Let Cadbury know your shared joyful summer moments which cost nothing - £265 voucher and Merlin ticket to be won! NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

The school summer holidays are a great time to share lots of wonderful moments with your children, and though the cost of exciting days out can really add up, they’re not the only way to have fun.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons would like you to share the joyful summer moments you’ve shared with your children which cost nothing.

This could be a water fight in the garden on a hot summer day, a trip to a local museum that you both really enjoyed or an impromptu picnic in the park. Have you found creative ways to have fun without the price tag? Whatever your joyful summer moments that cost nothing, share them with Cadbury below.

All those who post a comment below will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will receive a £265 Love2Shop voucher and a second winner will win a Merlin family ticket worth up to £200.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

Additional information for Merlin prize: the winner will need to advise on the attraction they would like to visit and they will be sent a set of open dated tickets to use in 2016. The exception is Madame Tussauds in London where it gets very busy. Therefore, the winner will need to advise on three potential dates for their visit and Merlin will book them in in advance for one of those dates.

I recently took my 2 nieces to the Newark Houses museum and gardens in Leicester, which has all of Daniel Lamberts belongings which the kids absolutely loved.
It also gives you the chance to Discover the history of the Regiment, including a recreation of a First World War trench with sound and lighting and the kids get to try on some of the memorabilia .

My son was born last winter so this is the first summer I have had with him. Being on unpaid maternity leave the budget is tight so I have been trying to be creative with things to do. He has been in jelly, flour, spaghetti, cloud dough, slime etc I've found the weather fantastic for messy sensory play, stick him in the paddling pool to wash him off and no clothes to wash. I'm under no illusion that all this stuff is more for my enjoyment than his at the moment,he tends to look at me gone out whilst I'm playing with rainbow bubbles....all for him of course!

Geo-caching is great once the kids are old enough to enjoy the walking :)

Seeing my daughter making cheese and tomato swirls with her little cousin - so many laughs and so much mess! Xxx

Walks in the countryside with games to identify trees from leaves and birds from their song. My partner's an absolute whizz at this. Feeding the ducks, looking for bees and comparing them with hoverflies and wasps. We usually take along some healthy snacks from the fridge. Everyone comes back tired but happy.

My middle child loves helping around the house (don't worry - she's a horror sometimes as well!!) and when given the choice of what to do... Hang out the washing! She loves having the peg bag and has a little step to reach (we have a rotary one) and loves the "puzzle" of figuring or how to it all on. We usually run out of pegs before she runs out of space. (She's just turned 6)

We love a good water fight. My DS rarely sees me let my hair down so it brings him so much joy when I expectantly chase him round the garden with the hose on sprinkler mode. We both end up completely dripping but thoroughly happy.

FIL always comes to visit on Tuesday nights. On the last day of term, instead of his normal visit we met him at the beach and had a walk along the seafront. The kids loved it and it cost nothing:

My apologies for DS' builders bum!

Going to the park where there's a splash park and playing outdoor games

Going for some lovely walks in the countryside :)

Camping in the garden!

We took a journey up to Colchester Zoo with the whole family. We had the baby in a sling, the 5 year old niece and her family too. We had such a fabulous time looking at the animals, but the best thing of all (the real wow moment) was getting to feed the elephants, the giraffes and the parrots. The looks on the faces of the children was priceless.

We have had many wonderful cheap and free days but my favourite has been walking around the fields with a metal detector and finding treasures! We had so much fun and it was very exciting! (Of course we had permission to do this first!) We then headed home and had a small fire in the garden, roasted marshmallows and had a huge BBQ feast from everything we already had in the freezers!

We do lots of free activities, paddling in streams, picnic in the park, a walk along the canal and through the woods, a day on the beach. All fantastic things. Being outdoors is priceless!

We had a spare builder's cement tray (unused) left over from some building work - in our tiny garden, I filled that with about an inch of water, then let my two year old loose in it with his cars and bricks. He happily spent three hours and asked for it again the next day.
My 7-year-old has a reading den - I pegged some sheets to the garden parasol so it's a bit like an Arabian tent. She is book mad, so took piles of pillows and teddies out there, and read in the shade - our local library does a reading challenge so she had plenty to read!

My parents live in the country not too far from the beach. We stay in a caravan in the garden and go to the beach my daughter loves it. My oldest also had the time of her life playing with theirs and the neighbours dogs in a field. We don't have one so its the highlight of all her holidays.

We went to the local reservoir and had a lovely walk, picnic, play on the park and inside the interactive area. DS loved it. Day out was virtually free apart from car parking!

We love playing card games, outside, into the evening.... it gets my girls off their devices and lets us share some fantastic laughs as a family. We love Phase 10, Uno, Ligretto... all great fun!

We made a countdown calendar to our holiday which included all of the jobs that needed doing in preparation. Ticking off the jobs helped me out and kept the children focused on holiday planning and helping. They can't wait to make one now for autumn with their favourite days out listed on it.

We go the beach pretty much every weekend, whatever the weather. DS never gets bored of throwing stones in the sea and trying to jump over the little waves - throw in a picnic and some books and we can spend hours there for free

We've dug out the much neglected board games and have spent many a happy hour playing them. It's something we don't make a point of doing often enough because we all enjoy it when we do.

Even as teens my girls are keen shell seekers. They'll wander up and down the beach for hours looking for treasures.

walk on the beach with our dog and building sandcastles

Going for a walk and trying to spot wildlife and add to our fabulous stick collection!