When we decided to become a primarily one income family, entertainment was the area that we had to cut the most from when it came to money. This meant that we had to get creative about entertainment and our expenses in this area.
Matinees
On the rare occasion that we do go to a movie theater to see a movie, we always go to a matinee. The cost is typically about half of what it is at night. This way we only spend $5 a ticket on the movie and sometimes a little bit on concessions. Because concessions are so expensive, we often try to not get any so we make sure to go to the movie theater when we are already full. This way we are not tempted to spend money on them.
Waiting for Rental
We typically wait for movies to come out on DVD or to come to our online streaming service. Since we only use the local $1 a movie a day service, we never spend much on the movies we watch. We often do not even do that, most of the time we just watch whatever movies are on our online streaming service.
Different Entertainment
Rather than going to the amusement park that costs $40 per ticket, we go to the one that costs $20. We all still have fun on the rides and it costs a lot less. Rather than going to a waterpark, we go to a local pool that has a water slide and different play areas in the pool. The cost is less than half as much as a waterpark and we all enjoy ourselves.
Saving on Eating Out
Rather than going out for dinner, we go out for lunch. The lunch menu is always cheaper than the dinner menu and we still have a fun time together. We also look for places that have deals or coupons we can use before we decide on where we are eating out. Recently we were able to get $10 off of our bill because we had coupons.
No Cost Entertainment
Some of the best no cost entertainment that we do are family outings. One of the free fun things we do is go on a trip to a local park that we have never been to before. We have also taken advantage of free tours of local attractions. We have seen how tea and candy are made at local places. It made for a fun break and we even got some free samples.
The adjustment has actually not been that difficult. We still find ways to have fun together and to have fun as a family too.
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