The Best No Spend Weekend Activities for Kids and Families

_{You want to have fun with your family, but it can be expensive! These No Spend Weekend activities will help you have lots of fun while spending minimal money.}

Kids playing outside - best no spend weekend activities

Best No Spend Activities for Kids and Families

We all want to spend time with our family and make amazing memories with our kids, but some activities like theme parks, ball games, and aquarium visits can be very expensive. You can have an amazing time with your family.

No need to spend a small fortune. Here you will find some great activity ideas that everyone will love. It doesn’t matter if you and your family are in the middle of a no-spend challenge, week, weekend, or month you will find some great fun, free ideas here. Maybe you aren’t in the middle of a no-spend challenge and just need some fun. These free activity ideas will help give you some excellent ideas. Discover some new to your amazing family fun no spend activities.

The key step to having a great no-spend weekend is planning.

What Is A No-Spend Weekend?

A no spend a weekend is a budgeting and money-saving tactic. You still pay for your groceries and bills if you happen to shop or do banking on that weekend. But the rest of the weekend you vow to save money.

This means no eating out and only doing simple, frugal family entertainment. Creativity and planning for this kind of weekend are a must. Plus, it also teaches your kids that every activity doesn’t have to cost money.

Free Places To Go

Lots of cities offer free activities to their residents. Free places you can go to have fun. Like the community center, the recreation center, the library, parks, and sports areas within a town. And if your town offers walking trails, keep your eyes peeled for a scavenger hunt.

For example: If you are visiting Five Rivers in New York, they offer a free pdf scavenger hunt printable that is related to this trail only. Check your community or town website to see if they offer the same.

Other great free community activities

A bike ride
Go to your local library – sign up for events
Visit a park
Local car dealerships – will often have free community events
Boat & RV show. – Kids love to imagine and pretend
Free trial events – many places offer one-week memberships (gyms, like YMCA)
Geocaching

Movie Night

A movie night at home is a simple and free way to spend time together as a family, without having to leave the house or spend any money.

Chances are you already have snacks at home, or the ingredients to make cookies or another family-favorite treat. Watch a movie you already have at home. If not find something free to stream online. If you don’t already have a monthly streaming service like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime.

Art Night

Let out your inner Bob Ross by looking on YouTube for “How to Paint” videos and follow along! You don’t need to use canvases, you can just do your painting on paper. If you love it, you can always frame it later!

This is absolutely one of my favorite things to do as a family! There are so many free tutorials on YouTube. We always have so much fun and I’ve got some really nice matching artwork from it too!

Food box picnic box shoe box - go on a picnic together

Have a Picnic

Make some sandwiches or your favorite picnic foods and head to the backyard with a blanket or to a nearby park. If you choose the right park, you may find a surprise.

Who knows? You may find new walking or bike trails to explore and playground equipment for the kids. We always love to explore and who doesn’t love to burn off some energy?

family working on Christmas cards together

Have a Game Night

Pull out some board games or card games and spend the night playing games together. If your kids like to play video games, you could try your hand and play some of those with them as well.

camping backyard as a family - no spend activity

Camp in the Backyard

Do you have a tent? Pull it out and camp with the family in the backyard. It’s easier than packing up everything in the car. Think about it, you can run in the house when you need to use the bathroom.

And you never have to worry about forgetting anything. If you have an outdoor fire pit or a grill, fire it up and cook hot dogs and smores to munch on while you look at the stars and tell campfire stories. Plus, here are some other great low-cost staycation ideas.

Water Games

Pull out the kiddie pools, sprinklers, slip-n-slides, water balloons, and water guns, and have a blast in the backyard. Water games are the perfect summer afternoon activity.

Big Bonus– They also tend to wear kids out…early bedtime maybe. This way mom and dad can watch a movie together.

Declutter and Donate

This might not sound like a lot of fun, but if you all work together as a family, it really can be. Pick one room of the house to work in as a family.

Declutter a room together and then donate the things that you no longer need or want to a local charity. You can think about playing some fun music to help. Have a dance party as you clean.

Volunteer

Speaking of charity, it doesn’t cost a thing to volunteer your time in your community. Go and visit the elderly at a nursing home, see if the local homeless shelter needs any help, or walk and play with dogs at the animal shelter or an animal rescue.

There are lots of great ways that you and your family can give back to your community. In the summer, our family takes to volunteering at our local animal shelter. And in the winter we love to help out with Toys for Tots.

Volunteer ideas

Animal shelters/adoption events
Habitat for Humanity
Soup Kitchens
School events
Visiting a nursing home
Toys for Tots
Helping an elderly neighbor with yard/housework
Local church event

kids drop off program at the library - little bot working on computer

Visit Your Community Center

Chances are your community has a visitor’s center. Even if you live in a relatively small town, visit the center itself or at least their website and learn more about the history of your town. You may be surprised about what you learn.

There may be some local historical statues, museums, parks, and even old graveyards that you can visit for free. Free, local, and educational, it’s a win, win, win! Here are a few free opportunities.

FREE National Fishing Days – National

100+ National Park Free Entrance

Free Federal Park Entrance for 4th Graders & Family!

Complete a Chore

Complete a big chore as a family, but one that the kids will think of as more than fun than as a chore. This might be washing the family vehicles, cleaning the outside windows of your home, or spraying off the porch, deck, or wooden fences in your yard. Generally speaking, if you can add water to it, your kids will think they are having fun and not cleaning.

And if you want to get super organized, you can read this article on easy cleaning hacks and download the FREE homemaking chore checklist.

Home Cleaning Checklist for chores around your home

Look for Free Local Events

There are probably more free events happening in your community than you know about. Churches, car dealerships, local retailers, and community groups often host free concerts, movies under the stars, and other free events to bring the community together.

Try joining a few of your local community’s Facebook groups and see what you can find going on for free. And find something that is cool – turn your home into Disney’s Magic Kingdom, by allowing your kids to watch some of their most popular rides.

These are just a few kid-friendly family activities that you can do without spending any money. These types of activities are great for when you are on a tight budget or participating in a no-spend challenge.