Frugal Family Fun. 7 Frugal, Fun Ideas for Family Togetherness
I love spending family time together with my husband and kids, and I bet you like to hang-out with your crew, too. However, with the hectic schedules of everyday life and the high price of admission to many events, even the best intentioned among us may tend to default to the couch with the remote rather than to a quality activity that could provide more positive and long-lasting results than knowing what a Tardis is.
For those times when you are stumped as to what to do that will promote family togetherness but not break the bank, you may want to save this list and try some out:
1) Bake Together- Even if you aren’t likely to be the next Buddy Valastro, there are plenty of tasty concoctions that you can make together as a family. If baking and decorating a cake isn’t your thing, how about cupcakes, melting chocolate and dipping in pretzels and chips and letting them set (or drizzling them in the chocolate), trying a recipe from another culture, or even making S’mores by putting marshmallows on the end of forks, and holding them over candle flames (take it from me, they taste wonderfully the same as over a campfire!).
2) Exercise Together – Picture jump rope contests, family dance parties in the living room, hopscotch on the driveway, and Frisbee golf (each person throwing a Frisbee into a laundry basket from various distances away). The sillier the activity, the more the fun!
3) Read Together- Whether it’s a classic, a long fantasy novel, or some other book, select something that can be read on a regular basis over a period of time. You can take turns having each reader in the family telling the story out-loud to each other on a different night, or have a designated reader. In our family, the designated reader is Dad, and I happily enjoy my husband doing that job as he has read C.S. Lewis and Tolkein to us complete with unique character voices and lots of creative flair.
4) Pray Together- When is the last time your prayed together with the whole family? Why not call a everyone to one place, sit in a circle, hold hands, bow your heads, and pray for each other? Start with a time of praise and thanking God for who He is and what He’s done for you. Thank Him for each of your family members. Then, ask each family member to share any specific needs, concerns, or praises that they have, followed by each person praying for someone else in the group. Finally, end with thanking God for being the provider, protector, and leader of the family and asking Him to guide each person individually and your family as a whole to meet the needs of others and serve Him.
5) Create Together- Try getting out a scrap piece of wood, some rocks, or even just some old coloring books, and paint, marker, or crayon your way to a family work of art. Consider tracing each member’s hands and feet and decorating them on one large sheet of paper, trying your hand at drawing each family member’s facial characteristics on separate balloons to create a balloon family, or designing a hanging mobile by deciding on a theme together and hanging pictures that each family member colors and cuts out from string tied to a hanger.
6) Imagine Together- Have you ever tried making up a story together? Our family stumbled on this activity during a camping trip and liked it enough that we brought it home with us! Have one person start the story by saying one sentence or phrase and then have the next person pick up where they left off. This often leads to hilarious results. Another silly but fun way to play this game is to have each person say only one word at a time. This takes a bit longer to figure out where the story is going, but definitely elicits teamwork!
7) Play Together- Who says that you have to go to the theater to see some great acting?! Gather up the clan and some hats, coats, clothes, and accessories and act out a story you make up together. Or, Brainstorm types of characters and then have each person chose who they want to be and see where each of you make the storyline go!
What are some of your family’s fun, frugal, and non-tech ways to spend time together? Please share them with us in the comments!
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