13 Practically Free Family Night Ideas (Frugal Friday)

Grab some family-fun inspiration and share some of your own on today’s Frugal Friday. This post does include Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase through those links, I am paid a small amount in way of advertising fees.

After spending many, many hours preparing for and attending multiple hockey games on Saturday night, I realized that summer is over. With our regular school schedule, earlier bedtimes, science class, and hockey practices, many of our evenings are taken up with “stuff”. The carefree summer evenings we’ve enjoyed are coming to a close

That prompts me to be a little more intentional about how we spend our precious free time, namely Friday nights. I decided to jot down a list of FREE things — or almost free things — that we could do together as a family.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Make indoor smores — we’re looking for a deal on a fire pit, but in the meantime, the toaster oven will suffice.
2. Pop some corn and watch a movie from Redbox or Amazon Prime Instant Video.
3. Make cards to send to family or friends.
4. Play a game — FishChick5′s current fave is The Ladybug Game.
5. Pull out the playdough — even big kids can get into this if everyone does it and there are enough supplies.
6. Look through scrapbooks or home movies together.
7. Take an evening walk and look at the stars.
8. Go on a jammie run — after the kids are in jammies, load them in the car for a trip for ice cream or donuts.
9. Read a story together — we’re currently rereading The Wingfeather Saga.
10. Play animal charades — our kids have always LOVED this, particularly the littles.
11. Make a tent in the living room and camp out.
12. Set up a tent in the backyard and really camp out.
13. Play video games together — my littles still doubt that I was once a high scorer on Mario Kart. It may be time to set the record straight.

What’s your favorite thing to do together as a family?

This is Frugal Friday. In an effort to make these weekly financial discussions more interactive, I’m no longer posting a link-up. Feel free to leave a link in the comments. But better yet, chat with us on today’s topic.

Disclosure: This post does include Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase through those links, I am paid a small amount in way of advertising fees.

13 Practically Free Family Night Ideas (Frugal Friday) is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.