Free days out and other ideas

newsgroup_monkey

Hello! I'm new to this board (although I often read stuff here).

I'm almost debt free (I have a holiday on my 0% Halifax card but I'm paying it off), however, I am also Mortgage free and have a rather large child maintenance outgoing and 2 boys under 12.

I'm finding it hard to keep my kids occupied for free (or nearly free) on weekends. My and my partner both enjoy Geocaching (which once you are set up only costs £1.50 a month and petrol), but the kids have realised that it is a ruse to getting them out walking (it did take 2 years though). They will come (at a push) but then of course they go whining to their mother who then phones me and gives me stick. I'm doing my best to ignore her and in some way the kids wishes but it's difficult. My kids mean the world to me and I want to see them happy, but they just don't understand that where Daddy used to have plenty of money when he lived with Mummy, he doesn't any more.

As my sig says, I quit smoking last year (for health reasons though rather than money - I was legally successfully spending less than £15 per month and smoking 20 a day). As most of you will know, bills have gone up significantly so the £15 got swallowed anyway(and whilst I got a 4% pay rise which was very generous, petrol has gone up 30% etc). Also, part of my housing contract says that I am not allowed to change suppliers. I do lots of quidco stuff (including work hotels) and got £200 back last year. My work make us use Avis for car hire which means that I have enough clubcard points to take the kids on a UK Holiday in summer.

I do take the kids to the park on my weekend (when the weather is OK) but other than that, I find it hard to find cheap or free things to do.

One thing we do every year is the Renault World Series races. I'm sure you've all seen the posts on the Grabbit and Free boards. They are ace because we take a picnic and the only cost to us is the Diesel (this year, being Silverstone it's only 20 odd miles away - Donnington over the last couple of years does cost a fair bit). If you don't know about this, it's on June 7th and all tickets are free.

Does anyone have any other ideas for great days out like this? I am collecting my BOGOF days out tickets in Tesco - last year, our primary holiday was in Derbyshire so we took the kids to Alton Towers and only paid for 1 adult and 1 child.

One of the issues I also have is that their Mother lives in a road whereby she can let them play out all day and night whereas our road can get quite busy and there isn't really anyone to play with (one of the advantages about living in a nicer quiet area is that it is also full of older people with grown-up kids).

immoral_angeluk

Do you collect tesco clubcard points? You can exchange to vouchers for 4x their value for days out etc.

Cleosmum

I would never spend tesco clubcard vouchers on holidays, you always end up paying more as you have to go via a specified number when if you look online its much cheaper to use money and get a better deal. We arent having a holiday this year, we are using the clubcard vouchers for days out. How about ordering a load of the days out deals and using them at weekends? You could take picnics to keep the cost down and set up a penny pot to fund icecreams (even my 4 yr old is adding to it lol) and you could also look into visiting free country parks. The beach is always good, just petrol there and back and take a picnic. Look out for free entry museums, tons in London and we plan to take the kids for an overnighter and staying in a £19 travelodge room.

Triker

Have you seen this

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=831225

Not free but for around £20.00 an excellent deal.Valid for a year.

I got mine a week or so ago and cannot wait to take my DD's out for some trips with a picnic or tesco vouchers to eat out.

Also have a look at your local council's website for entertainment over weekends and holidays. They usually have a number of free events listed somewhere, family fun days, show's bands etc.

debtmuncher

take them berry picking and get them earning their money!!

national trust has a couple of free entry days but think thats not till autumn though.

check out your regional forum on good parks or post a link asking where the good parks are because (scottish though) a lot of parks are being done up and are absolutely fantastic. discovered a local one last weekend hasgreatly improved...rope slides (ouch!!) those basket swings (almost fell asleep!) this kind of ships rope swing (no way!) kiddies loved clinging to the rope and being swung round!!

kites at the beach...bucket and spade at the beach (how old are they?!!)

camping....get a cheapie tent for three and take off for the night.

newsgroup_monkey

Thanks for the advice re Clubcard. To be honest, when I priced up the break online, I could have saved potentially £26 (it wasn't the most expensive break ever). On a £250 break, it wasn't really that much difference. We weren't going to take the kids away either but as me and my partner have already had a break this year that cost a fortune (family wedding abroad) we felt that the kids deserved some kind of break.

We do have a penny pot and I'm trying hard (although currently it keeps getting filled up with Euros because I'm working in France).

One of the biggest problems I have is the beach. Unfortunately, whatever way I look at it, we live 120 miles away from the nearest beach (ISTR that we live about 10 miles away from as far as you can be from the sea). We do a lot of free country parks (Geocaching tends to take you to these anyway). Certainly we will look into London museums. The only cost would be train tickets as it's only about 45 minutes on the train. My OH has a railpass too.

Keep the ideas coming. I'm feeling a lot better about this already!

debtmuncher

there is a site where you can possibly get free viewings to a film but dont know the sites name...orange does orange wednesdays where you text in for free tickets to a film (well 35p a ticket!) but not done that yet myself

Triker

debtmuncher wrote: »

there is a site where you can possibly get free viewings to a film but dont know the sites name...orange does orange wednesdays where you text in for free tickets to a film (well 35p a ticket!) but not done that yet myself

Free tickets can be found here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=606589

Cleosmum

Odeon do a kids club and it costs £2.50 a seat and adults go free, sat and sun normally, 11am ish but every day during hols. If you do go then dont forget to get premier seats as they cost the same as the cramped seats. And get your sweets, drinks etc before

becky_rtw

45 mins by train - you're not in Cambs are you?

Try the Fitzwilliam museum if you are! Great stuff all free (and they do kids stuff on weekends/bank holidays).

Let me know your rough location and I'm sure I can source some other stuff... I hate paying to do stuff too so I've spent plenty a free day in London - don't forget the family railcard (not free but will save you a fortune) - I think pigsback are doing 500 points if you buy through them at the moment as well.

I also did the Alton Towers from the Sun thing a while back - total cost came to about £4 for the paper and postage plus petrol (which my friend paid for since I got the tickets) took some sandwiches and was away.

newsgroup_monkey

Oops sorry, it's not a secret. I live near Milton Keynes. Cambs is not too bad (depending where of course - Ely is a fair old distance, but Black Cat roundabout is only 1/2 hour).

One of the problems we have is that I live on the dreaded Silverlink Line so travelcards are very expensive for us (£23 per adult) so maybe looking into a Family Railcard is an idea. I used to live in Hatfield, Hertfordshire (not that much closer) and the railcard is half the price! I may drive a few miles to get on the Thameslink line (which is considerably cheaper).