Frugal Friday

Since we traveled so much this month, I have been thinking about cheap ways to entertain my kids while on the road. My boys are 13 and 10. They each have a Nintendo DS (Christmas gifts), and they both have iPods (which they purchased with their own money). I swore they would never have these things because I always felt that if reading in the car was good enough for me, it was good enough for them! Well, obviously I've caved over the years. Plus, they spent some of their own money.

Another item I've sworn I'll never have in my vehicle is a tv or dvd player. Well, my husband and I almost caved again before our trip to the Outer Banks. Fortunately, the particular portable dvd player that we were interested in was out of stock every where we checked! So our kids had to deal with a long car ride with only their Nintendos, iPods and some reading material. The poor dears!

Anyway, my youngest did get bored despite his technological luxuries. Thankfully, I had a word search book with me which entertained him for a while. We also played the alphabet game. My husband introduced us to a game that he used to play in his social studies class in middle school. One person names a city/town, and the next person has to name a city/town that begins with the last letter of the city/town that the previous person came up with. This game really makes you think!

An idea that popped into my head tonight was to take along any unfinished workbooks from the school year and have the kids do a few pages. (I'm currently doing this with my younger son in order for him to earn time playing his video games.)

One of my family's favorite electronic games is 20 Questions. I think the original one cost around $20. You can probably find one of these at a yard sale by now. Of course, you can always play this game the old fashioned way! Don't forget tic-tac-toe and hangman!

If your kids are plugged in while traveling, visit your library before leaving on your trip. They can pick up some video games and movies for free....in addition to checking out a good summer read!

There's nothing wrong with finding a baseball game being broadcast over the radio. You may not get to listen to the entire game if you're traveling away from the radio station, but it will provide entertainment for a little while.

Well, speaking of entertainment, the X-Games are on, and I don't want to miss them! (They're exciting and a good way to bond with my sons!) Please scroll down to my Wednesday's Wealth for some coupon leads. Also, I was really late with last week's Frugal Friday, so please check that out too for a coupon giveaway!

Frugal Friday is hosted by Crystal at Biblical Womanhood.