thrifty thursday

When you've got a crew as big as ours, stuff is expensive! Groceries, school supplies, shoes for growing feet, pediatrician bills . . . we don't seem to catch much of a break. But, on some things you get much more bang for your buck if you're a big crew. Yesterday I took the kids {well, 5 of them anyway} to the Children's Museum. Memberships to places are real bargains when you've got a crew the size of ours. "Unlimited admission for 1 year for 2 adults and all children under 18 living in the household" :: fabulous! It costs $8.95 to get in to the children's museum {Sara is still free for another couple months}. So, yesterday alone it would have been nearly $45 for me to pay for us to be there {me + 4 paying kids}. A membership for the year is $89. Plus, you get one day of free parking with your membership. {parking is $4 for 3 hours}. If the entire family were there the membership would just about pay for itself in 1 visit. As it were it will take 2 visits to break even. I promise you it will have been a wonderful deal for us! All the kids love it there, from the littlest all the way up to the biggest who still think it's a pretty fun place, plus they love seeing how excited the littles are over it.

At any given time we probably have a membership at a few places. Right now, we have memberships to the Children's Museum and also to the Minnesota Historical Society. Over the years we've also had memberships at the Minnesota Zoo, annual passes to the Eagle's Nest {a great indoor play structure -- like a McDonald's playland on steroids} and at this point, we wouldn't know what to do without our Y membership!

Even if your family isn't as big as ours, memberships can be a pretty good deal. Plus, they support the wonderful things to do in our city. A great idea is to get one membership a year and rotate where you have your membership to each year. Also, our Historical Society membership was an even better deal because I got it from one of those online coupon sites {Groupon or Crowd Cut or something} and got 2 years for the price of 1, and that particular membership gets you in to so many different sites it's already like 10 memberships in 1. Wonderful! Plus, most memberships have reciprocal benefits to other places if you are traveling. So, if you're heading away from home, don't forget to check where else your memberships are good for and you might have ready-made {and free or discounted} fun plans for part of your vacation time. We've used our reciprocal benefits a few different times when we've been out of town.

So, if you're ever up for a trip to the Children's Museum, or the History Center, or you want to take a little trip up to the Kelly Farm or you're downtown Minneapolis and want to check out the Mill City Museum . . . just give a call and we'll probably join you.