Almost Free Things To Do With Kids

Currently, I am unemployed. I am sitting back, waiting for my old employer to call me to return to work, and in the mean time sending out resumes trying to find work until I get that call. So, while money is usually tight, it is extremely tight right now.

I am a mother of a preschooler though, and she still wants to go places. I try and find free places, or almost free places to take kids. Usually I aim for completely free, or under $10, but this weekend we raised our limit just a little and had a fantastic time together for less then $15.

I took her to Taco Bell and Chuckie Cheese's for an afternoon out. For our favorite order of 2 regular crunchy taco's no lettuce for her, and 3 Fresco style taco's for me our total was under $5. Then we spent over an hour at Chuckie Cheese's with full tummy's so no worries about hunger spending. We purchased $5 in tokens, a total of 20. My daughter spent over an hour playing, 20 tokens can go far for a 4 year old. She also enjoyed climbing through the overhead tunnel toy.

On our way out we cashed in her tickets she earned. Instead of buying more tokens to try and earn tickets with, I let her pick from the toys in the baskets and paid the difference of just a little over a dollar so she could get a slinky and a plastic toy locket. Chuckie Cheese has a ticket=penny policy so there is no need to play $20 in tokens to try and get enough tickets for something. Just pay the difference from how many tickets you have and how many it requires.

I also chipped in $2 for a bag of cotton candy on our way out. Our entire adventure for the day cost less then $15. Check out this article for 30 more ideas of almost free or free things to do with kids