Planning a fun weekend can be difficult, let alone when you have a family to consider as well. There are a lot of different needs and preferences you have to consider when trying to make plans. You want to be able to make everyone happy, stick within your budget and probably try and squeeze some time in there for yourself as well!
When you have lots of people with different needs to consider, it can become quite a challenge to plan a fun weekend that everyone will enjoy. Going away is a great thing to do and is always so much fun (but is expensive). You get to show your family new places and have new experiences together. While this is a great option for the whole family, it is also good to have some fun weekends at home too. This way, going away becomes something you can budget for and look forward to, and make sure that you also have fun in between. The last thing you want is for you and your family to always be waiting for the next trip. So it is important to learn how to have fun in between!
This will save you a lot of money, but also give you and your family some quality time together at home, make being at home more enjoyable, teach your children how to have fun at home and be content, and increase bonding and quality time together. What tends to happen as children get older is they spend more time in their rooms, watching television or scrolling on social media. Having a fun weekend can help minimise this.
To help you on your journey, here are some top tips to help you have a fun weekend at home with your family.
Find out what everyone wants to do
A great and helpful thing to do before you start trying to plan anything for the weekend ahead, is to sit down with your family and find out what everyone would like to do and what their idea of fun is. You can make a list to make it easier to see.
You should also consider what commitments you have on the weekend, perhaps you have a class to attend or your children have hobbies to go to. You may also have household chores. Make a note of these things.
Now you have this important information, you can start to consider what a fun weekend would look like. There may be things that you all agree on and you can do together. There may also be things you don’t agree on, so members of the family can split off. You don’t have to do everything together, but it is a good idea to try and plan at least one thing you can do together. This might even just be cooking or baking together, going for a morning walk, or playing some games.
Keep the list handy so you can use it as you plan each weekend. Make sure you update the list regularly. If you have young kids, their idea of fun is going to change a lot!
Figure out what your budget is
Budget is a really important thing to consider. You want to be able to keep having fun weekends, so you don’t want to spend all of your money at once and then have none for the rest of the month or make yourself struggle in other areas. A good way to do this is to sit down and review your finances. Make a spreadsheet and consider how much disposable income you have left each month and how you can spread that out of the month to spend on things you want.
Make some time for yourself
In amongst all the planning for your family, make sure you schedule some time for yourself. If you struggle to find time, then see if you can get up thirty minutes earlier and enjoy a cup of coffee and read a book. Or go to bed a little later and have some fun getting stuck into a crossword. It is really important that you give yourself some quality time to do what you want to do as well as your family.
You have all the information you need for a fun weekend. Make sure you make a plan with it, and run it past your family for their input and agreement. This will make the fun weekend you have planned more likely to happen!
