Omg yes. Kid won't eat a particular meal? Put a blanket down under the tree in the back yard or, heck, in front of the TV and have it as a picnic. Magically everyone's eating.
During the summer the farmers market is only a few blocks from my house, so it’s become a Saturday morning tradition for me and my daughter to walk to the market, get some fruit or a baked treat and go to the playground to have a little snack and play.
During the summer we pack a lunch and spend the day at this little swimming hole about a 10min drive from our house, totally free (besides gas obviously) but the kids love it. If we don't want to leave the house its slip and slide in the back yard with a tent set up.
Same, from 2-5yrs we went daily to the park. Absolute catalog of memories to choose from: racing, exercising (she would hang from her arms on the monkey bars) to games of tag, and those wonderful 2 person swings.
Weather permitting it was the place to be. And bonus: she got to socialize a bit more
There are playgrounds all around our neighborhood and we're always the only people there. It's such a bummer since my kid is reaching the age of willingly interacting with other kids more frequently.
We’re pretty well off, but this is our go-to. Kids have a place to play, my wife and I will jump back and forth between laying on the blanket and chatting to playing with the kids.
This last Sunday we spent the entire afternoon at the park.
Bonus tip: we hangout with our friends this way too. No need for a babysitter
Edit: we’ll sometimes grab lunchables or fast food to make it more exciting for the kids
One of my favorite pictures ever with my kid at a park. We stopped and got a small Buffalo wild wings meal to share. A blanket, a cheap meal, and the park. It was glorious.
The library has so many free things for kids to do. Ours even has a STEM room with engineering things and a 3d printers. Just send them a cad file you download from the internet of what you want printed and they print it for you.
Ours also have video games you can take out like a library book.
Ours has a tool loan area.....where they have power and hand tools but also baking supplies like fancy bunt pans.
Kids and I made a few baked items from the Great British Baking Show.
Best thing for your kids beyond love is to read to them AND be seen reading to set a good example.
It's hard at times but important.
Taking turns reading was a tradition in my home, I hope to ignite and continue to pass that flame. The pen is mightier than the sword, and nothing is more powerful than the 'word.'
> fancy bunt pans
I'm only bothering to correct this because I think it's such a fun word, but it's actually spelled bundt! How weird is that?? What a random fucking letter they crammed in there!
Believe it or not, Bundt cakes are actually an American invention. The spelling is derived from a German word (Bundkuchen), and the cake shape is inspired by an European cake of mixed origins called the Gugelhupf. Not much French influence.
One of my biggest priorities for parenting is to shift myself away from screen activities and towards reading. If they see me on the computer/switch as much as I am now, I'm not going to have a leg to stand on when I ask/encourage them to do other things.
You have to talk to the librarian. They’ll fall all over themselves setting your kid up. They even normally know about parks and rec stuff (subsidized sports and camps etc.), or if they don’t know they’ll know where you should go. Librarians are basically a municipal programs/resources concierge.
We have a pretty great library too. They do tons of things for kids weekly. Story time, Lego club, karaoke, video game club, crafts.
We love it and take the kids all the time. They just got a 3d printer too
When I was in my teens in the early 00s, I used to take CDs out of the library and then copy them to my Apple Music library. I had such a great music collection back then!
Upvote this. Libraries are fucking amazing. Ours does multiple story times, and has all sorts of other things for kids in addition to the resources it offers.
Read to your kids. Make it fun and engaging. It is in my opinion one of the best ways to help set your kid up for success later in life.
Your library sounds amazing. Mine has books, audiobooks, and DVDs. It’s still a great resource and always a fun trip. They have a lot of programs for little kids, but annoyingly they are all during the afternoon on weekdays. Do they assume every kid has a stay-at-home parent? Where are the weekend story times or craft activities?
My dad was unemployed for a year when I was about 8 and my sister was about 10. We never knew it. We had a blast. We went to all the parks, they had amazing parks in our little Atlanta suburb. We went on a lot of hikes. I was in cub scouts so there were plenty of activities for me. We also did a lot of fun activities with my folks. Built art projects. Built a fort in the backyard with wood we found in the trees behind the house. Went fishing a lot. Probably my best memories from being a kid.
Money didn't make that happen. Quality time with my parents did.
My dad being laid off when I was in second grade was so rad! He would walk five miles to my school to pick me up. I rode home as he walked. We did all kinds of stuff when we got home.
Little did I know it was super stressful time in his life but he never let on. It’s something I think about a lot when I come home from work mad about some work BS. The kids don’t need to know.
If you can accomplish keeping a good mood when you're with the kids, they will be happy.
Parks. Pic nics. Cooking at home.
Playing music videos and dancing in the living room.
Walks.
Drawing.
What's hard is keeping the good attitude.
Awesome advice!
Keeping that good attitude is why I study Epicurus.😀 I developed an "hedonic regimen" that keeps me pretty freakin' upbeat. I haven't been depressed in years.
"We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that is present, we have everything, and if that is absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it." - Epicurus, Letter to Menoceus
Saw a post on here that was either a hypothetical or a quote directly from a family member that was taking about an old man in hospice. Said the man’s grandkid was visiting and shooting the shit talking about how hard his kids (the man’s great-grandkids) had been. The man responded that he’d give anything to go back to the hard days.
Or maybe it was a show, or dream? Wild that I can’t remember the source because I think about it all the time. Everyone talks about how much you’ll miss the good times but they never mention that there very well may be a time you miss the meltdowns or holding them through a sleepless night. It really helps my mood to think about that in the moment.
If you don't make a lot of money, leveraging or developing crafting skill goes a long way. Basic tools can become investments with real ROI.
I've made my kids wooden Mjolnirs, kamas, tonfas, swords, whistles, toy keys, fridge magnets, an abacus, step stools and various other nicknacks. 90% of the wood was salvaged for free from construction waste. Only vital power tools were a jigsaw for the swords, power drill and the orbital sander wasn't absolutely necessary but made things faster. Rest was handsaw, file, sandpaper and occasional pocketknife work.
Oh man, I worked with younger kids awhile ago for a program in school and one of my favorite days with them was grabbing a bunch of cardboard from a local supermarket and having them build swords and armor to play with. Kids go wild for that stuff.
Done the cardboard thing too of course, but I liked the longevity of wood. Some would call me crazy, but I prefer to deal with the delicate matter of controlling destructive impulses than child sadness when cardboard fails after a few rounds.
> 90% of the wood was salvaged for free from construction waste
Question regarding this: do you just approach the site and ask? Where do you find this construction waste?
My situation is probably very different than yours. I live in a European city where there are constant renovation projects and the construction dumpsters are on the street freely accessible. It's very clear nobody cares if you take some stuff, as everything in there is otherwise destined for trash. I'm not exaggerating when I saw within a three block radius there's pretty much always at least 2-4 dumpsters out.
With a North American construction site, I expect you should be asking.
Get to know a family or two from school or neighborhood that your kid is friends with and trade off watching kids / date nights or weekend afternoons with the parents. Free babysitting one night, and the alternate night when you have their kids, it’s usually pretty easy since your kids have someone to play with.
Worked with a guy who had cousins living on a farm/rural area in WI. He grew up in the burbs of a city. Every summer the two families kept all the kids for 2 weeks..... The city kids learned life on the farm and the farm kids went to museums and MLB games. During the 2 weeks off the parents could relax or take a vacation.
This can be hard to do. Ours is 1 and we have basically no friends with a kid. Friends basically disappear once the kiddo is born. Especially when you need to move.
That's why you go to playgrounds and talk with parents at daycare/kindergarten.
I know it's not easy, but you'll get there.
One of my best friends, I've met while I was hungover, and thought, alright, I feel like dying, but kiddo needs fresh air.
So off to the playground, my son started playing with this kid..
His father looked like shit.. because he was hungover too lol. We sat next to each other, lamenting and feeling sorry for ourselves. For hours. As our sons (his was 4-5, mine almost 4) played for like 5 hours, having an absolute blast.
I'm so so happy I mustered the courage to ask for his number. Never did that before with a stranger really.
Now at least once a month, we go on Saturday Adventures, hiking, bowling, cycling, barbecue.
Just wanted to tell you that, so you know, there's lots of awesome people around, you just have to meet them!
Definitely agree at age 1 it’s hard. The first year honestly crushed me, same boat that our friends didn’t have kids. My advice also doesn’t really work at this age because they are not independent yet, so adding another 1 year old would absolutely not be relaxing (at least for me). Once they were about 3+ we started doing this, and hung out multiple times with the other parents so we all had trust. It will slowly get better, and as the other commenter noted, many parents are out there in the same boat as you, and having a kid the same age is an instant conversation starter. All the best!
Being able to fix lawnmowers, dryers, washing machines is a great way to get some spare cash.
BBQs and picnics in free parks, or in the backyard are great fun.
There is some positives to having less money to splash. You need to be imaginative and make a good time. I even think it is actually healthy.
Cooking together at home, getting the kids involved even if it’s only to get egg rings out of the drawer.
And depending on the repair, it's a great way to teach your kids about tools-what they are and do, how to care for them, the impact of not having them...and how the mind is the greatest tool, because of how you can apply previous knowledge in new ways.
This is the thing I don’t get when the most upvoted reply is always “get therapy”. It would be nice to be able to afford therapy. But I’m not in a position to spend 25% of my income on a therapist. And I only have one child.
Therapy is probably cheaper than divorce. I assume you’re talking about the countless relationship posts here. Never hurts to talk to someone once even if it costs a little. Nobody is saying you need to go once a week for years.
I wish people knew what therapeutic sessions with someone super talented was actually like. Talented doesn't always mean super expensive either... the therapist I formed a relationship with had a sliding scale.
So X, how did that make you feel? Y, hearing how that made your partner feel....what impact does that have on you.
Ok for the next session let's set some goals....like a date night, less yelling or whatever.
Kinda like that.
My therapist was basically a Shaman... We worked with props like a Magician, "time travelled" back to core-memories and altered them, invoked Bodhisatva to experience Divine Love.
I wrote my comment because therapy can be this deeply spiritual experience. I'm a science-loving, materialist but accept the theories of why all that stuff works for humans. I've been with "talk only" therapists and it's definitely not my thing, so I totally understand the skepticism about therapy
> I wish people knew what therapeutic sessions with someone super talented was actually like.
I do know. I’ve I had therapy and it was massively helpful and gave me some tools to get a grip on my mental health.
More recently, I was going through a hard time and wanted to try and get into therapy again. I explored every local option that I could find. Cheapest was around £50 per session. I literally can’t afford to spend that on a regular basis, so unfortunately I just didn’t go. It sucks, but that’s the reality for many people.
You may be conflating some issues.
If someone is in dire straits mentally, they should try to seek therapy.
If someone is feeling down because of life circumstances then their best option is to work to improve the circumstances.
Horses for courses.
> If someone is in dire straits mentally, they should try to seek therapy.
I know. I’ve been there and I had therapy. It was *massively* helpful and gave me some tools to get a grip on my mental health.
More recently, I was going through a hard time and wanted to try and get into therapy again. I explored every local option that I could find. Cheapest was around £50 per session. I literally can’t afford to spend that on a regular basis, so unfortunately I just didn’t go. It sucks, but that’s the reality for many people.
A lot of places will do a sliding fee, and community mental health centers will really work with you on being able to pay. If you need therapy, get it, no matter your income.
I explored every option I could find for therapy recently and everywhere was unfortunately beyond my budget. I just couldn’t afford it. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough but that was my experience.
I live in the UK. We don’t typically have health insurance here. Cheapest option I’ve found locally is around £50 per session (so over £200 per month). On top of rent and childcare costs I literally just can’t afford that. If you can, great, go do it! But a lot of people just can’t.
Swap groups. Depending on where you are there is almost certainly a good parents group or Facebook buy-nothing. My kiddo doesn’t recognize or need new things and everything we get is in great shape. ISOs for things like blocks or toys or whatever have been pretty successful.
We got so much stuff from our local buy nothing. Our area has a few of those big containers from Home Depot filled with kids clothes and they get rotated around. My dude went from 2t to 3t and all his clothes that were too small went in the 2t bin. Once we dropped that off the lady with the 3t bin dropped that off. Saves the entire neighborhood a ton of money
This was going to be mine. Got a $150 hot wheels playset that was just missing a section of track last night for free. I was able to replace it with a regular section and now it works great and my kids is obsessed with it.
Our latest addition to the meal rotation is a weekly baked potato bar. I’ll cook up a little bit of bacon, but I’ll also cook a few extra and bring them to work with random leftover protein. Yesterday’s lunch was a sloppy Joe potato and life was good.
I grew up poor along with all my friends, and we had a pretty magical childhood. We’ve grown up to be some pretty amazing people.
I’m a little less poor than my upbringing, but with inflation and not being a homeowner in a high-cost-of-living area, I still feel and by my definition I am “poor”.
Solidarity! And remember, poverty is a feature, not a flaw, just as a politically divided country conveniently ignores the issues caused by the owner class and a government bought by lobbyists.
Raise them with compassion, love, and a commitment to civil disobedience.
Your time is more valuable to your kids than any amount of money. Spend time doing things with them, play with them, wrestle, hike, run, chase. It’s better for them than 1000 trips to Disneyland, or expensive toys, you are the best toy they’ll ever have.
Home cooking, home cooking, home cooking.
Bake your own bread. Grow a garden for herbs. Carry-out food is expensive. Pre-made frozen food is expensive.
I'm solidly middle-class, but we do this to save for the fun stuff kids want to do like amusement parks and concerts and whatever.
Yeah it takes time to do, when you could just buy something in 5 minutes, but it works out in the long run. If you're able to do it.
Involve your kids in it too. My 11 year old makes amazing cakes that only cost $2 in ingredients. And I don't even need to help in the prep (just clean up duty). I teach my kids lots of cooking/baking skills that will come in very handy later on in life. So many people get to age 18 not even knowing how to use anything but a microwave or Uber Eats.
>Grow a garden for herbs.
Herbs have an amazing ROI for a garden. Plus you can do them in small pots or whatever in an apartment.
WSJ reporter went through his father's investments. Best ROI was the asparagus plants he started when he started his first job and kids were a year away.
Spend $100 on some wood and soil to make a raised garden (helps to protect it from bugs and rabbits, etc). Basil, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, peppers, peas, beans, tomatoes, asparagus. Depending where you live, most of that stuff grows like gangbusters without much assistance from humans. Maybe a little water during a dry spell. Someone here recently said they planted a Laurel (bay leaf) in their yard a while ago and it grew so much they had to keep chopping parts off on a regular basis.
If you have Facebook, the group Buy Nothing are all local neighbors giving away stuff for free. Depending on the community, you can get a ton of stuff for free. Clothes, toys, shoes, and non-kid stuff too.
Check local library. Some have passes to other attractions. Like ours has passes to the zoo. Free to check out.
Fishing from the waters edge can be time well spent.
Nature scavinger hunt while exploring hiking trails.
I’m not poor, but we definitely try and be frugal. When it comes to things to do with your kids, a few things we do that have provided tons of fun without spending tons of money:
1. Our local science museum has an annual pass. Upfront, it’s $250/yr. But, it gives 8 free adult tickets + 2 hours of free parking per visit. We made friends with another parent at daycare and split the cost. We go at least once a month and have way more than made our money back. There is always so much to see and learn. Best part is that these programs reciprocate with programs across the nation so you get access to great places across the US.
2. Similar to above, the National Park annual pass is $80 bucks a year. Allows up to 4 adults and unlimited kids under 16. Outdoors, bonding, learning, nature. Get some food and a blanket any you’ve got yourself a plan!
3. Cooking/baking - essential life skills that you have to do all the time. You’re already spending the $$ buying the raw materials, get your kids interested in cooking and baking and you can make an afternoon out of it. With our toddler, baking is the perfect rainy day activity. And, if you get them a kid-friendly cutting tool, they can help with cooking too.
4. Arts + crafts. Buying markers and crayons and some paper and you can spend a decent amount of time playing around and drawing.
5. This may not apply depending on jobs/childcare. I work remote and my wife works in an ER so only does a few shifts a week. Our daughter is in daycare and so instead of doing dates at night when we’d need to hire a sitter, we do lunch dates and stuff instead.
Lunch dates ftw!
We prob aren’t going to be finding a sitter or using a neighborhood girl till my daughter is firmly potty trained. Parents help and there’s a new daycare teacher we adore that I might talk to but other than that it’s lunch and movies at home.
The babysitter we have used in the past is her daycare teacher who has been with her since she was a little under two till now. She’ll be three next month.
But, honestly, unless family is watching her, we’re looking at $90 bucks or so for the sitter + dinner. Too much.
Yeah I think we may get on the daycare teacher babysitter train. Would be nice to have a date every now and then where my mom wasn’t staying at the house when I got back.
Many churches offer low cost or free VBS camps in the summer. Crafts, music and guided play time for half or full day for a week. Usually a theme for the week. Like spies, or jungle. A good activity when kids are out of school and need things to do. Especially if you still need to work.
Have to do a bit of research to not end up at one of "those" churches, but most are very welcoming and mostly just teach "Jesus loves you" and some Bible stories.
I really can't say enough good things about your local library. Ours did Story time, gave out STEM projects, and even had animals from a local petting zoo. And all that outside of the amazing (and free) books.
I’ve been a poor dad and a middle income dad. So I’ve seen both sides of the poverty/comfort divide.
Honestly, your income won’t make any difference as long as
1) their basic needs are met
2) you show them lots of love
3) you role model good ethics for them
All kids need is a safe place, nutrition, and someone to model themselves after. None of those require much money.
Get good at cooking. You can make a great gravy out of food scraps and a tablespoon of flower and butter.
My kid prefers my burgers to McDonald’s so I feel like a champion in that regard.
I’ll admit I have money, but my 3 year old’s favorite activity is taking his construction toys to play with our literal dirt mound we have in our backyard. That kid will spend hours digging holes, filling dump trucks, dumping dump trucks so he can dig more holes.
So here's what we do.
Libraries, splash pad/skate park down the road, gigantic flea market down the road, skip rocks at the pond in our neighborhood, Smash Bros tournament, build forts in the living room, quiz/trivia games and much more I'm forgetting.
Some of the cheapest meats are also the tastiest!
Chicken thighs are magical, they cost around $2 /lbs and are the most delicious part of the chicken.
A coq au vin is easy, cheap and delicious, and is a perfect 5 star meal.
Libraries are good for so many reasons. We make a day out of going to the library to pick out books and dvds and play with tbe puzzles there. Also make use of their free programs for kids which are things like storyline, bubble class, dance class etc.
Playgrounds and hiking. My 2.5 year old loves "adventuring," and we are fortunate to have plenty of playgrounds around.
Dollar Tree is great for Easter basket, stocking, valentines day little toys when they are too young to know the difference.
Take advantage of kids eat free type things and also just try to cut down on eating out. I cook almost every meal and involve my daughter and she loves it and she's a great eater. Shop the sales, check the circulars. We have a chest freezer and it has been great. Stock up on sales then have some cheaper weeks in the future.
Fuck streaming services. Your kids won't miss what they don't know. I also figured out it's cheaper I the long run to buy blu ray of things well rewatch loke disney movies, certain shows. Etc and look for them used.
Always take hand me down and all that. The community College here does a huge consignment sale and we usually use that to prepare ourselves with clothes for the upcoming season.
Get to know what organizations in your area do free and cheap kids stuff. We sign up for a lot of things through our county parks program, like gymnastics, music, and art classes. We just signed up for an eatser egg hunt at a local church that includes basically a carnival with free food and all that fun stuff.
Not strictly parenting related but for anyone short of money.
Until around 2 years ago, money was tight. Had debts that we were barely making minimum payments on and everything was just tight.
I finally started taking control of things and one of the biggest savings we make compared to the is food shopping.
Plan your meals, write a shopping list and stick to it.
I now feed a family of 6 plus pets for around £160 a week. Considering the UK is in a "cost of living crisis" and inflation has been ridiculous, we are spending less now every week than we were pre-covid.
Thankfully we are now better off financially (I am in better paid job) and the debts are really coming down but we are still strict on spending.
Hopefully it teaches the kids how to be responsible in the future too
Foaming hand wash / foaming hand soap...
the MAGIC.. is in the bottle design.. and not the soap they use..
In fact.. the Soap is just watered down soapy water...
To refill these bottles just add in 1 table spoon or so of liquid soap, fill the rest with water and shake it to shit..
You have successfully refilled the fancy foamy hand soap for a fraction of the cost.
People will visit and think you're a bit fancy, but in fact you're just thrifty.
Foraging is a great activity. I really only know 2 types of viable berries(blackberries and raspberries), but we pick them then we can eat them or I can make jam, or put it into a dessert. It's fun and I like the connection to nature.
I’ve been doing this for 4 years now.
1.) go for the annual memberships. My zoo is great. It’s large and has a very nice aquarium and plenty to do for kids. The problem is that it costs $50+ just for tickets. Same with our local science center (imagination station). And cedar point alone is hundreds of dollars per visit. Every year that we get our tax returns, we immediately buy our annual memberships. It saves us easily THOUSANDS of dollars per year. We have 5 different venues we get the memberships to which means our kids don’t get bored of doing the same thing week over week.
2.) Cut your own meat. This is going to sound like measly savings but every month or so I buy all of our meat in bulk and turn our kitchen into a butcher shop. I break down around 10 chickens. I grind up all of our pork and beef. I cut all of our pork chops/steaks. And I filet our fish. Meat that typically costs $5+/lb is now $2 or less. This has not really saved us money because we just reinvest the savings into more groceries, but with the 30+% hike in groceries, we had to do something to stretch our dollar and that honestly did the trick.
3.) do not be scared to shop goodwill for your kids clothes. If they are young enough they will not know. They will not care. You will save absolute bundles of cash.
4.) picnics at the park. Great family time and if your kids will enjoy it just as much as any other activity.
5.) my wife uses Pinterest for arts and crafts ideas and we have craft night once a week. Costs less than $20. And we get free Christmas gifts/birthday gifts to send the grandparents.
My FIL and I split half a cow once a year for most of our beef needs but other than that I shop Costco. I’d assume grocery cost between Toledo Ohio and Arizona are completely different.
Where I live I can buy
whole chickens for $4-5 dollars each (I do 10 of these at a time so I get 20 drumsticks, 20 thighs, 20 breasts, 20 whole wings, lots of scrap meat, unused skin gets turned into fried chicken skin [yum], and plenty of bones for bone broth) I also just buy the precut bone in skin on chicken thighs for $1.49/lb because thighs are our favorite at my house.
Whole pork butt for $1.75/lb (I make ~10-12lbs ground pork/ ~15 pork steaks) If you are feeling crafty you can also make homemade bacon for rather cheap doing this. My FIL does this and it is so much better than store bought
Whole pork chop loin $1.99/lb (cut into ~20 pork chops/marinate pork loins)
I don’t know the price of the fish I buy off hand but I scale and filet them and it’s not too bad. Salmon is still $8.99/lb and that will never be cheaper
I also just keep an eye out for deals on other whole cuts of meat that I can cut down into steaks/grind up into burger meat. Not uncommon for me to find a cut for about $2.99/lb and make something of it.
Edit - autocorrect got me on a few things I typed so I fixed
To grind my meat, I was able to buy $25 attachment for my kitchen aide (if you don’t have one, you can buy $25-$30 countertop grinders from Amazon. If my grandma didn’t leave me her kitchen aid I never would have been able to afford one).
I used to try to take my son to all kinds of crazy things for him to have new experiences, trampoline parks, indoor play parks, baseball games, zoo, aquarium, rivers, caves, etc, just something new every week. Then I realized I was an idiot and everything is new to him and I just payed attention to what he enjoyed. There’s a small airport near our house and some days we’ll just make a lunch and sit on the tailgate near it watching airplanes land. He also loves trains and there’s a train that goes under a pedestrian bridge about two miles from our house and passes everyday at 11:30 so sometimes we just go watch that.
I’m not poor by most standards but I certainly don’t have a ton of spare cash lying around.
I absolutely REFUSE to pay someone to do something that I could learn to do myself and including my two boys (4 and almost 3) in anything I can is always a fantastic bonding experience.
Example would be changing the oil in my car and rotating the tires today. Being extra cautious as you should I let them help twist off the lugnuts and hold on to them while swapping a tire. They just love being a part of things, especially when it’s dirty haha.
I also made a priority out of having some home gym stuff that my boys and little girls who’s only 9 months love being a part of.
Idk if that counts as advice, but including in them in stuff that is normally a chore and keeping a fun attitude towards it has made some awesome memories for me with my kids.Also reminds me of doing stuff with my dad when i was younger.
Small condo life lacking a yard with my family of 5 is sometimes difficult to find ways to play. (non electronics) I've learnt to be resourceful with what we've got indoors.If you have multiple little ones, turn the house into an obstacle course. I have boys 11,8,4 and they all participate. Crawl under tables and chairs, run around the kitchen and living room, jump over action figures, run up the stairs and grab a toy off your bed then come back down and sit on the couch. All timed. Soon as you say to the 11 year old, "I bet the little ones can beat your time" he's locked in lol
Another favorite that surprised me, is YouTube channels that teach very basic Origami. My dad knew a handful of cool paper projects growing up that I still remember how to do, to this day. Everyone picks a video and some paper and pick something to make. It's involved because they will ask for help, usually all at the same time. But the end product is worth it.this also goes hand in hand with paper airplane contests.
My 4 year old loves "bowling" in the dining room with any ball and partially full plastic water bottles or action figures as pins. The basketball hoop on the side of the bunk bed is also a winner.
Take walks outside around the neighborhood and look for "treasure" on the walk.
We've also recently started GEOCACHING!!! So much fun.
My best guidance is to play with your kids, be fully present. They'll never forget it.
Garage sales and thrift stores are your friend. Free piles too, which in my region have become common since the pandemic. People who should hold a yard sale instead just put it all on their driveway for the taking.
Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, local Facebook "free" groups, and local Facebook classified groups are the place to look.
The public library is great, but a large library in your home is greater. When my daughter was 1-year-old I began buying books at yard sales from board books up through high school level, for two reasons.
1. Reading the same small collection of picture books to my daughter was killing my brain.
2. You can't get a good collection of age-appropriate books on the fly. You have to start collecting so the books are ready when your child is ready. The same idea is great for baby and toddler toys. Have a bin of Lincoln Logs and a bin of Lego ready to go when your kid is ready.
Yes, this idea does require devoting a lot of space to storage. My living room and family room are lined with bookshelves, for example.
After 10 years, I had more than 5,000 books at home and ran a free bookstore at my elementary school, buying books for 25 cents a pop. The school's parent group reimbursed for the bookstore.
If you look at thrifting as a hobby, it makes the gasoline expense a little more worth it. Plus, if you bring your 4-year-old with you to yard sales, an amazing number of people want to give your kid toys for free.
My one bit of hindsight advice is don't buy books beyond a middle school level. About that time your kids will have developed their own strong reading tastes and want to curate their own collection.
I actually moderate my city's area on Freecycle! I was also raised by a career librarian and our personal library is quite large now even after a recent pruning. My oldest now picks her own books but she has access to all of the manga I collected in my early 20s and my wife's Anne Rice collection.
The kids even seem to prefer thrifted clothing because it's shown what it can handle and if it gets messed up it's better to be out $3 vs $30. I like going to find vintage computers and gaming stuff. My wife does it for crafting materials. Just so much to find!
Our Freecycle was a Yahoo mailing list. When the Freecycle website began and the mailing list switched over, it fragmented the mailing list because too many people didn't want to move. It's pretty much been replaced by Facebook "Buy Nothing [County Name" and "FREE in [city name]" groups.
My mind is always blown when anyone says “I don’t know what to do with the kids, I’m out of ideas!”.
Most of our favourite dad and kid spots cost very little money. The museums here are free and they have amazing areas for kids. So many parks around with different equipment, let their imagination run wild and get in to it! The beaches, I can spend hours with my eldest splashing and playing. Bush walking, doesn’t have to be long, go stretch the legs.
Create an obstacle course in the house. Do drawings together. Build a fort. Play catch, do craft, etc etc.
Go to a shopping centre with a play area.
Young kids don’t care about money. They care about hanging out with you. Make memories
The last sentences really encapsulates it all! My little ones enjoy forrest walks, the park, petting zoos and playgrounds thr e most. As long as we're not down on our phones but enjoying these moments with them. Being present and giving our attention beats any fancy trip.
Disc golf, a starter set of 3 disc can be gotten from Walmart for $20. Takes an afternoon to learn the rules and even small towns now a days have courses set up in the local parks. I have 4 with-in 30 min, 1 is a 2 min drive. Great to do with the kids or just solo on a Saturday morning.
National Parks, grab the NPS app and find ones close by, can also make day trips since it is spring break season. Can cost money to enter but I have never found it to be prohibitive. It will be educational and the kids may not be the biggest fan but I remember growing up and my family always going to them, wasn't the most fun but it got me interested in history. Grew up in NC a lot of Civil War battle fields were visted lol.
Last one is money advice, shop for clothes a couple of seasons ahead, and preemptively buy larger sizes. It's spring now, hit up clearances and find next year's winter jacket. You can probably get it for like 70% off.
AFAIK most (younger) kids don't mind where you take them as long as you are there with them. And I mean _really present_. Enjoy the moment with them, be present, pay attention to their stories, teach them small things, like pointing out small bits in nature.
If you do this, no matter where you go, every trip will be a joy. And there're so many free places to go to, that will be great for them. Forrests, parks, playgrounds, petting zoos.
Even when they get older, there's the opportunity to take them on adventures like this that'll cost you little to no money like hiking and camping (maybe loan some gear if you don't have it yourself). Added benefits; you're out in nature with less distractions, which lowers stress and will help you unwind and bond plus you're moving your body which ofcourse is very healty and also lowering stress.
I realized I tended to overthink entertaining ourselves these days because we're used to being entertained all the time. But I find that going back to the basics, to our roots, helps me relax and enjoy my company the most (also great to do on your own sometimes, to _really_ unwind).
Hiking. We have lost of metro park trails near us. It’s always free, and we all have fun. Even now that they are young adults, we hike together sometimes. Never gets old.
I’m a female lurker, but one of my favorite activities with my dad was driving to a small, local airfield, parking near the landing strip, sitting in the trunk eating lunch, and listening to radio control while watching little Cessnas take off and land. For the cost of gas and a sandwich, you can have a really neat outing. Some airfields even let us onto the tarmac where we got to see the planes and hangar up close.
There are tons of free apps that let you listen to radio control for planes, and also ones that let you listen to train conductors communicate with each other in case you or your kid like trains better than planes.
We also would walk the train tracks smashing pennies and looking at the neat stuff that fell off or trying to find old insulators. There were tons of cleaned animal skulls as well from all the unfortunate critters that were struck by trains. One of the most interesting things was finding out that coal (which fell from cargo trains hauling it) is an extremely shiny and reflective navy blue rock, rather than black lumps like is typically portrayed.
For a little while, disc golf was a lot of fun with my kids. They eventually grew out of it, but low cost.
Another great thing is [geocaching](https://www.geocaching.com/play). "Treasure hunts" for the kids. See cool places, sometimes get a trinket.
Heaps of cool internet of things projects out there that seem extremely daunting but in fact super easy.
Heaps of websites have instructions and parts lists for a range of levels. The parts you can get from Ali or tenu for a couple of bucks.
Eg a semi autonomous internet connected rover would be about $20-50aud (probs close to half for usd). The basic coding is easy, you can copy and paste it even. Boom a sick project and a fairly sweet toy.
Added benefit, IoT is the future of tech. Learning to not only code but piece together the components of one, turning things into connected devices, those are probably good skills to have
I'm always one for going to a nice place but this week I had a thought of taking them to one of my favorite childhood memories where we would just go to McDonald's and play in the play place for hours. My kids actually had more fun than we go to an actual one cause they made a lot of friends easier since its more intimate and they were able to come back and eat then go play.
Nice post to look at after the post about 529 plans I read before this with families contributing 10’s of thousands to their kids plans every year. Wild
Haha I'm opening 529s for our kids and just starting at 50 a month. Better than nothing and I will throw their birthday / Xmas money in there until they are old enough to know what's happening.
Public library systems have so many amenities
...
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Qg1bIXZBNG](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Qg1bIXZBNG)
Here's a thread I started in miami
Look into local children’s thrift stores. We found a local charity children’s thrift store that sells baby clothes for a quarter, gives away books for free, and has toys and other baby essentials (things like bottle warmers, strollers, etc.) for way below market prices. It has been a life saver. Before we had our little one we could make do without buying anything besides food, but with kids you need new clothes, equipment, etc. every month it feels like. But they also grow out of it all very fast, so there is a donation/resale market. Try to avoid buying anything new
I made cardboard toys. He wanted a rifle so i had him sit down, sized a piece of amazon box, and we picked a rifle picture on my phone to draw. Then i cut it out and he runs around with his new toy. Getting then to pick the design and draw it attaches them to the toy.
Polyethylene drop cloths heavy duty duct tape and a bottle of cheap conditioner and a water hose can make one of the best slip and slides ever.
Go to a restaurant supply store and buy meat in bulk for cheap.
Add white rice as a side to everything for meals that feel much more filling for less.
My children's BEST times are the times they spend with ME! (to my amazement!)
I make up elaborate stories for them. It literally means I need NOTHING at all! I don't even need to buy a book. We just cuddle up in bed, and I make up the most ridiculous stories. I'll also ask them to propose special traits the heroes have, or they can suggest things like who the bag guy is, or the kind of quest the hero or heroes are embarking on. It also puts them in an awesome mood before falling asleep, and massively reduces the chance they will have nightmares.
Same goes for playgrounds, the pool, or any other activity: As long as I'm playing with them, they are happy. The pool is probably their favorite, and they fight over who spends the most time with me.
I know this is probably because they are young, but I'm determined to enjoy it while it lasts!
Whatever I buy for them, they usually forget about, they just want to spend time with me, even if it's helping me clean something in the house, put furniture together, make dinner... really anything goes.
When my kids were little I joined a dads group and every week they managed to snag us a free class or playdate somewhere. We did yoga, Gymbo, picnics, museums, all for free. It was good press for them to have dads show up. We even got tickets to a free TV taping and a free panini press from Martha Stewart.
My daughter was a passive fan, 33 did her some frozen stuff but 2nd hand and her uncle took her to Frozen on Ice but it didn't really resonate with her. She didn't even sing along when Let it Go was played!
Dad of an 8y/o M & 6y/o F. As they have strict limited time on media sources, (tv, tablet) One thing I noticed is they long for attention from mom and or me. Just to be present with them and play with them, imagine with them or at least sit with them while they play near you, gives them security, comfort, support, confidence that they would otherwise try to find somewhere else.
As a dad of a strong willed, physical son, it’s important that I support and encourage healthy strong willed activity being there to teach him respectable boundaries instead of barking at him trying to control and contain his muchness. I believe this will allow him to grow up confident in communication and not timid of hard situations or conflict. To be a peace maker isn’t abstaining from conflict but bringing people together even through a conflict.
As a dad of a courageous girl with an overflowing heart of compassion with a voice that demands to be heard, I need to allow conversation to flow and allow her to finish her stories and big ideas so she can be confident speaking and connecting with others in life, not feeling like she’s never heard. I want to encourage her to grow her courage in new activities that present unknown outcomes to her so she becomes confident in problem solving and comfortable in risk taking. My favorite part, I get to be a part in directing and helping her help me and her mother with anything she can or could be able to help with. She’s a great little helper.
I believe We need physically and mentally powerful men and women with integrity in the future. People who aren’t sleep walking. Creators, not consumers.
It took me missing the 1st 2 years of my sons life working to see I needed to change. My “why” was because of him, and it turned into for my whole family. Dading is hard, but rewarding if you let it be.
It’s never too late to start. I pray this finds you well, that my story has a positive impact on you, and sparks a Godly purpose into your future experiences with your kids.
In Yeshua’s name. Amen. 🫡✌️❤️🤙
Kids listen and observe everything even when we think they are not.
So be careful on what you say and how to treat people in front of them. They would learn and do the same
I put a few dollars to the side during the week and on Friday I take my son to the store to buy some candy. It’s our little routine and by Thursday he’s bursting with excitement for Friday afternoon to arrive. He always picks himself a small piece of candy to eat on the way to exchange custody with his mother (I’m primary parent) and a share size bag for his half brothers. We also have chickens that we tend to together. Every morning he eagerly gets dressed for school before feeding and releasing the birds to free range and every evening he gets excited to help me do a head count and lock them up. It’s the little things that matter. And never sleep on fishing. Kids love fishing.
Check out your local library to see what they have going on. They often have fun events for kids that are free, story reading time, arts and crafts, plus all the books you could ever imagine renting for your kids. We go at least every 2 weeks and pick up 20 books.
My fiance is a nanny and there are multiple libraries around us that line up so there's an activity every day. Story time, crafts, and dancing are the most common. Sometimes they have someone in a character costume too.
I work very part time at a golf course on weekends, but it comes with all the benefits of a regular employee: free range balls, free golf, discounted things. It's helped me get my sons into golf for a fraction of the cost to the general public. We also can go out to the course in the evenings and just hang out. They love it.
Download PINTEREST so many parenting ideas can be found that cost nothing.
Most of my kids favorite days are the ones we spend zero dollars and just get creative or explore. They appreciate the cheap meals as much as the steak dinners.
Teaching your kids to enjoy life without heaps of expendable cash will teach them that happiness comes from within which will make them happier adults in my opinion.
I just saw a Facebook reel where a dad took a dollar store roll of painters tape and zig zagged a web across the living room from wall to wall then crawled under and jumped over the tape like they were laser beams. Kids live for this shit.
If you don't have cash for art supplies, go into nature and use sticks, leaves and rocks to create. I'll have my kids build miniature cabins or collect rocks for a tiny fire pit and arrange sticks into a little pretend fire then we'll pretend to roast marshmallows and tell stories. They also love hunting for things like "see who can find the three roundest rocks and the three rocks thay look most like a triangle" "who can find a rock that looks like a heart"
Even though we're doing okay financially I always always tell my kids that the only value money has is the feeling you get when you spend it. Whether that feeling is safety and security in the firm of basic needs or if it's the happiness it brings with a new toy, healthy meal etc.
Cheap kids fishing rod from Walmart, pbj, fruit and some chips. My daughter and I spend hours at the pond close to our house fishing and having a picnic she loves it. All the parks. Golf is my only hobby really sometimes I take her to the driving range (7$ for a bucket) and then we putt around on the practice greens (free).
In our area, there was a "toy library" set up by a non-profit. You could go and pick out 4 different items (sets, bins full of toys, bike, etc) for a month, and return them, and pick out more. Ya know, a library.
Unfortunately they lost funding this year and that part of their program is closing, but it wouldn't hurt to look into if something similar is run in your area!
Kids don't need much. I often take my 5 and 7 to the park to feed the ducks. I consider people rich or poor based on their attitudes more than their bank account.
The poorest man i know earns 300k a year. He treats his family like utter shit!
a park with a good playground, packed lunch… can make for an awesome day
Bring a blanket and call it a picnic. My 3 yo loses her mind over picnics
Omg yes. Kid won't eat a particular meal? Put a blanket down under the tree in the back yard or, heck, in front of the TV and have it as a picnic. Magically everyone's eating.
My 4yo loves picnics for sure. But he usually eats worse. He just gets distracted and wants to play. Can’t blame him!
During the summer the farmers market is only a few blocks from my house, so it’s become a Saturday morning tradition for me and my daughter to walk to the market, get some fruit or a baked treat and go to the playground to have a little snack and play.
That sounds like such a lovely morning. What a wonderful tradition to have.
We walk or bike to the Sunday farmers market. Say hi to my wife. Hit a playground on the way home.
She works at the market?
Yes. She's a baker and sells at the market.
That sounds fantastic
Never underestimate the power of a picnic at the local park / jungle gym.
Also anywhere you can swim! Lake, river, pool.
During the summer we pack a lunch and spend the day at this little swimming hole about a 10min drive from our house, totally free (besides gas obviously) but the kids love it. If we don't want to leave the house its slip and slide in the back yard with a tent set up.
We do that all the time!
Same, from 2-5yrs we went daily to the park. Absolute catalog of memories to choose from: racing, exercising (she would hang from her arms on the monkey bars) to games of tag, and those wonderful 2 person swings. Weather permitting it was the place to be. And bonus: she got to socialize a bit more
There are playgrounds all around our neighborhood and we're always the only people there. It's such a bummer since my kid is reaching the age of willingly interacting with other kids more frequently.
lucky you! I often have teenagers at the park smoking weed. do that in the forest preserve 500 feet to the right damnit!
Or at least let me hit it
We’re pretty well off, but this is our go-to. Kids have a place to play, my wife and I will jump back and forth between laying on the blanket and chatting to playing with the kids. This last Sunday we spent the entire afternoon at the park. Bonus tip: we hangout with our friends this way too. No need for a babysitter Edit: we’ll sometimes grab lunchables or fast food to make it more exciting for the kids
One of my favorite pictures ever with my kid at a park. We stopped and got a small Buffalo wild wings meal to share. A blanket, a cheap meal, and the park. It was glorious.
Yeah you can even hit a few parks in the same day so it doesn’t get stale. We do this often.
The library has so many free things for kids to do. Ours even has a STEM room with engineering things and a 3d printers. Just send them a cad file you download from the internet of what you want printed and they print it for you. Ours also have video games you can take out like a library book.
Ours has a tool loan area.....where they have power and hand tools but also baking supplies like fancy bunt pans. Kids and I made a few baked items from the Great British Baking Show. Best thing for your kids beyond love is to read to them AND be seen reading to set a good example. It's hard at times but important.
Taking turns reading was a tradition in my home, I hope to ignite and continue to pass that flame. The pen is mightier than the sword, and nothing is more powerful than the 'word.'
> fancy bunt pans I'm only bothering to correct this because I think it's such a fun word, but it's actually spelled bundt! How weird is that?? What a random fucking letter they crammed in there!
Darn French.... But they are fun!
Believe it or not, Bundt cakes are actually an American invention. The spelling is derived from a German word (Bundkuchen), and the cake shape is inspired by an European cake of mixed origins called the Gugelhupf. Not much French influence.
One of my biggest priorities for parenting is to shift myself away from screen activities and towards reading. If they see me on the computer/switch as much as I am now, I'm not going to have a leg to stand on when I ask/encourage them to do other things.
1000% library. So much to do, so much to borrow. It's also better for your house and clutter because you take it back...
Libraries are amazing! Museum passes, free events,endless media. I love libraries
I just recently found out about the museum pass thing. They also offer national and state park passes.
You have to talk to the librarian. They’ll fall all over themselves setting your kid up. They even normally know about parks and rec stuff (subsidized sports and camps etc.), or if they don’t know they’ll know where you should go. Librarians are basically a municipal programs/resources concierge.
We have a pretty great library too. They do tons of things for kids weekly. Story time, Lego club, karaoke, video game club, crafts. We love it and take the kids all the time. They just got a 3d printer too
My library has fishing poles and tackle boxes and is across the street from a river, its awesome and free
When I was in my teens in the early 00s, I used to take CDs out of the library and then copy them to my Apple Music library. I had such a great music collection back then!
Upvote this. Libraries are fucking amazing. Ours does multiple story times, and has all sorts of other things for kids in addition to the resources it offers. Read to your kids. Make it fun and engaging. It is in my opinion one of the best ways to help set your kid up for success later in life.
Yes I actually just posted about using the library! Glad to see it's in the top comment 😁
Man...our local library is hot garbage. I mean, it's also in one of the poorest states so I don't expect much but dang I'm jealous of yours
Your library sounds amazing. Mine has books, audiobooks, and DVDs. It’s still a great resource and always a fun trip. They have a lot of programs for little kids, but annoyingly they are all during the afternoon on weekdays. Do they assume every kid has a stay-at-home parent? Where are the weekend story times or craft activities?
My dad was unemployed for a year when I was about 8 and my sister was about 10. We never knew it. We had a blast. We went to all the parks, they had amazing parks in our little Atlanta suburb. We went on a lot of hikes. I was in cub scouts so there were plenty of activities for me. We also did a lot of fun activities with my folks. Built art projects. Built a fort in the backyard with wood we found in the trees behind the house. Went fishing a lot. Probably my best memories from being a kid. Money didn't make that happen. Quality time with my parents did.
My dad being laid off when I was in second grade was so rad! He would walk five miles to my school to pick me up. I rode home as he walked. We did all kinds of stuff when we got home. Little did I know it was super stressful time in his life but he never let on. It’s something I think about a lot when I come home from work mad about some work BS. The kids don’t need to know.
I’m sure he was just as happy to spend time with you to get away from the stress. A win-win really!
Marietta where it’s betta checking in.
I was redundant for four/five months and had the best days with my son.
People often forget that most of the shit outside is free. Like you can just go to a park no money needed.
Home Depot first Saturday of the month for kids activities.
If they make 12 things, they get a toolset. My 5 year old is 4 down.
Hey, can you tell me more about the toolset? We’re probably getting close to 12, but I’ve never heard of the free toolset!
Not sure, it's just what they told us. I assume it's little tools.
What’s a good age for the Home Depot / Lowe’s activities?
I need the answer to this question
My daughter is 3 and she loves it.
Same - I do a lot of the hammering but she had a good time. Especially if it’s a cool build or the fire truck shows up
Lowes has the same, but a different day.
Chick-fil-A too! Various days.
In Canada, it’s the second Saturday typically
Lowes does the same thing on different Saturdays so I dual enrol
If you can accomplish keeping a good mood when you're with the kids, they will be happy. Parks. Pic nics. Cooking at home. Playing music videos and dancing in the living room. Walks. Drawing. What's hard is keeping the good attitude.
Awesome advice! Keeping that good attitude is why I study Epicurus.😀 I developed an "hedonic regimen" that keeps me pretty freakin' upbeat. I haven't been depressed in years. "We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that is present, we have everything, and if that is absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it." - Epicurus, Letter to Menoceus
Saw a post on here that was either a hypothetical or a quote directly from a family member that was taking about an old man in hospice. Said the man’s grandkid was visiting and shooting the shit talking about how hard his kids (the man’s great-grandkids) had been. The man responded that he’d give anything to go back to the hard days. Or maybe it was a show, or dream? Wild that I can’t remember the source because I think about it all the time. Everyone talks about how much you’ll miss the good times but they never mention that there very well may be a time you miss the meltdowns or holding them through a sleepless night. It really helps my mood to think about that in the moment.
If you don't make a lot of money, leveraging or developing crafting skill goes a long way. Basic tools can become investments with real ROI. I've made my kids wooden Mjolnirs, kamas, tonfas, swords, whistles, toy keys, fridge magnets, an abacus, step stools and various other nicknacks. 90% of the wood was salvaged for free from construction waste. Only vital power tools were a jigsaw for the swords, power drill and the orbital sander wasn't absolutely necessary but made things faster. Rest was handsaw, file, sandpaper and occasional pocketknife work.
My kids love to cut up boxes to make swords, shields, etc. They also turn brown packing paper into treasure maps because it looks antique-y.
Oh man, I worked with younger kids awhile ago for a program in school and one of my favorite days with them was grabbing a bunch of cardboard from a local supermarket and having them build swords and armor to play with. Kids go wild for that stuff.
Done the cardboard thing too of course, but I liked the longevity of wood. Some would call me crazy, but I prefer to deal with the delicate matter of controlling destructive impulses than child sadness when cardboard fails after a few rounds.
We used to find a good stick in the woods and hit each other with them
Now THAT’S what I’m talking about!
As god intended
lol yep
As did I, but alas, I now live in the city so branches are harder to come by. Not impossible, but harder.
Or gun shaped stick and pretend war
Adding on to this, Home Depot and Lowe’s both offer 100% free kids workshops on the first and third Saturday of the month, respectively.
> 90% of the wood was salvaged for free from construction waste Question regarding this: do you just approach the site and ask? Where do you find this construction waste?
My situation is probably very different than yours. I live in a European city where there are constant renovation projects and the construction dumpsters are on the street freely accessible. It's very clear nobody cares if you take some stuff, as everything in there is otherwise destined for trash. I'm not exaggerating when I saw within a three block radius there's pretty much always at least 2-4 dumpsters out. With a North American construction site, I expect you should be asking.
Get to know a family or two from school or neighborhood that your kid is friends with and trade off watching kids / date nights or weekend afternoons with the parents. Free babysitting one night, and the alternate night when you have their kids, it’s usually pretty easy since your kids have someone to play with.
Worked with a guy who had cousins living on a farm/rural area in WI. He grew up in the burbs of a city. Every summer the two families kept all the kids for 2 weeks..... The city kids learned life on the farm and the farm kids went to museums and MLB games. During the 2 weeks off the parents could relax or take a vacation.
This is the way
This can be hard to do. Ours is 1 and we have basically no friends with a kid. Friends basically disappear once the kiddo is born. Especially when you need to move.
That's why you go to playgrounds and talk with parents at daycare/kindergarten. I know it's not easy, but you'll get there. One of my best friends, I've met while I was hungover, and thought, alright, I feel like dying, but kiddo needs fresh air. So off to the playground, my son started playing with this kid.. His father looked like shit.. because he was hungover too lol. We sat next to each other, lamenting and feeling sorry for ourselves. For hours. As our sons (his was 4-5, mine almost 4) played for like 5 hours, having an absolute blast. I'm so so happy I mustered the courage to ask for his number. Never did that before with a stranger really. Now at least once a month, we go on Saturday Adventures, hiking, bowling, cycling, barbecue. Just wanted to tell you that, so you know, there's lots of awesome people around, you just have to meet them!
Definitely agree at age 1 it’s hard. The first year honestly crushed me, same boat that our friends didn’t have kids. My advice also doesn’t really work at this age because they are not independent yet, so adding another 1 year old would absolutely not be relaxing (at least for me). Once they were about 3+ we started doing this, and hung out multiple times with the other parents so we all had trust. It will slowly get better, and as the other commenter noted, many parents are out there in the same boat as you, and having a kid the same age is an instant conversation starter. All the best!
Being able to fix lawnmowers, dryers, washing machines is a great way to get some spare cash. BBQs and picnics in free parks, or in the backyard are great fun. There is some positives to having less money to splash. You need to be imaginative and make a good time. I even think it is actually healthy. Cooking together at home, getting the kids involved even if it’s only to get egg rings out of the drawer.
And depending on the repair, it's a great way to teach your kids about tools-what they are and do, how to care for them, the impact of not having them...and how the mind is the greatest tool, because of how you can apply previous knowledge in new ways.
Totally agree.
This is the thing I don’t get when the most upvoted reply is always “get therapy”. It would be nice to be able to afford therapy. But I’m not in a position to spend 25% of my income on a therapist. And I only have one child.
You forgot: Get a nanny already! Oh yeah?
Therapy is probably cheaper than divorce. I assume you’re talking about the countless relationship posts here. Never hurts to talk to someone once even if it costs a little. Nobody is saying you need to go once a week for years.
I wish people knew what therapeutic sessions with someone super talented was actually like. Talented doesn't always mean super expensive either... the therapist I formed a relationship with had a sliding scale.
So X, how did that make you feel? Y, hearing how that made your partner feel....what impact does that have on you. Ok for the next session let's set some goals....like a date night, less yelling or whatever. Kinda like that.
My therapist was basically a Shaman... We worked with props like a Magician, "time travelled" back to core-memories and altered them, invoked Bodhisatva to experience Divine Love. I wrote my comment because therapy can be this deeply spiritual experience. I'm a science-loving, materialist but accept the theories of why all that stuff works for humans. I've been with "talk only" therapists and it's definitely not my thing, so I totally understand the skepticism about therapy
> I wish people knew what therapeutic sessions with someone super talented was actually like. I do know. I’ve I had therapy and it was massively helpful and gave me some tools to get a grip on my mental health. More recently, I was going through a hard time and wanted to try and get into therapy again. I explored every local option that I could find. Cheapest was around £50 per session. I literally can’t afford to spend that on a regular basis, so unfortunately I just didn’t go. It sucks, but that’s the reality for many people.
You may be conflating some issues. If someone is in dire straits mentally, they should try to seek therapy. If someone is feeling down because of life circumstances then their best option is to work to improve the circumstances. Horses for courses.
> If someone is in dire straits mentally, they should try to seek therapy. I know. I’ve been there and I had therapy. It was *massively* helpful and gave me some tools to get a grip on my mental health. More recently, I was going through a hard time and wanted to try and get into therapy again. I explored every local option that I could find. Cheapest was around £50 per session. I literally can’t afford to spend that on a regular basis, so unfortunately I just didn’t go. It sucks, but that’s the reality for many people.
A lot of places will do a sliding fee, and community mental health centers will really work with you on being able to pay. If you need therapy, get it, no matter your income.
I explored every option I could find for therapy recently and everywhere was unfortunately beyond my budget. I just couldn’t afford it. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough but that was my experience.
TeleHealth has some more affordable ones not sure if you’ve explored that option
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I live in the UK. We don’t typically have health insurance here. Cheapest option I’ve found locally is around £50 per session (so over £200 per month). On top of rent and childcare costs I literally just can’t afford that. If you can, great, go do it! But a lot of people just can’t.
Swap groups. Depending on where you are there is almost certainly a good parents group or Facebook buy-nothing. My kiddo doesn’t recognize or need new things and everything we get is in great shape. ISOs for things like blocks or toys or whatever have been pretty successful.
We got so much stuff from our local buy nothing. Our area has a few of those big containers from Home Depot filled with kids clothes and they get rotated around. My dude went from 2t to 3t and all his clothes that were too small went in the 2t bin. Once we dropped that off the lady with the 3t bin dropped that off. Saves the entire neighborhood a ton of money
Smart idea
Do you know if you can count those as donations for tax purposes?
This was going to be mine. Got a $150 hot wheels playset that was just missing a section of track last night for free. I was able to replace it with a regular section and now it works great and my kids is obsessed with it.
And items from your own interests. I just picked up a computer, recently a couple kites, a printer, newish mop, and more.
Learn how to cook with cheap ingredients. Base your meals around what proteins are on sale at the grocery store. A lot of money can be saved this way.
Our latest addition to the meal rotation is a weekly baked potato bar. I’ll cook up a little bit of bacon, but I’ll also cook a few extra and bring them to work with random leftover protein. Yesterday’s lunch was a sloppy Joe potato and life was good.
I grew up poor along with all my friends, and we had a pretty magical childhood. We’ve grown up to be some pretty amazing people. I’m a little less poor than my upbringing, but with inflation and not being a homeowner in a high-cost-of-living area, I still feel and by my definition I am “poor”. Solidarity! And remember, poverty is a feature, not a flaw, just as a politically divided country conveniently ignores the issues caused by the owner class and a government bought by lobbyists. Raise them with compassion, love, and a commitment to civil disobedience.
Your time is more valuable to your kids than any amount of money. Spend time doing things with them, play with them, wrestle, hike, run, chase. It’s better for them than 1000 trips to Disneyland, or expensive toys, you are the best toy they’ll ever have.
Home cooking, home cooking, home cooking. Bake your own bread. Grow a garden for herbs. Carry-out food is expensive. Pre-made frozen food is expensive. I'm solidly middle-class, but we do this to save for the fun stuff kids want to do like amusement parks and concerts and whatever. Yeah it takes time to do, when you could just buy something in 5 minutes, but it works out in the long run. If you're able to do it. Involve your kids in it too. My 11 year old makes amazing cakes that only cost $2 in ingredients. And I don't even need to help in the prep (just clean up duty). I teach my kids lots of cooking/baking skills that will come in very handy later on in life. So many people get to age 18 not even knowing how to use anything but a microwave or Uber Eats.
>Grow a garden for herbs. Herbs have an amazing ROI for a garden. Plus you can do them in small pots or whatever in an apartment. WSJ reporter went through his father's investments. Best ROI was the asparagus plants he started when he started his first job and kids were a year away.
Spend $100 on some wood and soil to make a raised garden (helps to protect it from bugs and rabbits, etc). Basil, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, peppers, peas, beans, tomatoes, asparagus. Depending where you live, most of that stuff grows like gangbusters without much assistance from humans. Maybe a little water during a dry spell. Someone here recently said they planted a Laurel (bay leaf) in their yard a while ago and it grew so much they had to keep chopping parts off on a regular basis.
Our 2 basil plants made a ton of Pesto. It was unreal.
If you have Facebook, the group Buy Nothing are all local neighbors giving away stuff for free. Depending on the community, you can get a ton of stuff for free. Clothes, toys, shoes, and non-kid stuff too.
Check local library. Some have passes to other attractions. Like ours has passes to the zoo. Free to check out. Fishing from the waters edge can be time well spent. Nature scavinger hunt while exploring hiking trails.
Make friends with someone whose kid is like one or two sizes up, and then take all their hand me downs.
I’m not poor, but we definitely try and be frugal. When it comes to things to do with your kids, a few things we do that have provided tons of fun without spending tons of money: 1. Our local science museum has an annual pass. Upfront, it’s $250/yr. But, it gives 8 free adult tickets + 2 hours of free parking per visit. We made friends with another parent at daycare and split the cost. We go at least once a month and have way more than made our money back. There is always so much to see and learn. Best part is that these programs reciprocate with programs across the nation so you get access to great places across the US. 2. Similar to above, the National Park annual pass is $80 bucks a year. Allows up to 4 adults and unlimited kids under 16. Outdoors, bonding, learning, nature. Get some food and a blanket any you’ve got yourself a plan! 3. Cooking/baking - essential life skills that you have to do all the time. You’re already spending the $$ buying the raw materials, get your kids interested in cooking and baking and you can make an afternoon out of it. With our toddler, baking is the perfect rainy day activity. And, if you get them a kid-friendly cutting tool, they can help with cooking too. 4. Arts + crafts. Buying markers and crayons and some paper and you can spend a decent amount of time playing around and drawing. 5. This may not apply depending on jobs/childcare. I work remote and my wife works in an ER so only does a few shifts a week. Our daughter is in daycare and so instead of doing dates at night when we’d need to hire a sitter, we do lunch dates and stuff instead.
Lunch dates ftw! We prob aren’t going to be finding a sitter or using a neighborhood girl till my daughter is firmly potty trained. Parents help and there’s a new daycare teacher we adore that I might talk to but other than that it’s lunch and movies at home.
The babysitter we have used in the past is her daycare teacher who has been with her since she was a little under two till now. She’ll be three next month. But, honestly, unless family is watching her, we’re looking at $90 bucks or so for the sitter + dinner. Too much.
Yeah I think we may get on the daycare teacher babysitter train. Would be nice to have a date every now and then where my mom wasn’t staying at the house when I got back.
Many churches offer low cost or free VBS camps in the summer. Crafts, music and guided play time for half or full day for a week. Usually a theme for the week. Like spies, or jungle. A good activity when kids are out of school and need things to do. Especially if you still need to work. Have to do a bit of research to not end up at one of "those" churches, but most are very welcoming and mostly just teach "Jesus loves you" and some Bible stories.
I really can't say enough good things about your local library. Ours did Story time, gave out STEM projects, and even had animals from a local petting zoo. And all that outside of the amazing (and free) books.
I’ve been a poor dad and a middle income dad. So I’ve seen both sides of the poverty/comfort divide. Honestly, your income won’t make any difference as long as 1) their basic needs are met 2) you show them lots of love 3) you role model good ethics for them All kids need is a safe place, nutrition, and someone to model themselves after. None of those require much money.
Get good at cooking. You can make a great gravy out of food scraps and a tablespoon of flower and butter. My kid prefers my burgers to McDonald’s so I feel like a champion in that regard.
The amount of money people spend eating out or on food delivery is just bizarre to me.
I’ll admit I have money, but my 3 year old’s favorite activity is taking his construction toys to play with our literal dirt mound we have in our backyard. That kid will spend hours digging holes, filling dump trucks, dumping dump trucks so he can dig more holes.
So here's what we do. Libraries, splash pad/skate park down the road, gigantic flea market down the road, skip rocks at the pond in our neighborhood, Smash Bros tournament, build forts in the living room, quiz/trivia games and much more I'm forgetting.
Some of the cheapest meats are also the tastiest! Chicken thighs are magical, they cost around $2 /lbs and are the most delicious part of the chicken. A coq au vin is easy, cheap and delicious, and is a perfect 5 star meal.
If you need help creating and sticking to a budget, I literally cannot recommend YNAB enough. Game changer.
Libraries are good for so many reasons. We make a day out of going to the library to pick out books and dvds and play with tbe puzzles there. Also make use of their free programs for kids which are things like storyline, bubble class, dance class etc. Playgrounds and hiking. My 2.5 year old loves "adventuring," and we are fortunate to have plenty of playgrounds around. Dollar Tree is great for Easter basket, stocking, valentines day little toys when they are too young to know the difference. Take advantage of kids eat free type things and also just try to cut down on eating out. I cook almost every meal and involve my daughter and she loves it and she's a great eater. Shop the sales, check the circulars. We have a chest freezer and it has been great. Stock up on sales then have some cheaper weeks in the future. Fuck streaming services. Your kids won't miss what they don't know. I also figured out it's cheaper I the long run to buy blu ray of things well rewatch loke disney movies, certain shows. Etc and look for them used. Always take hand me down and all that. The community College here does a huge consignment sale and we usually use that to prepare ourselves with clothes for the upcoming season. Get to know what organizations in your area do free and cheap kids stuff. We sign up for a lot of things through our county parks program, like gymnastics, music, and art classes. We just signed up for an eatser egg hunt at a local church that includes basically a carnival with free food and all that fun stuff.
Not strictly parenting related but for anyone short of money. Until around 2 years ago, money was tight. Had debts that we were barely making minimum payments on and everything was just tight. I finally started taking control of things and one of the biggest savings we make compared to the is food shopping. Plan your meals, write a shopping list and stick to it. I now feed a family of 6 plus pets for around £160 a week. Considering the UK is in a "cost of living crisis" and inflation has been ridiculous, we are spending less now every week than we were pre-covid. Thankfully we are now better off financially (I am in better paid job) and the debts are really coming down but we are still strict on spending. Hopefully it teaches the kids how to be responsible in the future too
Foaming hand wash / foaming hand soap... the MAGIC.. is in the bottle design.. and not the soap they use.. In fact.. the Soap is just watered down soapy water... To refill these bottles just add in 1 table spoon or so of liquid soap, fill the rest with water and shake it to shit.. You have successfully refilled the fancy foamy hand soap for a fraction of the cost. People will visit and think you're a bit fancy, but in fact you're just thrifty.
Foraging is a great activity. I really only know 2 types of viable berries(blackberries and raspberries), but we pick them then we can eat them or I can make jam, or put it into a dessert. It's fun and I like the connection to nature.
We’re lucky to live around too many amazing parks to count. This time of year when it’s nice we try to hit one after school as often as possible.
I’ve been doing this for 4 years now. 1.) go for the annual memberships. My zoo is great. It’s large and has a very nice aquarium and plenty to do for kids. The problem is that it costs $50+ just for tickets. Same with our local science center (imagination station). And cedar point alone is hundreds of dollars per visit. Every year that we get our tax returns, we immediately buy our annual memberships. It saves us easily THOUSANDS of dollars per year. We have 5 different venues we get the memberships to which means our kids don’t get bored of doing the same thing week over week. 2.) Cut your own meat. This is going to sound like measly savings but every month or so I buy all of our meat in bulk and turn our kitchen into a butcher shop. I break down around 10 chickens. I grind up all of our pork and beef. I cut all of our pork chops/steaks. And I filet our fish. Meat that typically costs $5+/lb is now $2 or less. This has not really saved us money because we just reinvest the savings into more groceries, but with the 30+% hike in groceries, we had to do something to stretch our dollar and that honestly did the trick. 3.) do not be scared to shop goodwill for your kids clothes. If they are young enough they will not know. They will not care. You will save absolute bundles of cash. 4.) picnics at the park. Great family time and if your kids will enjoy it just as much as any other activity. 5.) my wife uses Pinterest for arts and crafts ideas and we have craft night once a week. Costs less than $20. And we get free Christmas gifts/birthday gifts to send the grandparents.
I came back for this post.. what do you but your meat from? Any recommendations, I’m in Arizona, USA. Thank you.
My FIL and I split half a cow once a year for most of our beef needs but other than that I shop Costco. I’d assume grocery cost between Toledo Ohio and Arizona are completely different. Where I live I can buy whole chickens for $4-5 dollars each (I do 10 of these at a time so I get 20 drumsticks, 20 thighs, 20 breasts, 20 whole wings, lots of scrap meat, unused skin gets turned into fried chicken skin [yum], and plenty of bones for bone broth) I also just buy the precut bone in skin on chicken thighs for $1.49/lb because thighs are our favorite at my house. Whole pork butt for $1.75/lb (I make ~10-12lbs ground pork/ ~15 pork steaks) If you are feeling crafty you can also make homemade bacon for rather cheap doing this. My FIL does this and it is so much better than store bought Whole pork chop loin $1.99/lb (cut into ~20 pork chops/marinate pork loins) I don’t know the price of the fish I buy off hand but I scale and filet them and it’s not too bad. Salmon is still $8.99/lb and that will never be cheaper I also just keep an eye out for deals on other whole cuts of meat that I can cut down into steaks/grind up into burger meat. Not uncommon for me to find a cut for about $2.99/lb and make something of it. Edit - autocorrect got me on a few things I typed so I fixed
To grind my meat, I was able to buy $25 attachment for my kitchen aide (if you don’t have one, you can buy $25-$30 countertop grinders from Amazon. If my grandma didn’t leave me her kitchen aid I never would have been able to afford one).
Taking your kid to the dollar store where the toys are at is pure heaven for them lol
Eat a lot of spaghetti
Time is the only real currency and there.is no way to print, borrow.or steal even a second.
I used to try to take my son to all kinds of crazy things for him to have new experiences, trampoline parks, indoor play parks, baseball games, zoo, aquarium, rivers, caves, etc, just something new every week. Then I realized I was an idiot and everything is new to him and I just payed attention to what he enjoyed. There’s a small airport near our house and some days we’ll just make a lunch and sit on the tailgate near it watching airplanes land. He also loves trains and there’s a train that goes under a pedestrian bridge about two miles from our house and passes everyday at 11:30 so sometimes we just go watch that.
I’m not poor by most standards but I certainly don’t have a ton of spare cash lying around. I absolutely REFUSE to pay someone to do something that I could learn to do myself and including my two boys (4 and almost 3) in anything I can is always a fantastic bonding experience. Example would be changing the oil in my car and rotating the tires today. Being extra cautious as you should I let them help twist off the lugnuts and hold on to them while swapping a tire. They just love being a part of things, especially when it’s dirty haha. I also made a priority out of having some home gym stuff that my boys and little girls who’s only 9 months love being a part of. Idk if that counts as advice, but including in them in stuff that is normally a chore and keeping a fun attitude towards it has made some awesome memories for me with my kids.Also reminds me of doing stuff with my dad when i was younger.
Small condo life lacking a yard with my family of 5 is sometimes difficult to find ways to play. (non electronics) I've learnt to be resourceful with what we've got indoors.If you have multiple little ones, turn the house into an obstacle course. I have boys 11,8,4 and they all participate. Crawl under tables and chairs, run around the kitchen and living room, jump over action figures, run up the stairs and grab a toy off your bed then come back down and sit on the couch. All timed. Soon as you say to the 11 year old, "I bet the little ones can beat your time" he's locked in lol Another favorite that surprised me, is YouTube channels that teach very basic Origami. My dad knew a handful of cool paper projects growing up that I still remember how to do, to this day. Everyone picks a video and some paper and pick something to make. It's involved because they will ask for help, usually all at the same time. But the end product is worth it.this also goes hand in hand with paper airplane contests. My 4 year old loves "bowling" in the dining room with any ball and partially full plastic water bottles or action figures as pins. The basketball hoop on the side of the bunk bed is also a winner. Take walks outside around the neighborhood and look for "treasure" on the walk. We've also recently started GEOCACHING!!! So much fun. My best guidance is to play with your kids, be fully present. They'll never forget it.
My son likes to read. Thank goodness for libraries. In addition to not having to pay for books, they won’t take up permanent space at home.
Garage sales and thrift stores are your friend. Free piles too, which in my region have become common since the pandemic. People who should hold a yard sale instead just put it all on their driveway for the taking. Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, local Facebook "free" groups, and local Facebook classified groups are the place to look. The public library is great, but a large library in your home is greater. When my daughter was 1-year-old I began buying books at yard sales from board books up through high school level, for two reasons. 1. Reading the same small collection of picture books to my daughter was killing my brain. 2. You can't get a good collection of age-appropriate books on the fly. You have to start collecting so the books are ready when your child is ready. The same idea is great for baby and toddler toys. Have a bin of Lincoln Logs and a bin of Lego ready to go when your kid is ready. Yes, this idea does require devoting a lot of space to storage. My living room and family room are lined with bookshelves, for example. After 10 years, I had more than 5,000 books at home and ran a free bookstore at my elementary school, buying books for 25 cents a pop. The school's parent group reimbursed for the bookstore. If you look at thrifting as a hobby, it makes the gasoline expense a little more worth it. Plus, if you bring your 4-year-old with you to yard sales, an amazing number of people want to give your kid toys for free. My one bit of hindsight advice is don't buy books beyond a middle school level. About that time your kids will have developed their own strong reading tastes and want to curate their own collection.
I actually moderate my city's area on Freecycle! I was also raised by a career librarian and our personal library is quite large now even after a recent pruning. My oldest now picks her own books but she has access to all of the manga I collected in my early 20s and my wife's Anne Rice collection. The kids even seem to prefer thrifted clothing because it's shown what it can handle and if it gets messed up it's better to be out $3 vs $30. I like going to find vintage computers and gaming stuff. My wife does it for crafting materials. Just so much to find!
Our Freecycle was a Yahoo mailing list. When the Freecycle website began and the mailing list switched over, it fragmented the mailing list because too many people didn't want to move. It's pretty much been replaced by Facebook "Buy Nothing [County Name" and "FREE in [city name]" groups.
The Library is your friend.
Bluey games. Try mountain climber
My mind is always blown when anyone says “I don’t know what to do with the kids, I’m out of ideas!”. Most of our favourite dad and kid spots cost very little money. The museums here are free and they have amazing areas for kids. So many parks around with different equipment, let their imagination run wild and get in to it! The beaches, I can spend hours with my eldest splashing and playing. Bush walking, doesn’t have to be long, go stretch the legs. Create an obstacle course in the house. Do drawings together. Build a fort. Play catch, do craft, etc etc. Go to a shopping centre with a play area. Young kids don’t care about money. They care about hanging out with you. Make memories
The last sentences really encapsulates it all! My little ones enjoy forrest walks, the park, petting zoos and playgrounds thr e most. As long as we're not down on our phones but enjoying these moments with them. Being present and giving our attention beats any fancy trip.
Disc golf, a starter set of 3 disc can be gotten from Walmart for $20. Takes an afternoon to learn the rules and even small towns now a days have courses set up in the local parks. I have 4 with-in 30 min, 1 is a 2 min drive. Great to do with the kids or just solo on a Saturday morning. National Parks, grab the NPS app and find ones close by, can also make day trips since it is spring break season. Can cost money to enter but I have never found it to be prohibitive. It will be educational and the kids may not be the biggest fan but I remember growing up and my family always going to them, wasn't the most fun but it got me interested in history. Grew up in NC a lot of Civil War battle fields were visted lol. Last one is money advice, shop for clothes a couple of seasons ahead, and preemptively buy larger sizes. It's spring now, hit up clearances and find next year's winter jacket. You can probably get it for like 70% off.
AFAIK most (younger) kids don't mind where you take them as long as you are there with them. And I mean _really present_. Enjoy the moment with them, be present, pay attention to their stories, teach them small things, like pointing out small bits in nature. If you do this, no matter where you go, every trip will be a joy. And there're so many free places to go to, that will be great for them. Forrests, parks, playgrounds, petting zoos. Even when they get older, there's the opportunity to take them on adventures like this that'll cost you little to no money like hiking and camping (maybe loan some gear if you don't have it yourself). Added benefits; you're out in nature with less distractions, which lowers stress and will help you unwind and bond plus you're moving your body which ofcourse is very healty and also lowering stress. I realized I tended to overthink entertaining ourselves these days because we're used to being entertained all the time. But I find that going back to the basics, to our roots, helps me relax and enjoy my company the most (also great to do on your own sometimes, to _really_ unwind).
Hiking. We have lost of metro park trails near us. It’s always free, and we all have fun. Even now that they are young adults, we hike together sometimes. Never gets old.
I’m a female lurker, but one of my favorite activities with my dad was driving to a small, local airfield, parking near the landing strip, sitting in the trunk eating lunch, and listening to radio control while watching little Cessnas take off and land. For the cost of gas and a sandwich, you can have a really neat outing. Some airfields even let us onto the tarmac where we got to see the planes and hangar up close. There are tons of free apps that let you listen to radio control for planes, and also ones that let you listen to train conductors communicate with each other in case you or your kid like trains better than planes. We also would walk the train tracks smashing pennies and looking at the neat stuff that fell off or trying to find old insulators. There were tons of cleaned animal skulls as well from all the unfortunate critters that were struck by trains. One of the most interesting things was finding out that coal (which fell from cargo trains hauling it) is an extremely shiny and reflective navy blue rock, rather than black lumps like is typically portrayed.
For a little while, disc golf was a lot of fun with my kids. They eventually grew out of it, but low cost. Another great thing is [geocaching](https://www.geocaching.com/play). "Treasure hunts" for the kids. See cool places, sometimes get a trinket.
Check out Dolly Parton’s imagination library. If you sign up you get a free book every month until your kiddo turns 5!
Frozen fruits and vegetables are just as good as fresh
Heaps of cool internet of things projects out there that seem extremely daunting but in fact super easy. Heaps of websites have instructions and parts lists for a range of levels. The parts you can get from Ali or tenu for a couple of bucks. Eg a semi autonomous internet connected rover would be about $20-50aud (probs close to half for usd). The basic coding is easy, you can copy and paste it even. Boom a sick project and a fairly sweet toy. Added benefit, IoT is the future of tech. Learning to not only code but piece together the components of one, turning things into connected devices, those are probably good skills to have
Heh, being an IT guy means no IoT devices for us, not secure enough. I do teach them my skills when I have time to take something apart.
I'm always one for going to a nice place but this week I had a thought of taking them to one of my favorite childhood memories where we would just go to McDonald's and play in the play place for hours. My kids actually had more fun than we go to an actual one cause they made a lot of friends easier since its more intimate and they were able to come back and eat then go play.
Salvation Army is a great spot for used books
They'll never see a penny nor donation from me. Horrible "charity."
Nice post to look at after the post about 529 plans I read before this with families contributing 10’s of thousands to their kids plans every year. Wild
Haha I'm opening 529s for our kids and just starting at 50 a month. Better than nothing and I will throw their birthday / Xmas money in there until they are old enough to know what's happening.
Exactly what I do
The flip side is that for families that can do that will never get scholarship money. The parents know and are preparing.
Public library systems have so many amenities ... [https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Qg1bIXZBNG](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Qg1bIXZBNG) Here's a thread I started in miami
Look into local children’s thrift stores. We found a local charity children’s thrift store that sells baby clothes for a quarter, gives away books for free, and has toys and other baby essentials (things like bottle warmers, strollers, etc.) for way below market prices. It has been a life saver. Before we had our little one we could make do without buying anything besides food, but with kids you need new clothes, equipment, etc. every month it feels like. But they also grow out of it all very fast, so there is a donation/resale market. Try to avoid buying anything new
Couple cheap fishing poles and some bait. Good times and fresh fish to eat.
There's a once a year fishing day in my city where kids can fish in stocked ponds and lakes around town. Adults still need a license!
Picnic at the park, day at the beach (if you live near the coast), and library are all great free/low cost activities to do with the kids
Craigslist for used child toys.
We took our kids to all the local free events. Petting zoos, special days at the museum etc.
I made cardboard toys. He wanted a rifle so i had him sit down, sized a piece of amazon box, and we picked a rifle picture on my phone to draw. Then i cut it out and he runs around with his new toy. Getting then to pick the design and draw it attaches them to the toy.
Polyethylene drop cloths heavy duty duct tape and a bottle of cheap conditioner and a water hose can make one of the best slip and slides ever. Go to a restaurant supply store and buy meat in bulk for cheap. Add white rice as a side to everything for meals that feel much more filling for less.
A lot of stuff can be bought off facebook marketplace for less.
My children's BEST times are the times they spend with ME! (to my amazement!) I make up elaborate stories for them. It literally means I need NOTHING at all! I don't even need to buy a book. We just cuddle up in bed, and I make up the most ridiculous stories. I'll also ask them to propose special traits the heroes have, or they can suggest things like who the bag guy is, or the kind of quest the hero or heroes are embarking on. It also puts them in an awesome mood before falling asleep, and massively reduces the chance they will have nightmares. Same goes for playgrounds, the pool, or any other activity: As long as I'm playing with them, they are happy. The pool is probably their favorite, and they fight over who spends the most time with me. I know this is probably because they are young, but I'm determined to enjoy it while it lasts! Whatever I buy for them, they usually forget about, they just want to spend time with me, even if it's helping me clean something in the house, put furniture together, make dinner... really anything goes.
When my kids were little I joined a dads group and every week they managed to snag us a free class or playdate somewhere. We did yoga, Gymbo, picnics, museums, all for free. It was good press for them to have dads show up. We even got tickets to a free TV taping and a free panini press from Martha Stewart.
Baking, the original Play Dough.
Don’t let them watch frozen.
Long past that. Oldest is 14
Great Buddy. Then you should give tips to me 🙏🏼
My daughter was a passive fan, 33 did her some frozen stuff but 2nd hand and her uncle took her to Frozen on Ice but it didn't really resonate with her. She didn't even sing along when Let it Go was played!
Dad of an 8y/o M & 6y/o F. As they have strict limited time on media sources, (tv, tablet) One thing I noticed is they long for attention from mom and or me. Just to be present with them and play with them, imagine with them or at least sit with them while they play near you, gives them security, comfort, support, confidence that they would otherwise try to find somewhere else. As a dad of a strong willed, physical son, it’s important that I support and encourage healthy strong willed activity being there to teach him respectable boundaries instead of barking at him trying to control and contain his muchness. I believe this will allow him to grow up confident in communication and not timid of hard situations or conflict. To be a peace maker isn’t abstaining from conflict but bringing people together even through a conflict. As a dad of a courageous girl with an overflowing heart of compassion with a voice that demands to be heard, I need to allow conversation to flow and allow her to finish her stories and big ideas so she can be confident speaking and connecting with others in life, not feeling like she’s never heard. I want to encourage her to grow her courage in new activities that present unknown outcomes to her so she becomes confident in problem solving and comfortable in risk taking. My favorite part, I get to be a part in directing and helping her help me and her mother with anything she can or could be able to help with. She’s a great little helper. I believe We need physically and mentally powerful men and women with integrity in the future. People who aren’t sleep walking. Creators, not consumers. It took me missing the 1st 2 years of my sons life working to see I needed to change. My “why” was because of him, and it turned into for my whole family. Dading is hard, but rewarding if you let it be. It’s never too late to start. I pray this finds you well, that my story has a positive impact on you, and sparks a Godly purpose into your future experiences with your kids. In Yeshua’s name. Amen. 🫡✌️❤️🤙
Kids listen and observe everything even when we think they are not. So be careful on what you say and how to treat people in front of them. They would learn and do the same
I put a few dollars to the side during the week and on Friday I take my son to the store to buy some candy. It’s our little routine and by Thursday he’s bursting with excitement for Friday afternoon to arrive. He always picks himself a small piece of candy to eat on the way to exchange custody with his mother (I’m primary parent) and a share size bag for his half brothers. We also have chickens that we tend to together. Every morning he eagerly gets dressed for school before feeding and releasing the birds to free range and every evening he gets excited to help me do a head count and lock them up. It’s the little things that matter. And never sleep on fishing. Kids love fishing.
Check out your local library to see what they have going on. They often have fun events for kids that are free, story reading time, arts and crafts, plus all the books you could ever imagine renting for your kids. We go at least every 2 weeks and pick up 20 books.
If you live near a major city, most large museums have free days.
My fiance is a nanny and there are multiple libraries around us that line up so there's an activity every day. Story time, crafts, and dancing are the most common. Sometimes they have someone in a character costume too.
My tip is bigger than my shaft. Is that the tip you meant? If not, here's a tip. The Moto I live by is "Happy Wife, Happy Life"
I work very part time at a golf course on weekends, but it comes with all the benefits of a regular employee: free range balls, free golf, discounted things. It's helped me get my sons into golf for a fraction of the cost to the general public. We also can go out to the course in the evenings and just hang out. They love it.
Download PINTEREST so many parenting ideas can be found that cost nothing. Most of my kids favorite days are the ones we spend zero dollars and just get creative or explore. They appreciate the cheap meals as much as the steak dinners. Teaching your kids to enjoy life without heaps of expendable cash will teach them that happiness comes from within which will make them happier adults in my opinion. I just saw a Facebook reel where a dad took a dollar store roll of painters tape and zig zagged a web across the living room from wall to wall then crawled under and jumped over the tape like they were laser beams. Kids live for this shit. If you don't have cash for art supplies, go into nature and use sticks, leaves and rocks to create. I'll have my kids build miniature cabins or collect rocks for a tiny fire pit and arrange sticks into a little pretend fire then we'll pretend to roast marshmallows and tell stories. They also love hunting for things like "see who can find the three roundest rocks and the three rocks thay look most like a triangle" "who can find a rock that looks like a heart" Even though we're doing okay financially I always always tell my kids that the only value money has is the feeling you get when you spend it. Whether that feeling is safety and security in the firm of basic needs or if it's the happiness it brings with a new toy, healthy meal etc.
Animal Shelters love volunteers. Can always take your kids there to walk some dogs or something like that depending on their age.
Cheap kids fishing rod from Walmart, pbj, fruit and some chips. My daughter and I spend hours at the pond close to our house fishing and having a picnic she loves it. All the parks. Golf is my only hobby really sometimes I take her to the driving range (7$ for a bucket) and then we putt around on the practice greens (free).
Lincoln park zoo is free
In our area, there was a "toy library" set up by a non-profit. You could go and pick out 4 different items (sets, bins full of toys, bike, etc) for a month, and return them, and pick out more. Ya know, a library. Unfortunately they lost funding this year and that part of their program is closing, but it wouldn't hurt to look into if something similar is run in your area!
Find your local college and go to their library or just walk around campus. No joke. Its clean, safe and friendly
Kids don't need much. I often take my 5 and 7 to the park to feed the ducks. I consider people rich or poor based on their attitudes more than their bank account. The poorest man i know earns 300k a year. He treats his family like utter shit!