Wednesday, March 14, 2012

How I Manage my Entertainment Budget


Entertainment does not have to cost money. Though we have a regular entertainment budget each week, sometimes we are perfectly happy and find ways to be quite entertained and in the end we haven't spent any money. The important thing is to set a weekly entertainment budget and stick to it. I have a family of three; it is myself, my husband and our five year old daughter and I have set our budget at $25 a week. Your budget may be different than mine, because you may have a larger family yet you can still find many free things to do around town to keep you all busy.

There are times when you will want to go out and do something special, like go out to a nice restaurant or see a concert and these things cost money. The idea here is to to find balance. Do you have to go out to eat every single weekend or can you invite friends over for a barbeque one weekend instead?

Let's say there are four weekends in a month and your entertainment budget for one week is $25. On two of the weekends, you can find something to do that does not require you to spend all of your entertainment budget, then you can afford to do something a little more expensive the next weekend. Better yet, you could choose to save that money and use it toward another goal, like a vacation.

Finding affordable entertainment is much more possible lately with our quick access to the media and social calendars, as well as an impressive list of discount deal sites and the availability of email deal clubs for restaurants.

I have not planned anything for our entertainment calendar through the end of this month, and there are three weekends left, so I need to get my calendar together. I'm going to perform a little experiment here. I am going to see, if in 20 minutes, I can search around and come up with a list of things we can do that will not go over the $75 entertainment budget we have left for the month. (That's $25 a week.) Here goes!

All done. It took me about 20 minutes to look through community calendars and search for half price deals to purchase. I found the information I needed and I purchased my deals in that time.

I found many options, but chose these particular events because it illustrates how I would use our entire $75 budget that we have left for this month.

Things we could do this month:

Friday, March 16th Downtown Alive (free concert!) (budget $10 for refreshments)
Saturday, March 17th This Saturday, we are going as a family to friend's house for a barbeque.
Sunday, March 18th Go out to eat at ACME Taco (The cost was $10 for the deal, budget additional $5)=$15

Total Budgeted=$25

Friday, March 23rd Downtown Alive (free concert!) (budget $10 for refreshments)
Saturday, March 24th Michaels Arts and Crafts Easter Craft (budget $5 for the egg, all other materials are included)

Saturday Evening: Get a Redbox Movie and make popcorn (Free movie with code, and popcorn from the pantry)

Total Budgeted=$15

Friday, March 30th Downtown Alive (free concert!) (budget $10 for refreshments)
Saturday, March 31st Go to the movies: $20 (I am a member of ReelRewards, so I will bank points for this outing. It could be that we might choose to do this during the week and I would bank points and it would cost less)
Saturday, March 31st
Michaels Arts and Crafts Event:
Terra Cotta Spring Butterfly Clay Pot Make-It Take-It (budget $5 for clay pot, all other supplies included)

Total Budgeted=$35 but I had $10 left over last week so I didn't go over my $75 budget for the month.



This is just the short list. I love to look for free concerts, art events and take my daughter to do the craft projects at the Michaels Arts and Crafts Store. There are many other things to do around town that are free or affordable, you just have to explore your options.

You know as well as I do that things do not always work as planned, but it is a great thing to have events on your calendar ahead of time so that you will be using your entertainment budget efficiently. At least you'll have a plan in place.

Maybe there will be an event I cannot attend that I have put on my entertainment calendar. That's okay. I always have something up my sleeve either from rewards I've banked from programs I've joined or a free Redbox code or some other frugal entertainment option from half-price deals I've previously purchased. If we do not spend our budget for the week, then we can save that money and put it toward a more costly outing later on, or the money can go into savings.

This budget works well for my family of three and we are never bored. In fact, there is always more than enough to keep us busy and happy. I encourage you to work on your entertainment calendar and discover free and frugal ways to stretch your entertainment budget too!



Save on all the things you love to do!

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