If your budget requires fewer expenses, cutting some nights out is one easy fix. With some planning and a few inexpensive games and activities, you can spend more time with your family at home. While it may seem difficult, you'll find family time at home with your children very rewarding. It provides time to focus and bond with your children and catch up on what's happening in their lives. You can also make it an enriching experience for your kids by sharing your experiences with them.
Play Charades
This very inexpensive game requires only a piece of paper, pen, a hat and some imagination. It can be loads of fun, assuming some basic knowledge of popular culture and a willingness to act things out. Best of all, it can be very funny, providing entertainment for the evening and great stories. Set the family up with some hot chocolate by the fire in winter to make the most of your time together.
Write the names of famous movies, people, books, TV shows or well-known phrases on slips of paper. Have the family divide into teams, kids against parents or boys against girls, for example. Have one member of the team draw a slip of paper from the hat and act it out for her team. Once the team guesses the right answer, they score a point, if you're keeping score.
Get the Board Games Out
Board games provide a fun way of passing the time at home with your children. They provide some structure and are likely to bring back memories if you played them as a child. Share these memories with your kids to make the time together even more fun.
Play classics such as Monopoly, Life or Sorry, depending on your children's ages. If your children are older, try some of the newer classics, such as Cranium, Pictionary or Clue. If your children are younger, divide into teams with a parent on each side to help move the game along. You might also want to review the rules to refresh your memory, if it's been a decade or two since you've played.
Share Family Stories
One of the least expensive and most fun ways of spending time together is to share stories. Tell the children what life was like when you were kid. If your kids are at an age where you can remember what it was like, share your stories of baseball, homework, fights with your friends, annoying teachers and the like. It helps your children appreciate what they have. It also helps you bridge any communication gap between you and your children as they begin to hear about your life.
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