With my children’s two-week spring break coming to a close this weekend, I decided to treat them to a day at the Sacramento Zoo. With the budget in mind, four of us (hubby had to work) were able to have a lovely day on less than $40, souvenirs included.

How did we do it? Well first, we have a family membership. For the price of what it would cost our family for admission to the zoo three times, we are able to get in for free for an entire year. I think we took advantage of our membership six times this year.

Next expense: Food. We ate lunch before going to the zoo. You can easily drop $40 on lunch at the zoo, so eat before you go. I talk the kids into this by promising a treat at the zoo. This time we all had popsicles to the tune of $2.95 each! It ain’t cheap to eat at the zoo, people!

Have you seen the yellow zoo key boxes around the zoo? The key is around $3.50 and when you insert it into the boxes you learn some interesting facts about the animal you happen to be watching. We bought our key about a year ago and always remember to bring it back with us.

Also, have you seen the cute little animal- shaped sports bottles for the kids? Refills on those are 50 cents. We bought one for each child a year ago, and bring them with us whenever we go to the zoo, so we are not spending $3 per drink. For my family, this saves us $7.50 per trip. Not only that, but we are also reducing our waste by reusing the bottles.

Our total for food was about $17, which included a non-kid drink for me.

Last stop: the gift shop. We could have easily avoided this if it wasn’t in the budget. This time around, though, I gave each child a $5-ish limit. One will spend the whole $5, while another will be way under and the third a little over, but it all evens out. Our total at the gift shop was about $16 after tax. And I had completely forgotten to show my membership card to save an additional 10 percent , too.

If you are keeping score, our total for the day was about $33. Granted, we had initial expenses a year ago that we continue to reap the benefits of. But if you are smart about those things and truly consider your family’s usage of such memberships, you can have some serious cheap entertainment during those months when money’s tight. Don’t forget about science museums and other types of activities, too.

Last tip: save your receipts! The zoo is a nonprofit, so any money you spend there should be a tax writeoff!

Bookmark and Share
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [LinkedIn] [StumbleUpon] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email] More »
Powered by Bookmarkify™