Saving money whilst out & about

I've become a big fan of season tickets. We visit a local country park at least once a week. It's a beautiful place, great for long walks, play grounds, feeding the ducks, steam trains etc. It's too far away to walk so we have to drive. The park itself is free but you do have to pay for parking. It's cheap in the winter, crazy prices in the summer & school holidays are really pricey. We now buy a season ticket for the parking. It saves us at least £200 a year.

We also love a local children's theme park. Again we use season tickets as the savings run in to hundreds as we go every week, sometimes twice. They have a soft play centre so it's good even in the rain but outside there are rides, playground, lots of open space to play & have a picnic.

It's a lot to hand over at once but over the course of the year we make very real savings. I only get tickets to places we visit often, or we know we will go often enough to save money. One year we just broke even on one place we went to but at least we didn't waste anything. For us it's the only way we can afford to do these things often with the children. The parking ticket is £40, the tickets for the theme park are a total of £70, well worth it.

We also make good use of the library (borrowing books & story time), local parks, walks down the river, bike rides, free museums etc.

We always take our own lunch, snacks & drinks. We have flasks for hot drinks, reusable bottles for cold ones. It does mean I have to be organised but again I'm sure the savings over the course of the year must be a few hundred pounds. I'd rather that money was in my bank account than some one else's!