Fun Families!,

The most unified families have fun together - on a budget? All the better!

It doesn't take money to have fun as a family. If it did, our home would surely be a dull place to hang out!

One of the things my family always looked forward to doing together was going to see a movie. Tally it up....8 tickets at $5 per person (okay, it was a while ago!), 2-large popcorns (one for the girls and one for the boys), and two large drinks...even flying economoy class, we couldn't afford the movies!

At wits ends one weekend...and broke, my husband and I came up with a fun idea to:

-Increase math skills

-Teach nutrition

-Teach budgeting

-Increase family fun expotentially! PRICELESS!

We instituted a Family Movie Night! I was in charge of the refreshment stand and popped popcorn, putting it into brown lunch bags and then placed cut apples slices with lemon juice into zip-loc baggies. In additon, I had purchased a bag of mixed candies and divided some up into six baggies as well. For thirsty movie goers, we had apple juice.

My eldest daugther, always business minded, reminded us we couldn't have a movie theater without tickets - so she designed and decorated tickets. The rest of the children accompanied Dad to the video store to pick out their choice for the evening's entertainment. While gone, he gave each of them .25 and told them it was theirs to spend at the 'theater' any way they wanted.

As they returned to the house, my daughter was waiting to sell her tickets - and then ushered them into the kitchen to purchase their snacks for the evening. We 'priced' the snacks according to nutritional value - the least nutritional costing the most money. It didn't take long for most of the children to realize they had much more to snack on if they chose the apple slices and popcorn!

The bright side of this plan is that the studios seems to be releasing movies faster and faster on DVD and tape - sometimes my children didn't realize they hadn't seen the movie as soon as it came out! In addition, family classics you have at home like the old Cinderella, (with Leslie Ann Warren in the lead role) and The Wizard of Oz are wonderful movies to enjoy again and again in your living room together!

We always had the most fun with each other - inventing low or no cost things to do together. If you'd like more ideas for fun family acitivities, visit kidsactivities.suite101.com!