How we make room in our budget for fun….

As I’ve said before, my main reason for being frugal is so that I can afford to work part time and spend more time with the kids.

But (there’s always a but)…. It’s also really important to me that, as a family, we have lots of fun together and even though I know there are plenty of things we can do together that don’t cost a penny, there are also lots of things we like to do together that do cost money.

We allow a set amount of money each month in our budget for fun things, which could include anything from going to the pictures or bowling (doesn’t happen often as it costs so much these days), trips to the soft play, going out for tea or even just for little treats when we do something free (like last weeks cakes and hot chocolate at the free North Yorkshire Moors Vistor Centre).

I used to keep track of how much we had left from the fun budget each month in my head but I always ended up losing track so now we get the money out of the bank on pay day each month and keep it in the ‘fun jug’ which I keep on the kitchen windowsill.

I keep an  eBay box in the garage that I keep things in that the kids have grown out of / got sick of / never played with anyway.  I usually lack the motivation to eBay them but if we have a month where there isn’t much left over in our budget, I make an effort to list everything that’s in the box to make money for the fun budget.  I also have a ‘shopping from our cupboards‘ meal planning week which involves only cooking meals with ingredients that we already have in to free up some money from the shopping budget to put towards the fun budget.

Do you budget for fun or is it just me