What are some affordable things for your teens do for fun?

Hi LLL,

My grandchildren, for whom I am the 'custodial parent' assigned by DSS, are both involved in a Saturday bowling league. It's only $9/child/week. Although they do a couple of tournaments that can involve more money. Last year the tournament was in Greenville which is only 40 miles away or so. This year it's in Charleston, which is 4 hours away and will likely require an overnight stay unless we're going to get up at 'O dark thirty' for two days to drive over. However, at 64, I'm not inclined to drive for 8-9 hours for two days so we'll likely do the motel or even a airbnb. We did that a couple of years ago when it was in Columbia, about 150 miles away.

One of the great things about this league is that they do have sponsors and bake sales and such and are usually able to give the parents a good little chunk of change towards the overnight stays. The year we stayed at the Airbnb, I actually made a few bucks. The league paid each parent $100 towards accommodations and the Airbnb was only about $65.

For cheap there is always hiking and sight seeing around your area. I'm guessing you live quite a bit north since you mention needing snow pants to go out so that may not be a good idea for you. Museums are generally fairly inexpensive. In Columbia they have a really nice museum with some interactive pieces and once a month or so they have a $1 day.

Are you not able to get them good winter gear from local thrift stores. My wife is a real great little shopper for clothes at thrift stores. Even at Christmas, most of the clothes are 'new' things she's picked up in thrift stores. But I'm always seeing winter coats and such in our local thrifts. Goodwill is good for clothes and then we also have a thrift, that's a bit more expensive, but is operated by one of our local Christian schools that usually has some pretty nice stuff. I've even bought myself suits and dress slacks and dress shoes from them.

If you do have a lot of snow, find a place for sledding and I'm not particularly sold on needing snow pants to do that. When I was a kid it was just jeans and thermal underwear. I lived in WV. Anyway, hope some of that helps.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

LiveLaughLove said:

We are in a tough spot right now financially so I am wondering what affordable things can a teen do for fun (besides going on their phones or tablets)?

I have 2 teens (ages 16 and 14) and 1 pre-teen (age 12) and all they have been doing lately is going on their phones or tablets. It has been driving me batty but I don't know what to get them to do. Creativity is not my strength at all. lol
Anyway, It is too cold to go outside and unfortunately right now we can't afford the proper gear (boots and snow pants) to have fun in the snow. The ideas can be stuff to do as a family or individually. TIA

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Might want to try and find a productive slant to the tech interest of your kiddos. You can find digital cameras with video capability, or older digital video cameras on Craigslist for like 30-40$ like an older Canon T series with video, and the kids can make video projects, do skits, make video blogs, Make funny videos with their friends, secretly videotape each other and you, that kind of stuff. It’s what I was into in high school. There is an easy and totally free video editing software called shot cut available online as well, they can figure out how to use on YouTube.

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LiveLaughLove said:

We are in a tough spot right now financially so I am wondering what affordable things can a teen do for fun (besides going on their phones or tablets)?

I have 2 teens (ages 16 and 14) and 1 pre-teen (age 12) and all they have been doing lately is going on their phones or tablets. It has been driving me batty but I don't know what to get them to do. Creativity is not my strength at all. lol
Anyway, It is too cold to go outside and unfortunately right now we can't afford the proper gear (boots and snow pants) to have fun in the snow. The ideas can be stuff to do as a family or individually. TIA

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Playing family games like UNO, Monopoly etc
Cooking with you and have them pick one diner a week and they write down a shopping list, buy it with you and prepare it with you.
Gardening-this could just be a few pots.
Jewellery making, my daughter was keen on that at about 12-14
making cards
learning how to make Youtube videos. LPS story videos.
Cheap camera for taking pictures.
Making miniatures
Making bird food and a table, I bet they are hungry
khan Academy is free and has some very basic programming, like learning how to draw a face on the pc, I bet other sites do too.

Just because of you arent creative doesn't mean one or more of them can't be.

Board games and card games are always fun. We had that as our theme this last Christmas.

I’m gonna be honest with ya. Those ages in particular are tough ones to manage to do things without a device. I have two teens around that age. I’ve been trying to come up with ways to have fun chats reminiscing of the Christmas memories when they were tiny. I try to find a
Bunch of videos of them from tiny age and we enjoy watching them.
Weird, I know...actually interacting and making it interesting for that age is rare

LiveLaughLove said:

We are in a tough spot right now financially so I am wondering what affordable things can a teen do for fun (besides going on their phones or tablets)?

I have 2 teens (ages 16 and 14) and 1 pre-teen (age 12) and all they have been doing lately is going on their phones or tablets. It has been driving me batty but I don't know what to get them to do. Creativity is not my strength at all. lol
Anyway, It is too cold to go outside and unfortunately right now we can't afford the proper gear (boots and snow pants) to have fun in the snow. The ideas can be stuff to do as a family or individually. TIA

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Go to the park, cook some barbecue, bring a frisbee, play some crochet, badminton, volleyball, kickball, ride bikes, fly a kite.

Edit: ahh I missed the part about being cold outside, sorry.

When child was young, I attended parenting classes & workshops. At one, the speaker said "make sure your child volunteers when they are a teen." So this year, our teen has volunteered for 3 different churches & for the teen volunteer group at the library. She's helped put together meals for another country, helped at the local food bank, and mulched at a school.....all for volunteer days sponsored by churches. This past weekend, she was a greeter for library event. Volunteering is free & good for teens to do.