Hi Gillian

These kind of posts are really helpful for many people who are working to tight budgets!

Keep up the good work! 🙂

Julie

Thanks Gillian for sharing that.

I wonder if anyone else has any suggestions or ideas to share?

Although a little bit different to that, my son (12) has just joined the local golf club as a junior member. That cost us the best part of £200 which was a struggle to get together in the circumstances.

Although it seems a lot, it looks like he's going to be spending a huge amount of time there over the next year without it costing us any more. He gets months of weekly free coaching too and he's planning on spending the whole summer there!

I think it's pretty good value for money because we'd definitely spend much more on other activities for him over that time.

Cheers,

DFW

Prior to my Trust Deed I was spending a lot of cash doing fun stuff on weekday evenings (cinema, eating out, pubs etc). This was actually a large part of the reason why I got into so much debt to begin with!

Of course, once I entered into my Trust Deed I was no longer able to maintain that sort of lifestyle, and to begin with I found it quite difficult to deal with having to stay in every night. I needed to find another, cheap way to occupy my time - and fortunately I did.

This won't be everyone's cup of tea obviously, but I signed up to a pub poker league, which has games on (in different venues) every night of the week. The poker itself is free - you play for points rather than money and if you amass enough points, you qualify for a grand final at which you can win some very decent prizes (currently, the top prize on offer is a trip to Las Vegas).

The poker league is great fun, and for me is an ideal way to occupy a weekday evening. I've been going for about 2 and a half years now, playing twice a week.

It goes without saying that you need to buy a few drinks when you're in the pub (otherwise the landlord won't be too happy with you!), but I generally just stay sober and have soft drinks. Cans of juice are cheaper than draught juice so I just have a few of those.

Generally, a night at the poker doesn't cost me much more than a fiver, and it's great fun if you enjoy the game. Can't argue with that.

The Vue cinemas do kids screening on Saturday and Sunday mornings and more frequently during school holidays. They show a different family film each week, and it's only 95p per person (adults and kids). You must have at least one child per adult. I think the odeon do something similar.

National museum of Scotland is another good one. Free entry, donations welcome. Most of it is closed for renovation at the moment but due to fully reopen at the end of July.

National museum of Scotland is another good one. Free entry, donations welcome. Most of it is closed for renovation at the moment but due to fully reopen at the end of July.

I go to the Vue quite often at the weekends but they also do the 95p showing through the school holidays. Good news about the National Museum of Scotland opening back up. I can see me and my boy having a day there.

On the subject of cinemas - the "Orange Wednesdays" deal is another good one (2 tickets for the price of 1), but it also still works if using an unlimited cinema pass.

I recently went to the cinema with a colleague of mine who has an unlimited pass for Cineworld. With the Orange 2 for 1 deal, he just showed his pass and I got in for free.