Ways That We Save Money & Live Frugally – Part 2

If you missed Part 1, you can read it HERE…

*Vacations – We don’t take a lot of expensive vacations. Most of our kids have never been on an airplane. We do take some trips, though. We used to go to Colorado for Family Reunions & to Wyoming just about every year to visit my Grandparents. We have been to several cousins’ weddings – family is always a priority! That’s something my Mom’s family has taught me well! ❤

We went to The Creation Museum & The Ark a couple years ago – that was amazing! We highly recommend it! We went to Mt Rushmore one year on our way home from Wyoming/Colorado. We stayed in a big family cabin with my parents.

We have done many day trips – to The Shedd Aquarium (so fun, we would love to go back…it was also the first time the kids had been to Chicago, which they thought was super fun, although they were shocked by the amount of trash all over the streets..haha!), Cantigny Park in Naperville (a favorite!), the Discovery Center Science museum, etc. Our kids have often mentioned that they have never been to an ocean or even a lake, so that’s on our list for this summer. 😊

All that to say that we do try to find ways to do special things as a family & our kids don’t feel deprived that they’ve never been to Mexico or Florida, etc (hopefully!) 🙂

There are many less expensive options…stay in a tent or rent a cabin – (we did this several years at Rock Cut State Park – they have one cabin to rent right on a lake, so we would stay there and go fishing, do s’mores, make bacon & eggs in a cast iron skillet on the grill, etc.). Drive instead of fly. Pack food instead of eating out every meal.

*Clothes – We have been abundantly blessed by people giving us clothes over the years. There have been many years we didn’t have to buy clothes for the kids. We did save our favorites & the ones in good enough condition to save, but sometimes a child was born in a different season, etc… Any we are given & don’t need, we try to find new homes for to pass on the blessings.

We shop first at thrift stores. If we can’t find anything, we’ll look online. I do shop clearance sales.

Swimsuits I usually buy from Land’s End because they have good sales & tall and slim options for our girls, which are great and they hold up well for the summer. For our teen girls – we have found that long tankinis paired with long board shorts are attractive & modest without breaking the bank.

Once the kids reached a certain age, it’s been a bit harder to find pants that fit well (tall, not low rise, etc), dresses that were modest, boys suits, etc.

Bottom line – kids don’t need to have a brand new, huge wardrobe every year. We replace clothes as needed & check our “store” (totes) first. We keep them all labeled in different gender & sizes for each tote (EX: Boys size 10/12) so that’s not too hard (as long as clothes get put back appropriately when a child outgrows them!)

Our kids are very content & don’t come to expect what “normal” school kids get – an expensive, huge wardrobe at the beginning of the school year. This alone has saved us thousands of dollars!! Our teens even go shop at thrift stores on their own & are good at finding awesome treasures!

*TV – We don’t have cable..we only did for about a year (we got it in 2000 to watch the Olympics & the election) b/c it was bundled with our internet, but soon decided it still wasn’t worth it. We do keep Amazon Prime, but that’s it for streaming services. We borrow movies from the library, which is free (really nice as our old library charged 50 cents to rent a movie, but still it was a less expensive option.)

We do not go out to the theater (again, most of our kids have never been). We do have a projector, because when we were looking at needing to replace our really old TV about a decade ago, we looked into it & it was about the same price as a new TV. Definitely a less expensive option than taking the whole family out to the theater! And our kids love having friends over to watch movies on the big screen.

You can read Part 3 here covering food, budgeting & more! Part 4 to come!