Kids are home for the summer! Now what?? I'm sure the first weeks were exciting, activities planned, art supplies purchased, but now that it's been about 2 weeks your kids are probably already telling you they are bored. Despite the hours you spent on pinterest coming up with summer activities, and the time spent researching all the summer camps, kids attention spans are so short and they want you to find another way to keep them busy.
If you have a chance to escape the house (other then running to buy snacks in bulk at the store because for some reason in summer your kids eat 100 snacks a day), I have some ideas for you to save some money and keep the kids busy.
Of course, the park is free, you can run under a sprinkler, build a fort on a rainy day - I'm not talking about these kinds of activities in this blog post. Since I like to save money, let's talk about things that already cost you, that you don't want to pay full price for. I mean, I'm sure seeing the joy on your kids faces is totally worth the full price admission rate...but if you don't have to pay full price why would you?
First, start your search out on Groupon or another similar site like Living Social. Find local activities at a discount. Right now, in my location, we can go to an indoor playground, trampoline park, try to solve a mystery at the escape room, and visit a local amusement park all at a discount.
Next start researching companies specifically, maybe you've had your mind on a water park to visit, but Groupon turned up empty for any discounts. Check local stores to see if they have discount passes available. This is common for the bigger theme parks in the area. For the smaller local places, many offer discounts for admission at non peak times, or specific days. Being flexible is key here, most of these deals are for early morning or late afternoon, and likely mid-week. If you have a specific destination in mind, you can also save money by planning ahead. Buying tickets for a specific day so far in advance may give you a discount, and you can save with opportunities to bundle with things like parking or meal plans if you pay when you buy admission tickets.
Speaking of bundling items to save - if you are going to visit a place multiple times, bundle up the whole summer - heck, the whole year - and get an annual pass. Zoos, waterparks and children's museums are likely to offer this, and if you have multiple kids it can be a savings to buy a family pass.
And maybe it's one of those days where it's just too hot to be outside and you want to head to the movies. Many theaters offer lower priced movies certain days of the week. A common big chain has $5 movies on Tuesdays. A theater local to me offers a specific movie for only $1 every week on Tuesday mornings. So drag those kids out of bed and take advantage of seeing a movie at an off time.
Hope this list helps you to start brainstorming some ways to get the kids out of the house without spending your whole paycheck! Have a fun summer and when your kids say they are bored, you can tell them what my dad always told me: "Only bores are bored." Which will help you in no way and will likely only confuse your kids. But it may buy you an extra 5 minutes of not being bugged to come up with something to do, so there's that.
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