Inspiration and sharing of free, cheap and moneysaving activities

[InterstellarDrifter]

Everyone can churn out a list of all the free activities that people could do but I'd love more actual, real life activities that people have planned or have just done that was a hit.
It doesn't have to only involve kids and can be ideas for adults too.

Any offers or deals that people have come across would be great too.

It's tough scrimping and saving (and this affects most of us these days, regardless of income levels) but our kids and us should still be able to enjoy our lives and have some fun.

This might sound a bit lame but I have just done a funded sustainability course through the Skills Network over six weeks. It was surprisingly hard but I found it hugely informative and very interesting. I have been talking about it to our kids who include an engineer to be and looking forward to using my qualification at work and then afterwards, who knows?

I'm just weirdly chuffed that there is still government funding for some adult qualifications. Don't tell the Tories though - they will try to cancel it.

@JennyForeigner I think that sounds excellent. Good idea for people to have a look and see if there are any courses that they would either enjoy doing or help them to do well at work and maybe lead to more money.
You sound so positive about it
Hope it helps you to shine.

Thanks, that's really nice. Bump for your thread!

I recently took the kids to join the library in our local village, above is a small art gallery and museum we can look round and a walk round the village pond, through the church yard and down the high street to the beach. It’s just a nice thing to do that kills and hour or so and it’s like a mini day out.

Geocaching
Couch25k
Art for kids hub on YouTube, I do the drawings with my daughter
The works always have cheap craft kits

When Spring hits I'm all about the picnic. I just pack whatever lunch we weee going to have anyway and take it to the local park, or if I'm feeling more adventurous, further afield.

For little kids one of our local
museums does a free pre school session which includes a small craft and a snack afterwards - and then they can explore the museum after that too. They have some good children’s areas in the museum so it fills half a day weekly.

our local library also runs free pre school rhyme time sessions - again good to get them out for an afternoon.

local churches run play groups which are either run for donations or are cheap cost wise and usually include a drink and snack for both children and adults.

we also have various walking groups locally that are free to join … for all ages and times in life

During the lockdown I would take the kids to wander around random neighbourhoods and call it an "Architecture Walk".
We would talk about the design of the buildings and take photos. And then we would let the kids play in whatever little playgrounds we found. These were rarely any more exciting than our own local playground. But the kids appreciated the novelty.
Then we'd upload the pics to The Brutalism Appreciation Society on Facebook and let the hipsters harshly critique us. ("That's not Brutalism, It's only modernist systems building")

If you are in the North. South Lakes Animal Park only £2 admission in March. Pendle Heritage Centre is cheap and tells about the Pendle witches. Bolton Abbey is great for walks and you just pay for parking . My children always enjoyed beach walks looking for shells etc . We just took a picnic which we ate in the car in Winter.

If you have a secure back garden, a sleepover in a tent is always fun. Look on gumtree or ebay for one, or maybe borrow one from a friend.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/50-things

Lots of ideas here.

National Trust membership can be really good value - I think family membership is about £10 a month, for which you get free entry to all their properties and free parking.

Even if you're not interested in looking round stately homes, there's grounds, woods, parkland etc, often with playgrounds, walking/bike trails etc where the DC can run around.

Take a picnic to avoid spending £££s in the cafes. This latter comment would apply to any sort of day out TBH. Cafes at most attractions are expensive, poor quality and have long queues.

Taking your own food seems far preferable in many cases. A good investment would be making sure everyone apart from the very small has their own bag/rucksack, so you don't have to lug a large picnic bag around if leaving it in the car isn't practical. If you don't want to make packed lunches all the time, pick up supermarket meal deals on the way as a compromise as they probably cost around half the same food would at a NT/theme park cafe.

I've been meaning to come back and update with some more tips!

Dd has a Blue Peter badge so I was able to take her free to a local zoo over half term. I did have to pay for my ticket but her £21 ticket was free.

I've been in the audience for Have I Got News For You which was free and funny. Split costs of petrol with friends.
We used SRO Audiences but I think there are others for lots of tv shows.

We love picnics too and dc love the breakfast picnic we do in the summer. Straight out to the park when everyone is dressed and ready with croissants and other breakfast food, juice cartons, coffee in a flask and some outdoor toys.
Similar with evening picnics - head out with takeaway pizza or chips.

We bought a flying disc from decathlon a few years ago and the dc still enjoy that.

A bit old fashioned but still enjoyed by my kids when younger - made a paper boat to float in a puddle on a rainy day and paper airplanes to fly indoors, or outdoors.

My mum used to get us kids to come up with ideas of what we wanted to do over the summer holidays when we were little. They had to be free, not involve travelling anywhere we couldn't walk to and had to be outside.

We opted for all sorts of things like "fishing" which was just going to a local ditch and looking for fish and other creatures, going to the mobile library, building a den from anything we could find and things like that, but because we had to choose it and put a date in the calendar to do it, we were enthusiastic and committed!

I’m definitely going to get a tent for garden ‘camping’ this summer. Ds is only young so he will be thrilled regardless, and then we have own convenience of house toilets, fridge without having the expense of buying all camping stuff or site fees

I cannot stress blue Peter badges enough - we have just been to long lest and the dds were free with their badges - that was worth £60!!! I couldn't believe it.

Attractions that you pay once for the year - keep a look out for them and choose a couple each year so for example we had the aquarium and the Eden project where we are. It's a lot less pressure on a single day out as well to say we can just go home when you get fed up.

National trust is good but English heritage is much cheaper and I can get it through civvil service leisure membership thing I can't remember what it's called.

If you devise a kind of structure to the year ahead then plan your memberships you should be able to have at least a day out a month pre paid.

When my dds were smaller I did super cheap parties seasonally. Halloween was the best one. I used to make green and orange play doh so they could make pumpkins. Print out a load of Halloween colouring and then at the end halooeeen story telling with funny bones etc books. They loved those parties. Invite sone families over and ask them to bring some food item.

Also scour Facebook for free events and make sure you have all the local feeds. We have bern on all kinds of history trails around parks and wildlife learning sessions catching butterflies in cemeteries.

Buy some decent picnic ware and at least 2 picnic mats. No family fits on one comfortably! And a good flask for the adults. And cool blocks for the picnic bag.

I still quite often time outings between meals. So we have brunch at the weekends at like 10ish then my dds will only expect a snack and a drink before tea time so that gives a bigger window of activity without needing a big meal to carry or buy.

Another thing that might be worth knowing about if your child likes working towards badges, is Pawprint Badges. They are a bit like doing scouting / guiding badges at home. The badges themselves are very cheap, and there are loads of activity ideas and free resources you can use on the Pawprint Badges website.

I would join local parents' facebook groups if you have one (or you could start one!) someone gave away a ticket to a kids' theatre a while ago since they could no longer go, and someone else gave a way a free session ticket to a popular indoor soft play. Neither were hugely pricey but it was nice to pass them on. There's usually offers of other free outdoor toys too which you could take for a park outing to mix things up a bit - we got a free rocket launcher thingy that we used on a few picnic outings last summer.

Not always free, but look on your local council leisure centre website for cheaper/free sessions. Ours are categorised as a keeping active/health initiative, but it's just something fun to take the kids to. We have a sesson at the weekend where families swim free, plus a few afternoons a week where kids are free, so it's just £2.50 for me. They also do free sports sessions for over 8's, but mine are to young.

If you're not national trust members, keep an eye out for there free tickets, they offer them a few times a year, usually through newspapers, but you can sign up on the newspapers website instead of buying.

We love our local library

Lots of museums are free to enter

Go on the mailing list for local attractions, even if they would usually be out of your price range. lots have open days, or reduced entry at set times of year.

The lottery run a days out promotion from time to time, so if you buy a £1 scratch card, you can get £25 off entries.

Focus on learning a new skill. For the kids, it might be learning how to skip, ride a bike, roller skate or whistle with your fingers. For adults it might be brushing up on a language or learning to ice wedding cakes or changing a spare wheel!

Love an evening picnic when the weather is better. Sometimes we just make cheesy pasta and bring the whole saucepan!

Travel mugs are also great - bringing a tea or hot chocolate makes an outing feel more special.

My DC is dong a brilliant and totally free course at a local theatre.

We use the local library a lot, so a trip to the central library can feel like a treat.

Go to an area with charity shops and give everybody £5 pocket money to spend.

I- Spy books

Groupon /wowcher - can have some good deals on