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MrsBumbleb
it's me
Member since 5/05 11234 total posts
Name:
Christine
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What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
for three kids ages 6, 4 and 3.
They will be in various camp programs already.
Message edited 6/26/2012 12:51:17 PM.
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Posted 6/26/12 12:50 PM  |
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curley999
Family!
Member since 5/05 2314 total posts
Name:
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
$200 sounds nice, but I think it can go quickly. I just spent $80 at a local church carnival recently. For us we make a list of all the fun summer activities we want to accomplish and figured the budget based on the list. Currently our list has Splish Splash, Adventure Land, White Post Farms for the water slides, Intrepid Museum and Circle Line tour, plus the regular beach, pool and local stuff and we budget accordingly.
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| Posted 6/26/12 4:14 PM |
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MrsBumbleb
it's me
Member since 5/05 11234 total posts
Name:
Christine
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
Posted by curley999
$200 sounds nice, but I think it can go quickly. I just spent $80 at a local church carnival recently. For us we make a list of all the fun summer activities we want to accomplish and figured the budget based on the list. Currently our list has Splish Splash, Adventure Land, White Post Farms for the water slides, Intrepid Museum and Circle Line tour, plus the regular beach, pool and local stuff and we budget accordingly.
We sat down and made a list as well. How many kids do you have and how old are they?
Our list consisted of mostly free or relatively low cost places/things to do. I guess since they are still young I can get away with that. We are planning on doing Splish Splash, that's our biggest expense on the list.
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| Posted 6/26/12 6:48 PM |
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dm24angel
Happiness
Member since 5/05 34581 total posts
Name:
Donna
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
Ours is much higher 
I suck at this. 
My DS ust turned 5 and my twin girls are 2....almost 3
We went to the park and the mall today ( mall for nothing but some craft stuff and pretzels...) and spent $80. Ok I did put $20 in gas in the van cause the Gas station went down in price.
But this is how it always seems to go for us. Somehow we spent so much more .
We have a huge list of places/things, but need to look into more low cost stuff.
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| Posted 6/26/12 10:35 PM |
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curley999
Family!
Member since 5/05 2314 total posts
Name:
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
Posted by MrsBumbleb
Posted by curley999
$200 sounds nice, but I think it can go quickly. I just spent $80 at a local church carnival recently. For us we make a list of all the fun summer activities we want to accomplish and figured the budget based on the list. Currently our list has Splish Splash, Adventure Land, White Post Farms for the water slides, Intrepid Museum and Circle Line tour, plus the regular beach, pool and local stuff and we budget accordingly.
We sat down and made a list as well. How many kids do you have and how old are they?
Our list consisted of mostly free or relatively low cost places/things to do. I guess since they are still young I can get away with that. We are planning on doing Splish Splash, that's our biggest expense on the list.
My 2 DDs are 7 and 5. This summer they are not in camp, they are being watched by different family members during the week and doing pool/beach/playground/open play (cheaper) activites during the day. So for us we are trying to build up some weekend day trips and keep active. Also we dont have a big summer vacation this year, just a wekeend trip in August so that helps our summer budget as well. I do find however that we always seem to go over the budget a bit  things just get so costly, even a quick lunch/snack out somewhere.
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| Posted 6/27/12 11:12 AM |
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MrsBumbleb
it's me
Member since 5/05 11234 total posts
Name:
Christine
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
Posted by dm24angel
Ours is much higher
I suck at this.
My DS ust turned 5 and my twin girls are 2....almost 3
We went to the park and the mall today ( mall for nothing but some craft stuff and pretzels...) and spent $80. Ok I did put $20 in gas in the van cause the Gas station went down in price.
But this is how it always seems to go for us. Somehow we spent so much more .
We have a huge list of places/things, but need to look into more low cost stuff.
We utilize the free museum stuff at the library, library programs, holtsville ecology center, pool, Hoyt sprinkler park, free summer bowling, mall play area (they get dollar cones from Mcdonalds or ikea), discounted summer movies, I belong to a few different active mom groups so we do themed playdates at different houses, parks. I pack a cooler with food and drinks when I know we'll be gone a while to avoid buying costly items to eat. The weekends are usually family time when DH doesn't work, so that will be the more costly events. I think in general it is a lot easier in the Summer to spend less to entertain the kids. It's out there, you just have to search for things.
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| Posted 6/27/12 3:52 PM |
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thisisme
LIF Adolescent
Member since 3/06 560 total posts
Name:
ME
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
I'm limiting myself to $50 a week this summer, so $200 a month. I made a list of all of our low cost/free options and then a separate list of the stuff that costs more so that I can really try to plan it out. I bleed money all summer long, so I am really trying to curb it this year. I have two kids ages 6 and 2. I've put my 6 year old in charge of keeping track of the money for our entertainment each week so she can start to have an understanding of how much these activities cost. I've also explained to her that she can save anything leftover at the end of the week to put towards something bigger like splish splash or what not. We'll see how that goes
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| Posted 6/29/12 8:19 AM |
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
I've never done a budget. We do a lot of free things. My DH also gets free tickets from the union to go places, aquarium, bronx zoo, places in the city, etc... We have to order them so if any of you are union give them a call, they may offer that perk.
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| Posted 6/29/12 9:43 AM |
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BeachMom
Love my 4 kiddos!
Member since 11/08 8346 total posts
Name:
Kristie
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Re: What do you think is a fair summer monthly entertainment budget
We don't really budget since one month we may not spend anything and the next we spend alot more.
Also 2 of my 3 children both have summer birthdays so on each child's birthday we take them out someplace special for the day to have fun- and with a family of 5 for the day outing with food it usually winds up cosing us between $100-$150 spedning economically.
We do use alot of the free of low cost stuff, like the ecology site, town beaches(now $25 for the parking permit), aquarium/butterflies(we have the family pass), local parks playgrounds if its not too hot, library groups and the library has passes you can borrow to go to lots of museums, zoos etc.
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| Posted 6/29/12 10:07 AM |
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