Family · July 23, 2020

5 Fun Activities to Do at Home That Won't Break the Bank

As you're spending more time indoors to help stop the spread of COVID-19, you're probably looking for more fun activities to do at home that have a low impact on your budget. The solutions are probably already within your walls. You just need to get creative to tap into your existing stockpile of fun.

Here are five ideas for people of any age to help you and your family keep things interesting while social distancing—without spending a ton of cash.


1 Borrow books, don't buy

If you have a family full of bookworms, you might have hit the library before stay-at-home orders went in place, loading up on books for the days and nights ahead. Depending on how fast you go from cover to cover, that literary well might be running dry by now.

Good news—you don't have to spend money to get new books delivered to keep up your reading. Your local library might be able to help you spend nothing and still gain access to hundreds—maybe even thousands—of books.

Visit your local library's website to see if they have e-book options. With your library card and a computer or tablet, your family could be reading for free in no time.

2 Dress it up

If you can't remember the last time you had a costume party, you might be due for another. Especially if you have a house full of rambunctious kids who are out of school, a costume party is a perfect diversion that can fill countless hours.

You can create themes, use unconventional objects and give kids access to their parents' usually off-limits closets to make every costume party feel like a new adventure.

3 Learn a new language

It's time to make good on that vow you made to learn a new language. Put the power of the internet to work for you and sign up for one of the many online tutorial services that can help you learn a language at home. Services like Babbel and DuoLingo will help you work your way through the basics of a new language in as little as 5 minutes a day.

If you want to make it even more cost-effective, take out some language learning books from your library's e-book catalog and build your own lesson plan to follow at home each day.

4 Put down roots

Whether you live in an apartment with limited space or a home with a yard, gardening projects can be just the low-cost activity you need to pass the time. Without even leaving the house, you can order inexpensive seeds and potting soil online and use objects you already have at home to create planters. Those never-used coffee mugs and other containers in the back of your pantry make for perfect future homes for plants and flowers.

Try your hand at low-maintenance herbs that can play double duty as a gardening project and a cooking supply. With gardening projects, kids of any age can have fun things to do in the house. You can even tie this in with your book-borrowing activities and take out an e-book on gardening to help you get started or find inspiration.

5 Snap some photos

Since everyone has a phone with a camera on it these days, why not plan your very own in-home photo shoot? This is an activity where kids can take the lead and explore their own creative sides. Pair the costume party with the photo shoot for a virtually no-cost experience, start to finish.

Hand over the camera and let your kids snap away, too. This is an activity where they can take the lead and explore their own creative sides. Later, you can review the photos as a family. If you find a few gems from your photography adventures, you can order prints online at a low cost and have them shipped directly to the house.

Fun and cheap indoor activities through creativity

These five ideas are just the beginning. Once you get started, you'll get more creative with finding fun things to do at home during quarantine that put little to no dent in your budget. While you might not know how long you'll find your family all under one roof for extended hours, there are plenty of ways to find levity while connecting with the people you love.

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