Everything is so expensive these days so families everywhere are searching for fun things to do that are also easy on the family budget. These inexpensive and free activities are the perfect treat after working together on the family budget, and realizing that cutbacks are needed.

Free Things to Do with a Family

These entertainment ideas for kids and adults alike are generally free. Some require a little travel by car, or bringing food from home; but they are essentially free activities.

Take a walk or picnic in the park – better yet, try a different local park each day until the family finds the very best one.

Go window shopping at a favorite mall, antique stores, or craft fair. Leave the wallet at home!
Camp out in the backyard, or make a “fort” inside using furniture, blankets and cushions – then spend the evening trading ghost stories.

Volunteer on a community or charity project for the afternoon or a weekend. This activity is not only free, but a deeply fulfilling experience as well.

Spend a long, lazy day in pajamas, reading or watching everyone’s favorite movies. Don’t forget the microwave popcorn!

“Tour” local neighborhoods or hometown, pretending to be tourists and taking pictures of favorite places.

Have a “teaching day” during which each family member has an opportunity to teach the others about something they enjoy – sharing a favorite hobby, a video game, book, walking trail, recipe, or anything else.

Hold a family talent show, or host one for the whole neighborhood. Grandparents, aunts and uncles can be judges… or they may have hidden talents themselves!

Cheap Activities for Families

These cheap entertainment ideas require some minor expenses- such as art supplies or recipe ingredients. They are, however, still far cheaper than taking the family to the movies or out to dinner- and more interactive!

Create homemade artwork together to decorate the laundry room, playroom, or basement (think crayon mural, or paper-maché & coat hanger mobile).

Host a potluck dinner party for friends or neighbors; have everyone bring a dish and a recipe to share.

Write a family history or the story of your relationship in a sketchbook, including illustrations, leaving space to add to the story every year.

Entertainment Outdoors

Many inexpensive or cheap activities can be found outdoors. So, go outside and play!

There are countless ways to enjoy the outdoors.Some require sporting equipment, which may be borrowed from friends, or purchased at a discount store to enjoy for years to come. Other ideas require nothing but a little imagination and a willing spirit.

A few ideas for outdoor family entertainment:

• Frisbee
• Football
• Softball
• Badminton
• Volleyball
• Water balloons
• Relay races
• Tag
• Hide and seek
• Bean bag toss
• Hop scotch
• Biking
• Walking around the block
• Rolling down a hill
• Cloud watching
• Star gazing
• Cartwheels
• Watching the sunset
• Watching the sunrise
• Counting cars
• Making mudpies

The list of cheap activities outside can go on and on. Keep in mind that many outdoor activities are not only inexpensive, they’re healthy, too!

Other Resources for Free Things to Do

Of course, this article is just a starting point for fun, inexpensive family activities. For more ideas, visit the local library for free programs, resources and activities. The local paper may also list free outdoor concerts and festivals. Some activities may be posted on community bulletin boards at nearby stores, cafes, and community centres. With so many great ideas for inexpensive family fun, there is no reason to let budget restrictions keep the family from having a great time together!

Tweet

Anyone that has a child will have had those days where you want all the help in getting them to sleep faster. At the end of the day bedtime can be a struggle for families. When your child struggles to fall asleep quickly at night you can easily become frustrated and upset. These simple tips can help your child fall asleep faster. 

Cutting off-screen time is a vital part of helping get your child to sleep faster. The bright blue lights of electronic devices can make it difficult for your child to fall asleep. Cutting off-screen time an hour or two before bed (easier said than done, we know) can lead to falling asleep faster and sleeping better.

Give your child a warm bath before bed. Warm water with or without lavender bath products are great for helping to relax your child so they fall asleep faster at night. 

A great way to ensure that your child will fall asleep faster at bedtime is to start a calm down time an hour or two before bed. This is a time for your child to read a book, do a puzzle, or participate in a quite hobby in their room before bedtime. 

Helping your child fall asleep faster starts at the beginning of the day. Getting your child on a morning routine of waking up in the mornings can make it easier to get them to be tired and ready to sleep when bedtime rolls around. 

Wear your child out during the day with plenty of active play. When your child is burning off energy during the day they are more likely to be ready to sleep when night time rolls around. Get your child to play outside, ride bikes or join in a sport to use up excess energy during the day to help them fall asleep faster.

Challenging your child's mind can help them fall asleep faster as well. When your child's brain is challenged during the day it is more likely to be tired and ready to fall asleep without random thoughts keeping your child awake at night.

Making a linen spray or running a diffuser with essential oils designed to calm, relax, and induce sleep is a great way to help your child fall asleep faster and get a deeper more restful sleep. Lavender and tangerine are both great single oil choices and several safe for children sleep blends are available on the market.

I remember a product called Medised many years ago and it was withdrawn from the market as parents were abusing its "drowsy" properties to help their children sleep. Obviously no one advocates using medicinal measures to get your child to sleep and hopefully some of these tips can help on a restless evening!

Tweet

The weather at the moment can’t seem to make up it’s mind what it is doing. One minute we have glorious sunshine and the next the weather is wet and miserable. So we are looking ahead to the summer and what we can be doing now so that we can enjoy lazy summer days at home with our friends and family.

We have therefore put together our top 5 tips for preparing your home (and yourself) for summer.

Check appliances are working

Check that your fans / air conditioning units are fully working. If not, now is a good time to replace them rather than when it is baking hot and you find that everywhere is sold out. Getting them “out of season” usually means that you can get a good deal and it is worth checking out voucher sites for offers and discounts too.

Get The Garden Ready

When the sun eventually comes out to stay, everyone will want to be outside and if you are not enthused at the idea of regular garden maintenance, why not try some artificial grass for your garden, it is a great alternative to real grass, allowing you to enjoy summer days as well as making mowing, watering and weeding things of the past!

Find out of season offers

Like the fans and air con units, buying things out of season is the best way to get a great deal. So if you need extra picnic pieces or garden furniture, now is a good time to look for the best offers. In the height of summer, it is not only the temperatures that rise it is also well known that the prices do when there is high demand.

Declutter

We can all be a little guilty of hoarding items “just incase” we may need them but a spring clean is a great way to go into summer with a clear mind and a clear house. Summer bbq’s can sometimes lead to friends staying over and you don’t want them tripping over bags and boxes that are stashed in your spare room. Get rid of the unnecessary and it is one less thing to move / clean on a weekly basis too!

Don’t delay till later

Start now! It is easy to think that summer is months away but in the blink of an eye the children will be finishing the summer term and the long summer holiday will be upon us.

Will you be prepared?

Tweet

This is a leading question and I am sure one that many parents will have debated over the years. I make no secret of the fact that I am actually a big fan of tutoring and have done this for both of my girls at different points in their education journey.

My reasoning behind this is simple. If I send my daughter to gymnastics classes, she doesn’t expect me to know how to safely or knowledgably do a back hand spring, so why should I be expected convey the best ways to handle quadratic equations. Making sure that my girls have the best possible teachers available to them is both important and much less stressful for me.

So I asked my youngest daughter if she wanted to try some online maths tutoring (with her Year 2 SATS coming up, I thought this would be good practice) and as she is a home bird, this appealed to her. Matr gives primary school-aged children in the UK online one-to-one maths tuition. Their tutors are maths experts trained to teach KS2 national curriculum to 7 to 11 year-olds, so it was a perfect partnership for us.

Prior to the agreed set lessons, children are encouraged to do some “test” sets to establish their ability levels. I don’t think we took full advantage of this as our first lesson was quite basic but this also gave us a chance to get used to the system and how it worked. 

Unfortunately in our case, my daughter didn’t connect well with the tutor and found them difficult to understand during the session however Matr were keen to react to this and swiftly arranged another tutor for our next session.

Because of this initial “blip” I did question with Matr as to how they recruit their tutors and it is interesting to note they have a global network of tutors which enables them to hire maths specialists and provide the best support possible for each child. All tutors are maths specialists by degree or training, and many are STEM graduates … so definitely qualified. 

Our next session had a new tutor who was extremely encouraging and adds little smiley face stickers on the screen when they are rewarding good work. My daughter loved this feature and ended up awarding the tutor some smiley face stickers of her own!

The next question is always cost and as parents we have so much to budget for each month so having an affordable solution is necessary. Matr have easy, affordable, monthly or weekly payments from as low as £9.25 per week. The additional benefit is that you are not tied into a long term agreement and you can cancel anytime.

So I started this post with the title saying “Should I get a tutor for my child” and for me, there are 5 good reasons to!

1. One to One Learning
2. Builds Confidence
3. Test / Exam Revision
4.  You can maintain over the holidays
5. No more homework wars!!

 Maths tuition is no longer just the privilege of the wealthy. Online tuition companies like Matr now make maths fun and affordable for all primary aged kids. 

Tweet