One of my 101 things in 1001 days is to let Zach plan a day with a small budget.  Now Rachel Ray feeds just HERSELF on 40 dollars a day and I find that to be extravagant and extreme, but hey she’s got a show to put on and hey she’s rich.  But I figured 40 dollars for 3-4 of us would be doable with all the free fun stuff we have around here, so that’s the limit I gave him.

I wasn’t planning on letting him do it yesterday, but it’s the way it worked out. We sat down and discussed what would be options for lunch.

“Chuck E Cheese?”

“Yes, we can go to Chuck E. Cheese and NOT eat for free because we already have tokens”

“ok, what if we eat there?”

“40 bucks”

“omg that’s my whole day’s allowance, never mind”

“good you’re getting the point”

“how about John’s Pizza?”

“have you ever seen us walk out of there for less than 50 bucks? they MAKE you eat there, Zach”

“oh cross that off the list then, that’s not doable”

And on and on it went:

If we eat at home: sandwiches, chips, fruit, and drinks I’ll charge you 2 dollars a person. Assuming it’s just us 3 that is 6 bucks.

Subway – $15 (but that is assuming daddy is with us)

Red Robin’s – $30

So he circled Subway thinking it was a good idea, but as the list grew he found that he wanted to spend his money elsewhere so he chose to make lunch at home.

Our activities list was plentiful:

Bounce house w/coupon – $7 for 2 hours

CEC – 0 because of existing tokens

Swimming pool at Grammie’s – 0

making an obstacle course in the backyard – supplies you have to buy once, but then can play with again and again – roughly 15 bucks

playground- 0

bike ride – 0

camping out in the living room – 0

snacks for camping out – $1 for a bag of popcorn $1 for 4 smores $1 per blender of smoothies

renting a movie – $4

netflixing a movie – 0 (well technically)

watching a movie we own -0

So in the end, he made decisions and was VERY serious about it and our day ended up costing  a bit for the obstacle course because he got water balloons, and cones, and a couple of hula hoops, but he created a great obstacle course for Sean and himself and when we got home. This is the kind of creativity and togetherness I was hoping to encourage with this exercise so I’m really very happy with the results

They ended up camping out and having popcorn and smores and smoothies and we watched Harry Potter for movie night together (which was another of my 101 things lol, nothing like getting those 2 birds!). 

Great day, great lesson Great smores