One way to save: vacation during hurricane season!

Are other mom’s fun-filled Facebook posts leaving you feeling lame? Maybe you can’t—or choose not to—afford all the most expensive children’s attractions and high-end vacations this summer. That certainly doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with your kids and make great memories.

We strike a balance somewhere between a zero entertainment budget and heedless spending on all things fun. We also fall between the extremes of a frenzied death march of “fun” outings, and confining ourselves to the backyard.  Here’s what we spend on summer fun by employing the art of the alternative plus a few hacks. And don’t miss my tips on the children’s museum membership you must get.

Swimming

Nothing says summer vacation like swimming. I was beyond lucky to have grandparents with a pool who lived just a few miles away. If you’re not so blessed, there are often many wonderful alternatives to expensive pool memberships. Believe me—I’ve found them all because 1. Our city doesn’t have a pool and 2. The closest private pools cost $400 or more to join!

For the little ones, check out local splash pads and wading pools. We frequent neighboring cities who have these amenities. My kids also love playing in the sprinkler, kiddie pool, playing with the hose, creating a slip and slide from things we already have, and water balloon fights.

We’ve also been known to sign up for a free 2-week trial at local fitness centers that feature a pool in order to get a few swims in. If each parent does this at different times, you could get more free visits.

When my son took swim lessons, I was able to take the toddler in the pool at the same time. Our local library also offers free story times at a local pool throughout the summer. After the story time you can swim for as long as you want. This year the library reading program also featured a prize of a free family pass to this pool.

The last two years, we signed up for a pass to a local lake. This year we actually received our passes as a Christmas gift. The kids love the lake and the sandy beach, and it costs one fifth of what a pool membership would.

We’ve also received free or discounted water park tickets from friends.

So that’s how we swim. Here’s how we zoo.

Zoos

Let me just confess that I hate the zoo. Maybe because growing up, my family only ever went to the Tucson Zoo in July.

Maybe it’s because you walk and walk and walk and walk, pushing a stroller with no kid in it, chasing kids who are complaining about all the walking. Only to have them look at the animals for five seconds before going to smell fake animal poop (true story). Or watch other kids walk by. And then ask for snacks. Again.

Maybe it’s because when you leave the zoo you’re always so hungry, thirsty, tired, sweaty, and have to pee sooo bad, and the kids are in a similar state, except they might wear diapers.

Nevertheless, I take my kids to the zoo. I have two great hacks for buying zoo passes at this zoo. I don’t know if they’ll work at your zoo, but it’s worth looking into.

1. Buy a companion pass instead of a family pass. We buy a pass for two named adults and a specified number of unnamed children. The twist is that the adults aren’t my husband and me. Instead, a friend and I are on the pass, plus 7 kids (random). Then, we pay $5 extra for an unlimited one guess pass. So with each visit, we can bring a guest. We don’t have to go together, and if we bring our husbands they are covered by the pass. And if I want to bring a friend and her kids, they’re also covered by the guest pass. For this we each pay $50 for the year.
2. Buy a pass every other year. At the beginning of last July I purchased a pass that is good until the end of this July. It covers the better part of two summers. Which is fine for me, because did I mention I actually hate the zoo? So I’ve spend $50 on zoo passes in the last four years.

Most zoos offer reciprocal memberships wherein you can visit other zoos (fml) for half-price. We’ve done this sparingly, but our $50 zoo pass has saved us close to that much on admission at larger (fml) zoos.

Museums and Science Centers

Now we’ve come to the real gem. Here it is: buy a membership to a podunk museum like this one, and inherit the most amazing reciprocal museum and science center admission benefits. Check the list of reciprocal memberships to determine 1.) if there is a closer museum to you with inexpensive membership prices and 2.) if there are museums/centers near where you live OR near where you plan to vacation.

We have visited the museum we hold the membership to exactly once in the last year. We have saved around $200 on other museum and science center admissions, mainly while on vacation.

The bottom line: find the cheap museums and zoos with awesome reciprocal benefits.

Vacationing

We are able to take more family vacations because we travel affordably by camping. It means we drive instead of fly, cook instead of going out, and pay $100-200 per week instead of per night for lodging. We tend to camp near beaches—oceans or Great Lakes will do—and bike, hike, swim, do campfires, and visit local attractions. And my kids are still excited by playgrounds.

We also use travel rewards for flights and hotel stays, but with a family of four who has fairly low expenses, we don’t rack them up fast enough to be jaunting off to the Caribbean regularly.

There you have it–all my best tips and tricks for saving on summer fun. Now it’s your turn:

What are you tips for saving on summer fun? What are the best value memberships or passes that you hold?

Not too small to start learning about money.

April is Financial Literacy month, so I thought I’d share with you what a deplorable job I’m doing at teaching my kid about money. My kids are four and two, so at least we have time on our side. Suggestions are welcome!

We’re familiar with Dave Ramsey’s “give, save, and spend” jars to teach kids about money and our efforts are very loosely based on those principles. So far we pay my son a couple coins—exactly which ones depend on availability—for putting away the silverware. He is currently saving for a $50 Duplo set. At the rate he’s saving, he’ll be too old for Duplos by the time he saves enough. We also periodically ask if he wants to put something in his “give” bag (a sandwich bag in his piggy bank). As you can tell, we are highly organized and official about all of this. It’s practically the Federal Reserve over here.

Internal Conflicts

The poor child can’t be convinced that each coin has a different monetary value. How do you teach a kid about finances when they don’t understand the value of money? I’m sure being more consistent about the exact payment would help.

Then there’s the dilemma of which chores to pay them for, and how much. Will paying too often or too much teach them they deserve to be paid for contributing to the family? Will not paying them mean they don’t learn that money comes from work?

Does it make sense to teach them to give, save, and spend, when it’s all quite artificial at his age? Even if he understood some of the math, his money is only going to wants. We are going to meet his needs whether or not he vacuums to earn a quarter.

But then, like so many things, doing something is better than nothing. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect. I could become paralyzed trying to figure out the perfect system, but in the end it’s got to be flexible enough to work for our family, our unique children, and the shifting needs that time will bring.

For now, we have a very ad hoc system that seems to be teaching him at least something.

He doesn’t understand the value of a dollar, but he does seem to appreciate the value of his time. Maybe a little too much. He refuses to vacuum, even for a whole dollar! Which is fine, because I’m way better at it.

He’s also learning about competition in the job market. If he takes too long to put away the silverware, his little sister will swoop in, do the job, and demand payment.  She also might pour sugar into the silverware tray. So we do prefer the quality of his work to that of a toddler.

Last fall, my son collected more than twice his body weight in food pantry donations.

Give

He is excited to give. Last year he gave ALL his coins to the VBS drive to purchase a van for the kids at a homeless shelter. My son loves vehicles and particularly loves his friends’ van, so I wasn’t surprised he wanted to give all his money.

I also knew that there was no real cost for him to give all his coins, and he didn’t understand what he could buy with them because we hadn’t been very good in the “spend” department. I felt the weight of this when he wanted to give it all away. Then again, most of it had been given to him as random change passed on by grandma or dad (he wasn’t doing a ton of paid chores at age 3). I decided to emphasize that he couldn’t get it back, that it is good to help people, and that it was his decision. He went through with it, and Neil matched his contribution.

I was glad he was willing to give his money, but I realized it wasn’t pure generosity since he didn’t understand money very well. The VBS was also having a competition between girls’ and boys’ donations, so mixed motives were at play.

Save

He’s recently started saving up for purchases larger than $1, and succeeded! His last goal was a new light saber, but by the time he saved up the$15 he changed to his $50 Duplo goal. It’s amazing how waiting can help us make good financial choices. Imagine if it took adults months to save up for purchases, instead of swiping plastic?

I’m proud that he saved $15, mostly through working. He was definitely motivated to do extra chores to reach that goal. It’ll be hard to watch him blow money on big purchases that I don’t consider worth it, but I hope the wait time helps him make good choices.

Spend

On the spending front–what is the difference between save and spend for a four year old? We don’t present him with a ton of options to spend money on a regular basis. I feel conflicted about his spending opportunities being so directed by us. If we take him to a candy store and ask “do you want to spend some of your money? (true story), are we teaching him to make choices about spending his money? Or are we teaching him to spend money on candy? If we take him to the Dollar Tree, aren’t we just teaching him to buy useless, flimsy junk? If we take him to Target, aren’t we teaching him to buy overpriced, trendy junk?

Confession: I mostly forget to have him bring his money places. Forgive me if I don’t remind him to cart around a noisy, metal, coin-filled bank that looks like Elmo’s head. I suppose he needs a little wallet or envelope of some sort.

A recent positive “spend” experience was when he noticed knock-off Duplos on clearance at ALDI after Christmas. The set was $4. He didn’t have his money with him so I said he’d have to come back later. He asked his dad to take him there as soon as he got home from work, so they counted out his money and went to buy it. I’m glad he picked out something  himself, had time to think about it, and paid a reasonable price.

At this stage of development, financial education is on par with teaching your kid to say sorry, even when they don’t mean it. To say thank you, sometimes begrudgingly. To brush their teeth, though they would rather be raised by wolves. You try to get them to pretend to be civilized, until one day, they kind of are civilized. Hopefully.

P.S. We recently learned that our son’s name is the same as Mr. Money Moustache’s boy. How cool is that?

Any tips for teaching kids about money? What was your financial education like? What do you want to do differently or the same with your kids?