Frugal Entertainment

[peanut]

What are you doing now? And what do you hope to do?

Right now we watch a lot of library DVDs at home with friends. We also have potluck BBQs or meals and play board games.

When we're by ourselves our hobbies entertain us, or we read...mostly library books or from our own extensive collection. I inherited a lot of books.

One of the things we talked about tonight with company was the idea of turning the living room (we don't have a comfy family room) into a room where we could have movie nights with friends. Right now we can only have one or two other people over for movies because of the seating and arrangement of furniture. I'd love to get an interior designer in to tell me how to rearrange things to make this happen. I'm afraid we simply have too much furniture!

DH is going to a conference soon. I'm thinking I might make a few changes before he gets home. I am tired of the mess! Maybe I can get a friend or two to come help me.

[frugal.lass]

I like to putter around the kitchen so if I'm bored, it's not unlikely for me to peruse my cookbooks and try a new recipe (generally baking).

To be honest, I spend a lot of time on the internet right now (between house shopping, visiting forums and reading blogs) and I'm trying to change that over to spending more time reading books. Now that the weather is getting nicer it'll be easier...its nicer to sit and read a book in the sun than surf the net inside at my desk!

I love board games but most of my friends who are into them live further away...my nearby friends like to spend a lot of time at the bar or eating out which is NOT frugal so I have to be very careful when spending time with them.

[pollypurebred39]

It's funny you talked about preparing your home to entertain. That's where I'm at right now. I've been trying to get my home organized and decorated in a pleasing way. Right now I'd just about croak if we had "certain" people stop in.

Besides that, I started reading again.

It's pretty boring here.

[acidcookie]

We use the Internet for most of our entertainment. We cancelled cable and have a higher speed Internet plan because I need the Internet at home anyway to work, so it doubles as our cable: free shows from lots of channels online! (Though even without cable we still get network channels on TV, in HD even, with just an antenna.) We also have Netflix streaming through Wii ($8/mth) which lets us watch as many movies and shows as we want. I discover a lot of cool documentaries this way. We stream music for free from Pandora, last.fm, and Grooveshark, and rarely buy any music anymore. Lots of free games online too and even free game apps for our phones.

Books we get from the library, and DH came with a lot of books so I shop in our own bookshelf for something to read.

We do play video games, but we buy those used, and trade in our games for cash when we're done playing them. We're working on finishing out the games we have now before we buy any more. I traded in all my Nintendo DS games once I played them so I still got the most amount of money for them.

We're still new here and don't have a solid group of friends yet, but with our friends back "home" (at least, the last place we lived) we used to have a dinner club in summer where each week one of us would cook for the other 8 people/couples. That was nice because you'd spend money to make a meal for everyone once, but then get 8 free meals in return! Plus obviously some good socializing. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday evening.

What I wanted most was to get rid of cable, so I'm glad DH finally agreed! I've pretty much forgotten about all my cable shows and only miss a few, but not even that much. DH hasn't noticed what he's missing either. And again, if we really want to watch a cable show, we can probably get the DVDs from the library.

If were to change anything, I might actually say we get rid of Netflix and only rely on the Internet and the library, but I don't see myself winning that one anytime soon.

[Ramona]

Our entertainment is very low cost: library books, television with a converter box to receive digital. I do love my Verizon FIOS service, I can watch vintage movies on youtube! I watched It with Clara Bow from 1927 the other day. I've always heard of her and thought she was beautiful. I can definitely see why she was called the It Girl .

[nuisance26]

~Netflix unlimited streaming through our Wii for just $10.50 a month
~surfing the web, especially funny blogs and watching Youtube videos, our high speed internet is $25 a month
~browsing my hand-me-down Cooking Light magazines and paper-clipping pages with recipes I want to try
~visiting my mom's house and letting the kids play with her toys and in her yard for a change
~I love sitting in my backyard and drawing house or garden plans
~bidding extremely low on items we want on Ebay. We get outbid then we go down our watch list and bid on the next one. It's fun to watch the auctions and eventually we luck out and get real steals!
~crunching numbers in our budget. I think math is very entertaining.

[krbshappy71]

Today's frugal entertainment day was working on a project with the spare bedroom, walking one of the dogs, watching a movie on Netflix with the bf, listening to Dave Ramsey show while picking at the house, taking a nap, cleaning a section of the garage, and basically putzing around.

I enjoy putzing around the house, there's always work to do and dogs to walk or play fetch with.

[peanut]

krbshappy: that's what I need to do more of...putzing around. DH and I spent a whirlwind afternoon yesterday doing a crisis clean for company. It made a huge difference in how the house looks. I think I need to do more putzing around.

[ErikM02]

Had a bunch of friends for a BBQ last night. Much cheaper than going out

Also played a game of poker and broke even lol

[BlissMommy]

We do movie nights or craft sessions. The kids play more video games or we go the zoo(we have a season pass) or the park. We like to bbq or we go swimming, though we'll be losing our pool when we move into a house.

[miss_cas]

I'm in the process of teaching myself some new employment skills using older software I purchased on ebay and used books. I'm also working on my writing skills and trying to publish a few stories as my writing degree has been shelfed since college. I'm trying to balance a new relationship with working at home on these tasks while I work on finding a part-time job. I start taking college classes again on a part-time basis this fall.

For frugal fun, I like hiking at some trails near town. I walk the dog and ride my bike as well. I do keep a discounted YMCA membership which helps me when I want to attend a yoga or dance class, lift weights or visit the swimming pool. I like free Saturday at the art museums and free gallery crawl night. I use the $1 movie rental kiosks and the library. I have the $20 network+ cable package so I get decent tv reception. I try to pair tv time with an artistic hobby. I have my own little collections of needlework, yarn art, drawing, painting and scrapbooking supplies. I like reading and have a small collection of employment skill books I am working through. I also use the library for books and magazines plus the internet for magazines & newspapers.

When I want to get away, I like to go hiking.

[mndtrp]

I'm fortunate in my ability to stare off into space for lengthy periods of time. Unfortunately, this pretty much a solo experience, so I have to look for other things to do when not alone.

We'll look for free concerts. This is easy to do with local bands, since they'll give batches of tickets to different places, free for anyone. We're pretty open to most kinds of music, so even a band that isn't too hot can make for a decent evening. If nothing else, it gives us a chance to people watch in a new location.

If I'm looking to be humbled, I'll go to the neighbor's house and play games with their son. He somehow manages to win most games, despite being somewhere in the vicinity of 8 years old. I've played the video trivia with him at Buffalo Wild Wings, and he'll beat the majority of the bar.

My wife and I will go for walks, and as cliche as it sounds, stop to smell the flowers. Especially if there is a spider doing the same. She really likes getting up close to spiderflowers.

[Jenibelle]

I've started getting into reading lately. Something i detested growing up and throughout college. My fiance & I hit up the biannual book sales at our library and buy bags and bags of books for just a few dollars (he is an avid reader). I have found the entire series of books by Kathy Reichs at book & garage sales and am hooked. We then use paperbackswap to get other books.

I am a TV junkie but we just have the network plan that gives us about 15 channels, we're thinking of nixing it for internet and getting a digital converter/antennae.

I really like to craft and have big basket of random supplies that will bide my time for a couple hours at a time.

We also have an extensive collection of board games, but like someone had mentioned above, all of our board game friends are half way across the country. We haven't made that many friends outside of work in the 3 years we've lived here. It doesn't bother my fiance much, but it drives me crazy. I would love to have some friends to just go window shopping or thrifting/garage saling or hang out with for a change of scenery.

We also like to take the dog to the park and watch him play with all of the other pups

[MomToTwoBoys]

We have Netflix ($8 per month), a Wii, an XBox 360 and four computers. I wouldn't say we're all that frugal, but these items were brought on sale and we haven't added much to them since we got them. One PC belongs to DH, one belongs to me and the other is for the kids (my old tower is packed away, collecting dust).

I don't read books but DH does. He's read all of the books he has, though. DS12 and DS7 both watch cartoons and draw pictures, plus they go outside and enjoy the fresh air. When the weather is super cold outside or it rains, we just find things to do around the house. The weekends at night are our movie night. DH and I game together too, so that's another form of entertainment.

We have all of this and we didn't go broke doing it.

[frugal is fun]

CT has a program sponsored by DEP called the Great Park Pursuit. its changed over the years but basically you visit as many state parks as you can, some have "family days" where DEP is there with activities. But basically you have a "passport" which is a little booklet and get stamps for certain activities like biking, fishing, camping, hiking etc. I can't even begin to tell you what a great experience this has been for my son and I. We go with one of my girlfriends and her boy, sometimes my ex husband joins us and two weeks ago we brought my dad.

So thats my weekend entertainment that basically costs me gas and picnic food.

During the week we don't have much down time but its riding bikes, reading books from the library and watching a few minutes of tv.

We do alot of get togethers with friends where we alternate houses and everyone brings a dish. Have made some really great friends this way.