More fun this year

[Bettymakesadecision]

We have had very little money for various reasons over the last year and have also spent almost every weekend making our new house habitable, so in addition to having no money life has also been boring. It feels like we’ve forgotten how to have fun as a family and the few ideas we have cost money. AIBU to ask you for ideas on how to have fun as a family on a tight budget (no more than £10 an outing)?

We have National Trust membership but always end up spending money in the tea rooms so I’m thinking we could pack hot chocolate in flasks instead of using the tea rooms. Any other ideas?

Where we live (Midlands) some places have annual passes where if you go once you get free returns the rest of the year. We have these for a zoo, the space centre and a science place. Definitely worth looking into if you don’t mind return visits to places. We also have Merlin passes and National Trust membership, we very rarely pay for anything and go out most weekends. We usually take our own food and drink so we don’t spend much/anything while we are there.

There are lots of walks if you have the National Trust app as well, usually absolutely no spend as there isn’t anything there so these are great cheap days out if you like country walks!

Do you have bikes? We do a lot of bike rides - we invested in a bar so we can load the bikes on our car. Sometimes we have to pay for parking and obviously there is fuel cost but we are lucky we can also access some good routes from our doorstep.

We also still enjoy a morning out at the big garden centre and take a look at the Aquarium shop while we’re there. I usually end up buying seeds but we avoid the cafe.

In my town there’s a weekly free yoga class at the weekend, a free community orchard and vegetable garden you can go and help out at for fun, and there’s also Park Run - these things are pretty good cheap entertainment.

My dd does swimming lessons at the local community pool and is allowed to swim for free during the week, so I also invest in a swim membership for myself - that means for an extra £20 a month I can swim anytime. We therefore go to the inflatables or family swim session every week with dc which is nice.

National trust, take a flask but also bake before you go. So bake on the Saturday and go on the Sunday. A different family member picks the cake for the week

You sound like us OP - we have national trust membership too, manly for the outdoor play areas.

There are still lots of festive trails and things going off at various properties that are free for members.

We sometimes do a flask of boiling water and put some hot dog sausages in and take some buns and have a hot picnic.

Geo caching is also free if you download the app you’ll find lots near you. It’s very cold at the moment though so it is hard to find free things that are indoors.

We’ve bought lots of board games and puzzles and Lego sets this Christmas so we’re still working our way through those whilst it’s cold.

Google free museums in your area.
There are quite a few around the country.

Churches can be interesting to look round.
Even some cathedrals are still free to enter (eg Durham.)

Is Geocaching still a thing? My dd now 17 loved this from about age 3. It made walks more interesting and and we took flasks.

@H202too it is still going - we just use the free version of the app.
Got some good cache finds this summer with great little prizes. We like to leave some bits too, so we’re saving the toys from the Christmas crackers to swap.

If you’re taking hot chocolate in flasks, I recommend taking some mini marshmallows too. It makes it feel like much more of a treat even though they’re a pound a bag, and you only use a handful. Sometimes I take gingerbread too, which can be cheap if you’re careful.

Im looking for cheap but non leaky insulated sealed cups for hot chocolate purposes this year.

Thanks everyone, haven’t heard of geo caching so I’ll look into that. Straight after writing my post i forced DH and DD out for a walk and bike ride. It was only about 30 minutes but we drove out to a rural area and it was so nice being outside on a sunny, albeit cold day. No money spent either.