Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

8 Fun, Frugal Family Activities to Enjoy This Fall

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Ah, fall. The weather becomes more comfortable, the kids are back in school, and there are plenty of activities to enjoy before the cold weather blows in. Make the most of your family time with some of these fun, frugal family activities.

Pick a Pumpkin & Carve It

fall fun at the pumpkin patch

This seems so simple, but kids love picking their own pumpkin and carving it (with help if they’re young, of course). Sure, there are some pricey pumpkin patches out there that charge an exorbitant fee, but there are also mom and pop pumpkin patches that don’t charge as much. These are the ones you’ll want to choose.

For younger kids, stop by the store and pick up the safe carving knives and consider buying a stencil to make the design element easier. Don’t forget to wash off the seeds and roast them for a yummy treat!

Enjoy a Corn Maze

Let the kids try to find their way out. Depending on the complexity of the maze and your kids’ sense of direction, you may be wandering through for a while.

Pick Apples & Make an Apple Dessert

apple picking and pie making for frugal, fall fun

Nothing tastes better than fresh apples that you just picked in the morning. While picking apples from the orchard costs about as much as buying them at the grocery store, you’ll get the experience of picking them as well as a much better taste.

Take your apples home and make some yummy homemade apple pie or apple butter to enjoy later in the year.

Enjoy the Fall Foliage

Take a drive out to the country, preferably to a hilly or mountainous area, and just soak in Nature’s beauty. There is nothing that beats the beautiful reds, yellows, and golds of the leaves changing color.

Go on a Hike

Now that the fall temps are here, it’s a perfect time to take a hike with the family. This is a great way to get exercise and take in more of the beautiful fall leaves changing.

Go to a High School Homecoming Football Game

The local high school football game only costs a few bucks to attend, and you can cheer on the local high schoolers. Make this more fun for your kids by attending the homecoming football game. The homecoming court will be dressed in their fanciest dresses and suits, adding another element of fun to the night.

Decorate the House

frugal fall home decorations

Pull out your fall decorations and decorate the house. Or, stop by your local craft store and buy small gourds and other items to make your own wreath for the front door or table arrangement.

Attend a Fall Festival

Most towns host at least one festival in the fall, if not more, which can offer a fun, frugal way to entertain the family. Travel and Leisure has created a list of the best fall festival in each state. Is there one near you?

Fall is one of the best times of the year to get out and enjoy yourself without spending a lot of money. Enjoy one or more of these low-cost fall activities with your family.

What other frugal, fall activities would you add to this list?

Get Your Phone Service for Less with These Two Programs

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Phones.  They’re a necessity for keeping in contact with others, having access to emergency services, and getting directions when you’re lost.  Yet, if you aren’t careful, the convenience of a phone can cost you anywhere from $50 to more than $200 a month.

My husband and I have cut corners with our phone service, and we couldn’t be happier.

Ooma

save money on phones
Save Money with These 2 Phone Services

We chose Ooma for our land line.  Ooma is a system that operates through our internet connection.  We pay $14.99 per month, which includes call waiting, caller ID, and free long distance.  Oh, and that free long distance?  Apparently that means anywhere because my husband has been able to call his family in Japan at no extra expense to us.  Sweet!

While we love Ooma and the price we pay, there are sometimes glitches with this service.  For instance, when our internet goes down, we don’t have telephone access.  Occasionally the connection is not as good as I would like.  However, these inconveniences are not regular occurrences, so we happily stay with Ooma.

Ting

My husband and I have had cell phones for a few years, but they were flip phones from Tracfone.  While they served us well for a few years, we got frustrated with Tracfone’s customer service whenever we had an issue.  We also wanted to upgrade to smartphones.

When I won a giveaway for a free Ting smartphone, we decided to also get my husband one and switch our service over to Ting.

Ting is a unique company that charges based on the services that you use.  Our average bill is $34 a month for both of us to use our smartphones.  I love that price!

Billing is based on how much you use.

Each line costs $6 a month.

Up to 100 minutes a month costs $3.  One hundred to 500 minutes is $5 per month.  (This goes all the way up to $35 for 2100 minutes.)

Up to 100 text messages a month is $3.  Up to 1000 is $5.  (My husband and I primarily keep in touch during the day through texting, and we never get close to 1000 texts.)

Date is $3 for 100MB, $10 for 500MB, all the way to $20 for 2GB.

In addition, you can set limits on how much usage is available.  I imagine this is very important if you’re on a budget or if you have a teen with a phone.  You can ask for notifications when you reach a certain level of minutes, texts, or data.  You can also choose to suspend service when you hit a certain limit or someone else on your bill reaches that point.

The best point?  There is no contract with Ting.

We’ve had our phones for about 6 months now, and we’re pleased.  In addition, any time I’ve had questions, their customer service has been fantastic.

Ting has also branched out to providing Internet service at the same great value.  Unfortunately, that services is only available in a handful of towns in five different states.  I hope my location is available for Internet service soon!

Have you tried either of these services?  Did you like or dislike them?  What do you do to keep your phone bill low?

Save Money on the Grocery Budget by Reducing Food Waste

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Behind a mortgage, groceries are often the second most expensive line item in the budget.  If you’re looking to save more money this year, a good place to look is to reduce the grocery budget.  But don’t stop there.  Make sure to also look at the other side of the grocery budget—reducing food waste.

Whenever you waste food, you’re essentially dropping money into the garbage.  Instead, learn to reduce your food waste to stretch your grocery budget even further.  Here are some of my favorite strategies:

Save Money by Reducing Waste
Save Money by Reducing Waste

Look at your calendar before you shop.  Do you have a busy week coming up?  If so, don’t plan labor intensive meals; you just won’t have time to make them and you’ll likely have food go bad before you have time to cook it.  Instead, make some meals on the weekend to eat during the week when you’re busy or plan simple recipes and buy simple ingredients.  Rachael Ray’s Week in a Day is a great springboard for finding recipes you can make on the weekend to enjoy all week long.

Alternatively, you can choose simple meals to make on busy weeknights.  Fresh spinach can be sautéed in minutes.  Paired with a microwaved baked potato and a simple meat like a polish sausage that can be cooked quickly, and you have a fairly healthy, inexpensive meal.  Another option is to keep frozen vegetables on hand to cook quickly and pair with an easy meat and minute rice.

Buy foods your family likes.  Too often, people buy a bargain that turns out to be a waste of money because their family won’t eat it.  Buy the foods that your family will eat, not the foods that are a bargain.

Use leftovers!  Do you eat leftovers?  Some people don’t like them, but I love leftovers because they offer me one meal I don’t have to cook!  Eating leftovers can be a great way to stretch your food dollars.  If your family refuses leftovers, try to cook only as much as your family will eat in a meal so you don’t waste extras.

Create new meals with the leftovers.  Another idea is to creatively repurpose leftovers.  For instance, if you cook a whole chicken or buy a rotisserie chicken, keep the leftovers to turn into other meals like chicken enchiladas or chicken noodle soup.  Thanks to the Internet, you can find plenty of recipes for reusing leftovers.  Some chefs, like Robin Miller of the Food Network, specifically look to make meals out of leftovers to help you better utilize your time and food.

Utilize the freezer.  One of my favorite ways to reduce food waste is to use the freezer.  We recently bought a large box of individual serve guacamole.  I still had 8 left close to the expiration date, so I put them in the freezer, and now we just pull them out as we need them.  Many meals that you make and don’t want to eat all at once can be frozen for later use.

What are your favorite strategies for avoiding food waste?  Do you waste a lot of food or a minimal amount?