Affordable Weekend Fun: 4 Tips To Have A Great Time On A Budget

Parents:

Are you looking for some affordable weekend fun?

A part of what’s so difficult about saving money is that there are so many fun things to do.

Life is happening now, after all, and we need to get out and about in order to experience it – so how are we supposed to save as much as we’d like while also having fun?

The one does not, in fact, have to cancel out the other and there are a lot of great things you can get up to on the weekend without spending too much money on it. Forget about all those expensive restaurant meals and must-do activities that we think we need to do – some of the most fun activities can actually be for free.

Here is a handful of things you should do this weekend in order to save a bit more without feeling like you’re missing out. Making money should be all about keeping it after you’ve paid your bills – and with these ideas for affordable weekend fun, you get to have some fun as well.

Related to affordable weekend fun:

Invite your friends over for dinner

How about this idea to kick off our countdown of affordable weekend fun?

Invite your friends (especially those with kids) for dinner.

When you think about cooking up a feast for your friends, the first thing that probably comes to mind is that this is not a cheap thing to do on a weekend.

It can, in fact, end up costing a lot when you think about it; people need food, drinks, entertainment, probably dessert – and by eating out, at least someone else can take care of all the cooking for you.

What you’re forgetting about is that mealtime can be a joint effort and just because you’re opening up your house so that you can all spend time together doesn’t mean that you have to cook for them as well.

Ask each of your guests to bring a side-dish, for example, and another one to bring the dessert, and you’ll take care of the main dish. Or you can just have some of your friends join you a bit earlier to help out with the cooking and you can all chip in to cover the costs.

Eating dinner with your friends doesn’t have to be a particularly fancy affair where you should dazzle them with your cooking skills. It should be all about spending time together – and when you don’t have to pay for everything, spending time together around a meal suddenly seems a lot more achievable.

Take your kids out on a picnic

How about a picnic for some affordable weekend fun?

Using food as a way to bond with people is something we do naturally. You can do it with your friends and, of course, with your children. The only problem is that your kids won’t be much help when it’s time to chip in and help to cover the costs – and they probably won’t be too much help in the kitchen either.

That’s why you should focus on everything you can do together before it’s time to eat and consider the food as a way to rest together. Enjoying nature is a way to do this no matter what time of the year it is; during winter, you can go on a ski-trip and bring a rucksack with hot chocolate and lunch to give you energy.

If it’s summer, picnics are definitely a bit easier and you can simply enjoy the nature together on a longer walk. Bring the dog, some good walking shoes, and keep those chocolates handy in case someone should get grumpy along the way. It tends to help when you need to give them a morale boost.

Remember to check the weather forecast as well, by the way, as you don’t want to be caught outside and far from home if it should start to pour down. Wiser people than us have been caught outside in terrible weather and it doesn’t take much more than forgetting to check the weather forecast to ensure that you get a weekend you’d like to forget.

Affordable weekend fun: Play the lottery?

Playing the lottery with your family is actually quite a lot of fun – especially when you have young kids around who just wants to anticipate the next number up. It doesn’t really matter if you win or not as playing the lottery is all about the excitement of what if even though you know that winning is highly unlikely.

You could buy some scratch cards this weekend, for example, if there’s not a big lottery coming up and enjoy the fun you get from it without having to spend too much money. You can read more about it here, by the way, to learn a bit about Powerball before you get started.

Let your kids know that the odds of winning are extremely low and seize the moment to teach them a bit about probability while you’re at it. Children learn so much more easily from real-life situations so don’t let this teaching opportunity slip away from you.

Plus, if they should win something small on those scratch cards, the excitement will be even bigger as they didn’t anticipate it at all. It’s the kind of fun that’s perfectly affordable.

Bake something with your children

Another idea for affordable weekend fun is:

Baking with your kids.

Every child loves to bake; not just because they think it’s so much fun to be in the kitchen, but also because they look forward to eating the cake afterwards. Plus, being in the kitchen with your children can be a valuable life skill for them.

They get to help out with taking the ingredients out, measure up what you need, and mash it all together – even the youngest ones can help out with baking since it rarely involves any knives. Baking is cheap even and you’ll have a lot of dessert handy that you would otherwise have bought in the shop for way more money.

You can enjoy the company of your kids in the kitchen when cooking as well, by the way, although how much help they are is rather limited. The youngest ones may be able to help out with rinsing off vegetables, herbs and lettuce while the older children can help out by cutting soft vegetables with a plastic knife.

Just that they get to be in there and be involved with the cooking is a great way to start their cooking lessons, in general, by the way so don’t forget to invite them in to help.