the grill dugout we invite at least 3 different families from church every other week for a mini potluck. We have the families each bring their own meat to grill and then a dish to pass. I provide tableware and meat for my family and also a dish to pass. This way, I don't have to worry about breaking my budget to provide food for everyone! There is a enough food for everyone!! During the hot months, we have our Intex pool up and so the kids have fun with the other kids in the pool and some of the grown-ups have fun playing horseshoes. Everyone that has come over has commented as to how nice it was just to have a relaxing afternoon/evening with friends. The women also say that it was nice not having to worry about cooking for night as well!

This is just a few things that a family of seven does to keep life simple and to enjoy life together.

For other frugal, simple ideas or tips, head over to Biblical Womanhood!