Summer Holiday – Money Saving Ideas for children

Summer Holiday

I’m not sure I have mentioned this enough (;-)) but I finish full time employed work on 30^th June, and have the summer holiday off with the children. So I’m already thinking what am I going to do to keep them amused and not cane a small fortune doing so.

Here are a few of my ideas for a fun filled few weeks without breaking the bank.

1)      Visit a theme park for free/very cheap. So I know my older boys are very keen to go to Legoland and Jack the youngest would like Alton Towers for Cbeebies land. There are plenty of ways to get 2for1 tickets, but I’m after free tickets, for everyone.

• Good old club card vouchers. I always like to save mine up and spend them on something worthwhile. I max out my vouchers by using my tesco credit card as my everyday spend card and clear the balance every month = no interest payments. I get around £50-60 in vouchers every 3 months. £52 in vouchers will get 4 free tickets to Legoland. Chessington is slightly less at £50 in vouchers and Alton Towers is £52.
• Here is Ava at Legoland today, daughter of my Gena (link here to her beauty by Genevieve website)

2)      Treasure hunting otherwise known as Geocaching. Go to the website and find a map to a box near you. Fun for the kids gets you out in the fresh air searching for ‘treasure’. Make sure you take some treasure of your own to replace what you take so others continue to enjoy after you.

3)      Check out what services your local childrens sure start centre offers, my local one offers children play at the local park every Tuesday and Thursday through the summer holidays. Soft play toys, creativity activities, sports activities. All sorts and the children are so happy when they’re out with other small people.

4)      Trip to the beach, we’re lucky to have some beautiful beaches in this country. And you’re never too far from the coast. I am about 1 ½ hours from the nearest decent beach. Its worth the trip for the enjoyment the kids have for one day. I was brought up in Penzance, Cornwall and spent every day I possibly could on the beach as a child, here is Porthcurnow my most favourite beach in the world.

5)      A visit to the local working farm. There are loads of farms near me, some expensive (Willow Farm!) and some better value. They range in the facilities they have at these farms, but at the end of day if they have animals to look at and beautiful countryside its all good. So my local farm at Church Farm Ardeley, Nr Stevenage is a working farm, its £10 for a family of 4/5 to go in and have a good wonder around the many acres of land. I noticed yesterday on their Facebook page you can go fruit picking. So we’re definitely going to head up there for strawberries.

6)   Sport activities. We have a football fun week that runs at our school. Its £42 for 18 hours worth of football coaching/games and my football mad boys love it. So that’s the first week of holidays sorted.

7)      A trip to the theatre in kids go for free week. During August  a child can go to theatre free with a full paying adult. You need to get in quickly as the cheaper tickets go up first. Kids Week

8)      Camping? Now I’ve never been camping but am going for the first time with another family over August bank holiday weekend. We’re going to borrow and beg the stuff from friends, and its costs maybe £10 a night for the pitch. Our local farm offers camping so you also get to go fruit picking and visit the animals.

9)      Creative time with household items collected over a few weeks, keep back a weeks worth of recycling (maybe not the glass;-)). The kids will have a great time with plastic bottles and cardboard boxes. Maybe let them loose with some tin foil, sellotape and felt tips and they’ll be happy for a good while.

10)   Take a trip into London and go visit somewhere historical, fun and interesting. We went to the Tower of London last summer so this year I might take a trip to Buckingham Palace or Hampton Palace.

11)   Get a national trust membership and check out all your local gardens, houses, reseviours, landmarks. If you go to a few places it will be definitely worth your while. Here is the link to the Scottish national trust which also gets you into England and Wales sites, but is cheaper for the annual membership – £69.40 for one year. National Trust membership

SO there you go lots of and lots of ideas there to fill the summer holiday, so let me know if you have any more, comment and share away. Have a great summer holiday everyone:-)

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