Pages

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Saturday, January 29, 2011

having fun on a shoe string budget









Here are a few pictures from our free day at the Ottawa Experimental Farm. They opened their barn doors to the public for free recently (you normally have to pay admission to the grounds) and so we (Nana, Noah and I) took advantage of it and made it into a fun afternoon outing.
Noah really enjoyed looking at all the animals and he did his best to make as many animal sounds as he could. We saw cows, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and bunnies. Noah even got to pet a bunny! A fun day for sure.
Lately I've been making it an effort to find inexpensive and/or free things to do with Noah (or myself for that matter). With a new house that we will be moving into in May and plans to travel over the ext year, things are going to have to be a bit tighter around our place. Coffee will now mostly be enjoyed at home. Going out for coffee will be reserved for special occasions only. Shopping (aside from groceries) will be put on hold for a good long while and activities will all be kept to a minimum cost. It's not that we are in any kind of financial trouble, but a bit of penny pinching and budgeting is and will be in order.
So over the next few moths I'll be trying to be extra creative in how we spend our time and money. Play dates, library times, Mother Goose...I'm excited to see what we can do with a bit of creative thinking.
Do you have any fun activities that you enjoy doing that don't cost very much? Does your town have many good resources for families? I'd love to hear about the kinds of low cost activities that you do with your family.
Off to bed now to prepare for the long flight back to Whitehorse!
xox

6 comments:

  1. we are the same way right now. We had a lot of fun splurging and buying as we wanted but now it's time to tighten the purse strings and save for that big trip we are planning.

    I look forward to finding free/inexpensive things we can all do together in Whitehorse. This summer it will be much easier when we can take advantage of all the lakes, the parks, the water park, and a certain neighbour with her great big fenced backyard

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fun free things we've discovered: drawing on boxes, putting quilts inside and calling it a fort. Wearing a plastic bag around your shoulders and "parachuting", going to the flowershop to look at pretty flowers, adventures in the woods, adventures in baking, reading in a fort!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We are so lucky here in Minneapolis and St. Paul to have a ton of free activities all year round. Museums have free days monthly or even weekly. Lots of free concerts around town. Free craft days at local toyshops. Special storytimes at local libraries and bookshops. Free kicksledding and ice skating at parks. All this and we don't take advantage of it enough. It is something I need to be better about. I've got this tendency to hibernate sometimes.
    One thing we do love to do is go to some indoor nurseries and garden centers to dream and plan for the spring and get a burst of color.

    ReplyDelete
  4. great post -- i think we can all do more with less!

    ReplyDelete
  5. i love these photos. noah looks so excited in the one with the sheep and the one leaning on the fence is so sweet!
    safe travels home!
    xo.
    k

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gorgeous photos. Have a good trip back to Whitehorse.

    ReplyDelete

Oh goody....I love comments!