Frugal Friday: Activity Overload No More

This morning, instead of posting a frugal idea of my own, due to what I considered a sad lack of inspiration, I found myself responding to one of my fave money-wise blogs, Saving Money In Real Life.  

I love how she provides a practical response to every nugget of financial wisdom she shares with her readers.  Reading how one woman, wife, and mom applies this saving wisdom really helps me to get a handle on it.  Obviously, I need some hand-holding.  

Anyway, I realized that I am not without inspiration when surrounded by all of you wonderful penny-pinching peeps.  Forgive me if you read about this before, but I'm just so thrilled to see what it's done for our family and budget that I'm going to write about it again.

Hello, my name is Laura and I was once an Activities Junkie.

...paying out of the nose for a bevy of lessons I really thought my children needed.

No more.

Last year, we were out of the house every day of the week and happily so.  I mean, my children and I were living with near-strangers, and I was suffering under a strained relationship with them at that.  I wanted to be away--far away.

We had piano lessons, ballet twice each week, gymnastics thrice each week, and soccer lessons, too.  Not all of my children did all of these activities, but, when you have four babes in tow, activities multiply like rabbits and add up to one very busy momma.  Again, happily so.

But no more.

Last fall, husb'd and I reconciled and brought our family together again and under one roof.  We agreed, although much more emotionally hard for me, that for this first year of healing, we would drop all activities.  The kids and I needed not to be running all over town every night of the week, whilst he waited for us at home with a lonely fork and a slow over-cooker meal.  Nothing against slow cookers...use it twice each week.  You get  it, right?  We needed time together, no matter how hard it might get sometimes.

Now, six months later, the two oldest kiddos are back tickling the ebonies and ivories, with an accomplished teenaged gal who charges us only $10/week ((!!!!)).  And, thanks to a new and dear friend, we've joined a local homeschool PE club.  

This PE club is so amazing as it provides lessons for my three oldest children in a different sport every month--swimming, gymnastics, FENCING, track & field, soccer--for less than the cost of one month's tuition for one child!  It's a win-win situation entirely: a sporting business opens itself to a new market and we single-income families get great activities for our kids all in one place, all at one time, and for pennies on the dollar!  And with the doom-and-gloom of the economy, you just cannot beat this deal...unless you stay home and do nothing, which I have a hard time doing...obviously.  Did anyone else notice I didn't make it the whole pledged year?

Get over to Biblical Womanhood and glean whilst you can.  Frugal Fridays are moving soon!