How to save money on the kids after school activities
You want your kids to play sports and be active. It’s hard to do that when you have to pay for all those activities though. I get it. There were years my kids didn’t play anything because we couldn’t afford for them too. But then we found those hidden gems with fun activities for very little money. Here’s what after school activities my kids now do and they don’t cost very much at all.
Dance
Many community centers want your children to participate in activities. A lot of time they make activities available very inexpensively. We can take dance at our community center for $3 per class. Can’t go because your child is sick? Then you don’t pay. Our community center has a ton of stuff to do for very low cost. It’s a fun place to go workout, swim, take dance and so much more. Check out your local community center to see what your town has to offer.
Karate
Karate is one of the more expensive sports to take. But my kids are able to take it at a local church. They use it as an outreach tool and it costs us $25 per year or $50 max per year per family. What a great way to reach others who normally would not take the time to attend church. It has served us very well over the years. Both my boys are taking here. We do have to pay for our uniforms and belts. But you can ask for those to be covered as birthday presents or gifts and get them covered. $50 for a year for 2 children taking karate is an amazing deal. Call and ask your local churches if they have any outreach activities like this available. You never know until you ask.
Golf
My son also takes golf. He goes to a program called first tee. A lot of towns have the first tee program. If you can pick up golf clubs at a yard sale then the only other items they need are clothes and a water bottle. So we got clubs at a yard sale and a bag for about $20 and the program for the entire year is $50. What a bargain. My son has gone two mornings a week for an hour each morning. Then when school is back in session he goes for 1.5 hours a week during the week. He is learning more than just about golf. He’s being taught respect for others and respect for his items. He’s taught how to talk to adults and how to be encouraging. It’s such a great program. I don’t have enough words to say about how amazing this program is. You have to call and find out if it’s in your area. Lovely way for my son to make friends, spend the day and enjoy being outdoors.
Inexpensive after school activities are great for making my dollars stretch and my kids too!
I realize that not everyone has access to these activities. But if you’ve never checked you never know. You might have all 3 in your area and just weren’t aware of it. So make some phone calls and call around. It’s worth checking. I spend $100/year for my children to take karate and golf. It’s a great use of my money to instill some activities in them for years to come!
That is an amazing deal on karate. I pay $135 a month for one child.
After school activities can be so expensive. We try and look for specials where we can.
My kiddies go to Trampolining and swimming for after school activities.
These are great ideas! After school activities can get costly.
We have a chain of stores called play it again sports where used sporting equipment and weights are sold. We get GREAT deals on gently used items!
Activities for kids are expensive, I know! Thanks for sharing so many great ideas. You have some very useful info in this post.
I’ve started thinking about the extracurricular activities for my son later. They are so expensive! These are great suggestions.
These are great ideas for activities. Good ideas for deals also.
These are great ideas to look into! After school activities can be soooo expensive!
With 6 kids, we are always looking for ways to save money! This is a great list of ideas.
That’s a good idea to look to the local church for after school karate. I’m going to see if there’s something like that around here!
Thanks for sharing those tips on saving money. It is crazy at how much everything cost and even more difficult for large families.
These are great tips! I have 3 girls and they keep me busy enough now. It will be crazy when they get older!
Great ideas! I love our church for inexpensive activities!
These are some great tips for saving money. After school activities can be so expensive!
The community center was a great source of inexpensive after-school activities for us. Your tips are really good!
These are all great ways to save money on after school activities. I love them all. Thanks for sharing!
Great deal! Activities for kids are so expensive anymore it’s crazy! We find specials or deals or even sometimes early sign ups give a bonus!
I know we can save by searching through the yard sale/garage sale Facebook groups, Craigslist and even stores like Play it Again Sports
This is a great post, with 3 kids my afterschool budget it busting at the seams! I’ve found that the YMCA is a great saver and so is groupon when trying new activities.
Thank you! I am trying to figure out how to squeeze it all in the budget!
These are great ideas! We have lots of affordable programs in the area to take advantage of too.
I’ll have to check out what my community center offers. It’s worth a look, right?
These are all great ideas. You’re right on the community center classes too. They are always a great deal.
I wish we had a community center like this. Our dance classes are still fairly inexpensive though at $25 a month for 4 classes.
These are great tips. We don’t have a community center so all our stuff is not really discount available.
Great ideas! I need to call around and find out about some of these. I think i’ve been overpaying!
These are great ideas! My son is starting preschool in the Fall so we haven’t reached the after school activity part of life yet but I am sure it will come soon enough! This is great to know!
It’s great when kids are physically active and involved in different programs. This is a great deal. Thanks for sharing.
Wow, that’s awesome. Classes here are so expensive, I had no idea that you could get them a bit cheaper.
I wish we had a community center – classes by us are very expensive and a long drive. One of the downfalls of living in the country.
Yes these activities can sure be expensive. But I really liked the outreach tool for karate that is awesome!
Great ideas, my kids were in traveling baseball, hockey and wrestling while my daughter was in dance and club gymnastics, oh we needed savings tips back then.