January 21, 2011

Frugal Friday - Memberships

One of the biggest bonuses to living in a larger metropolitan area is the access to museums, arboretums and the like. We love going on these field trips as a family, but they can get pricey!

This year, our kids were more than covered on toys for Christmas, so we asked for memberships to our local haunts instead. What a gift!




My boys can play for hours at the children's museum! It's such a great place to go when you need to get out of the house but it's too cold or hot to be outside.



And when you have a membership you don't feel obligated to see the whole museum in one day. It can be a shorter outing that just focuses on one section of the museum...



Can you tell what our favorite section was on this particular day?




Yep! My kids are obsessed with the "ball area" at the museum.



And, I'll admit, that sometimes we go just to play with that...



All other activities at the museum forgotten... But, I'm totally okay with that because we can always go back (for free!) tomorrow!

If you are looking into purchasing multiple memberships in one local area, make sure you check with each location for partnership deals. Here locally the children's museum, zoo and arboretum have a kids' pass option that upgrades your level of membership at each place for free, just because you are a member with their partner agencies. These deals usually aren't advertised, but are worth the call to investigate!

3 comments:

Anna said...

Love the idea of memberships for Christmas and/or birthday gifts! I think that Adam will soon be ready for the Children's museum. They have a baby area, right? We've never been.

Penelope said...

What a great idea! We've thought about the zoo but so weather dependent.

Mie said...

You'll have to tell me which Children's museum this one is...it does not look like the one I take our kiddos to. Either way, another one to consider is the one in McKinney - darn it if I can't remember th ename. If you get a membership to the Museum of Nature and Science (fairpark) you get a joint admission to the one in McKinney - where you can take the kiddos on hikes - unless of course you have a broken/torn up ankle, a non-walking 11 month old who is 28 lbs, and its the middle of July. But other than that it's totally cool.