Annual Memberships and Passes Can Save BIG!

I just got my family a membership to the Denver Zoo and to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
We have had one to the zoo before, but I do not renew it every year.

If you enjoy going someplace you have probably already figured out that an annual pass can save you a ton of money. If not, now is the time to look into it!

Things to consider:

*What types of activities does your family enjoy doing over and over again?

*How often are you really going to be able to go?

*What other benefits does the membership get you?

*Is it partially tax deductible?

Here in Colorado there are so many things to do and see it can be hard to narrow it down. You can get memberships for everything from the community center to the Art Museum.

I think it is always wise to only get a couple memberships a year that you will actually use. I also like to rotate-don't get the same memberships year after year unless it is something your family is passionate about.

Sometimes I actually have to do math to figure out if a membership or annual pass will save us money.
For example, we are going to take a trip to Mesa Verde this summer. We are planning to stop at several other National Parks and Monuments during the trip. I have been to the NPS website and looked up the entrance fee for each place we want to stop. I also decided we might do another camping trip at Rocky Mountain National Forest which is also part of the NPS. Even with all those stops it looks like the Annual Pass will NOT save us money.

Another example is the Denver Art Museum. They will be hosting the King Tut exhibit this summer and fall and I really would love to take the family to see it. However, we can go to the museum itself for free the first Saturday of each month (we went once last year). The exhibit would be discounted with a membership, but not enough to make it worth it. It is cheaper for us to just pay to see the exhibit.

For the Denver Zoo, it was a no brainer. It costs so much to take the family to the zoo that it will pay for itself in 2 trips. Plus, members get discounts and free tickets for friends. Our Family Plus membership will also allow me to bring a friend each time I go! This will come in handy in the summer when DH is working. One of my good friends has a membership, too, so we can go together. Oh, they had also mailed me a "special deal" so I only paid $99.

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is one I have not done before. We have taken the kids only a couple times, but it is so cool! A membership will get us a discount on IMAX and planetarium tickets as well as other perks. We've never taken the kids to IMAX because of the cost, but we will now! The Family membership I got will come with 3 adult entrance tickets I can use to bring friends. This membership will pay for itself after two trips and one IMAX movie.

One of the best parts about having a membership or annual pass is that you aren't pressured to stay all day to get your money's worth. You can drop in whenever you like for an hour or two or even just to see certain things and then go home. You also are notified of upcoming special events and member only activities.

Here is a great website for things to do in Colorado! Have fun!!!

A Green and Cheap Birthday

I wanted to post about how to have a wonderful birthday celebration without breaking the bank. A lot of these ideas are also better for the environment because they include used and homemade items.

Kelsey will turn 6 in a month. I've already got her birthday (almost) done.

In our house we only have "friend" bday parties on the even bdays. This cuts down on cost AND how much crap my kids have!!! Of course, another way to do this is to post "no gifts please" on the invites, but most little children LOVE to bring a gift. I also limit how many children they can invite. I find that inviting about 6 kids will give us around 4 in turn out.

GIFTS for dd
16" Bike ($10 from Goodwill)
2 Color Wonder Sets (2/$10 from Walmart Black Friday)
Wooden Doll Highchair (traded at Once Upon A Child-value $5.50)
Gymboree terrycloth swim cover (traded at OUAC-value $6.50)

This gives me a total oop of $20. However, since I sold dd's outgrown bike on Craigslist for $15 it brings my oop to $5!!! We do need to possibly replace a tube in one of the tires of her "new-to-her" bike.

You will notice that the only new items she is getting are the Crayola sets. My kids have been getting used things for gifts all their lives, so this is not an issue for them. I highly recommend not making a big deal out of used vs. new or putting more value on new in front of your children. It is learned behavior to prefer new.

For the party:
Cake mixes are CHEAP! I get them year round for about $0.50 a box. I can get tubs of frosting for just as cheap. I bought the nice jars of food coloring paste at Michaels years ago with a coupon for about $10. I need to replace them, but they lasted over 10 years. It's a great deal and they make beautiful colors!

Activities: This varies greatly by age and number of children at the party. We usually do a little game and craft. I find that an hour and a half is a good amount of time for a party. Longer tends to make for bored children who rome the house looking for things to get into. This is long enough for a game, craft, food and presents.

Party favors are sometimes hard. This year I found a great deal at Lillian Vernon. I bought two packages of 4 little purses with bead necklaces. It was less than $1 per purse/necklace combo! They are cute and come in a variety of colors. I bought them with my Christmas purchases to get free shipping.

Some other fun party favor ideas are: homemade play dough, gak, silly putty, treats/candy, craft projects, stickers
At the Dollar Tree you can find some fun little things, too. The plastic whirly flyer things are fun-its just a propeler with a stick. Bubbles, puzzles, capsules that grow in water, etc.

Salem will be 3 on his next birthday.
His gifts will be a toddler scooter and a helmet. My mom will buy the helmet new and I have already started looking for a used scooter. I'm hoping to pay no more than $10-15.
I also found him a nice wooden rocking horse for $18 on CL, but I already gave it to him. He was turning all our furniture into "horsies" and so I couldn't wait!!!

I'd love to hear your ideas for keeping gifts inexpensive and under control.

Random Thrifty Thoughts & Cheap Family Night

Tonight my family went out together to hang out. We had $11.75 left on a gift card that had started to lose money that we needed to spend.

So we went to Whole Foods to spend it because that is where we determined we could get the biggest bang for our buck.

We got:

*3 Free kid club HUGE bakery cookies
*some bulk cinnamon sticks 1oz $0.40
*new lid/cap for my SIGG bottle $2.49--got charges $3.99!!!
*Annies Bunnie Cereal ($1 coupon) $2
*Organic Ice Cream 1.5 qt $5.99

Okay, so I'm kinda ticked that our night would have been FREE if they hadn't overcharged me. I was too busy playing with my kids to notice.

Anyway, while I was there I looked at the Vanilla Beans to see if they sold them in bulk. HAHAHA! No.
Whole Foods brand sells ONE bean in a GLASS JAR the size of a regular spice jar. It cost $4.xx!!! Or Frontier sells 2 beans in a tube for $11.99!!!

No thank you!

When I got home I looked at Amazon thinking about my Swagbucks. I have been able to "purchase" some Amazon Gift Cards with my Swagbucks.

The best deal on vanilla beans is 1/4 Frontier "certified organic" for $35 (no free shipping) or 1/2 pound of premium for $24.99 (no free s/h).

Then, I went to eBay since that was the last place I bought them. GREAT DEALS!!! I can get 1/2 lb of extract grade beans for about $15 shipped. I will be purchasing these to make my vanilla extract for Christmas gifts this year. I need to buy soon so the extract can do its thing all year.

See how much money can be saved by research?!? It amazes me! Plus, this means I can save my Amazon GC's for a better deal in the future.

Thank you for reading my random thrifty thoughts. I'd love to hear yours!

GOALS 2010

This is the time of year I like to reflect and decide what changes or goals I want to set for the coming year. Looking forward can be exciting and fun. As we say goodbye to a decade we say hello to a new one.

It is my personal goal to accomplish 52 projects this year. They will focus mostly on making things that are useful and thrifty. This will mean finishing one project per week! I'm hoping this goal will keep me motivated and "slow and steady." Then I will blog about the projects!

I plan on reading 24 books this year. This one might be hard for me. I love to read, but I have been starting so many books before finishing others that I need to regroup (after I finish the book I am on). I have no rules as to genre, but I am in a non-fiction mode right now. Some of the books on my list will be ones I've already started, but failed to finish.

Financially, we basically need to start our Total Money Makeover all over again. We had to use our baby emergency fund and stop BS2 for awhile. We need to get back on the bandwagon and gazelle intense.
We will complete Dave Ramsey's baby step 1 by the end of January. That'll put us back to baby step 2. We owe a little bit more on the hospital bill, so that should be taken care of in a few months. Then, all we have left are the HUGE student and business loans.

I would like to continue participating in service opportunities in my own community by donating items I get for free and cheap at the store. I also want to get into the habit of clicking for cups of food every day-or close to it.
We have a kids service group in our area that I want to attend more often. They meet once a month and we've only been once.

My goal is to spend more one-on-one time with my children. This is easy with my youngest, but harder with the oldest. I want to spend 30 minutes with each child every day. Any one-on-one activity counts for this.

I want to limit TV time to 1 hour per child for a limit of 3 hours combined watching per day. This will be resisted by all, including the hubby. I must be vigilant! I have already installed a TV timer, but it has been over-ridden by Eric.

Our family needs to spend more fun time together. I am setting a goal of 1 fun family activity a month. This can be anything from hikes in the mountains to a day at the museum. No housework or yardwork!

What are your goals for 2010? Have you blogged about it? Do you have any tips for keeping the goals you set?

Family Reunion in Fruita, Colorado

In August we had a great Anderson family gathering in Fruita. We had a blast!
We all stayed at a RV park where there were campsites, cabins and RV sites. We camped while everyone else stayed in cabins or an RV.
We got to see Colorado National Monument and Grand Mesa National Forest (or whatever it is).
Beautiful!
We took plenty of pictures and it was hilarious how obsessed the Anderson clan is with "the perfect picture."
The cousins had a great time getting to know each other better and exploring the area.
My favorite part was the last day when we went to Grand Mesa and had a campfire and lunch together.