Summer fun that doesn't break the budget

0:00You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey everybody, it's Mariel. We're going to start today's episode at the top of a hill with Emma Tempest. Back when she was a teacher, she would take her class of four and five-year-olds to the park for an end-of-year celebration. And it was at the top of this enormous hill. And every year we'd have a rolling down the hill competition. And all the adults would join in because you just had that permission to have fun. The other part of that celebration was a trip to a mini zoo. You'd hear the children saying things like, oh, I wonder what that fish is thinking.

0:39And you'd be like, what? I've never thought about that before. That spirit of imagination and wonder, you can take that with you anywhere and it costs nothing. Emma is now a positive psychology coach who helps people get unstuck through play. We did an episode on play, what it is, why it's good for you and how to do more of it. And in the process of reporting that episode, we came up with a whole bunch of ideas for how to play for cheap. Because you don't have to spend a lot of money to have fun. Don't let money or time be the thing that decides whether or not you will have fun. You can have fun almost in spite of those things if you really put your mind to it.

1:19On this episode of Life Kit, we're going to share those ideas for how to have fun on a budget. Think of these as offerings. Try them out, see what you like, and see if they spark any ideas of your own.

1:38Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wayfair. Your space should feel like you. And if it doesn't yet, that's probably not a taste problem. It's a budget problem. Wayfair fixes that. Seating, grills, appliances, storage, lighting, rugs, decor. One place, everything you need. And with over 20 million five-star reviews, you're not buying blind. Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. This message comes from American Home Shield. It's not a matter of if an appliance or system, like your HVAC, will break, but when.

2:22Without a home warranty, these repairs or replacements can cost thousands. but with an AHS home warranty, they will fix covered breakdowns, helping protect your wallet. Get 20 % off all plans at ahs.com slash NPR and see promo details. See ahs.com slash contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations, and exclusions. This message comes from Instacart. Instacart knows not all bananas are created equal. Some want them green, some ripe, some want them ready right now. With Instacart's preference picker, available at most retailers, you can choose preferences like avocado ripeness or deli thickness before your shopper starts.

3:04So instead of hoping for the best, you get groceries picked the way you would pick them. Download the app and get bananas just how you like with Instacart. Nearly one year after Congress eliminated federal funding for public media, NPR remains committed to informing the public. But a free press doesn't just happen. It's something we must protect. Without federal funding, we are relying on your support now. Please show your support today at plus.npr.org. All right, we're breaking this episode up into categories. And since this story started at a park, we'll begin with the outdoors. If you want to have cheap fun outside, public parks and beaches are your best friend.

3:47You can go there and fly a kite or ride a bike, have a picnic. Life Kit producer Margaret Serino does that a lot in New York. I'll get all my friends and pack up my little hammock and pack up some snacks like strawberries and fresh fruits and crackers. And we'll all lay out our blankets together and make one giant seating area and then just be there for literally hours. And just like we'll snack and we'll be hammocking and we'll be talking and some of us will be crafting and we all have our little books. And it's all just like very cute and wholesome. Or you could get a bunch of friends together for a field day.

4:24I'm talking about a three-legged race, egg on a spoon, water balloon toss. Use your imagination. Which also comes in handy if you want to do some kind of park cleanup, picking up trash or fallen tree branches. It's easy to make that a game. Coat hangers can double as pirate swords, and plastic bags can be bandanas. Or you could get to know the creatures and plants that live in the park. So there's like a lot of free apps out there that like that allow you to like unlock these sciencey hobbies where you're just going on a walk, but you're like looking for this specific kind of bug or this bird and then you can log it into these apps.

5:00It's almost like a game, but it's helping them collect like citizen science like data while you're doing it. By the way, LifeKid has an episode on birding and another on how to be a community scientist. Another tip, a lot of parks will have outdoor workout equipment that you can use for bodyweight exercises. Also, a lot of parks offer free programming. Jazz music, salsa lessons, bingo. If you go to the website of your local park or parks department, they may have an events calendar. Okay, moving beyond parks, another outdoors idea, which is perfect for exploring a neighborhood or a city, is something called a penny date.

5:36A penny date really kind of gets you out to explore things without an objective. This idea comes from Nicole Dow. She's a freelance writer who wrote a piece about how to have cheap fun for a personal finance website called The Penny Hoarder. Here's how a penny date works. You take a penny, or any other coin really, and pick a direction for heads and tails. Heads will be left, tails will be right, or vice versa. and then you flip the coin, see what direction it takes you, and that's where you go. And you stop when you see something interesting. Maybe you land in front of a building that has really cool architecture and you do an online search about its history.

6:15Another idea from Nicole, go to the farmer's market. Make a morning of it. You don't have to buy anything. A lot of times, farmer's markets will offer not just vendors selling things, but they'll have local people singing or playing an instrument. and that's a great form of free entertainment. And there's always free samples from vendors. Oh, and how about a parade? Any of those going on in your city or town? Could be fun. Lots of merriment. Okay, our next category is arts and crafts. If your idea of play is being creative and making things, the classic move is to get a coloring book and crayons or a paint-by-number set.

6:56Or you could get a little more elaborate. Our producer Margaret likes to host art nights with friends at her apartment. She'll get some cheap, colorful clay at the craft store, and they'll make mini sculptures or jewelry while watching a movie. Or like a lot of the times we'll like just get paper and each like have a little canvas and just paint for five minutes and then swap. And that's always really fun because like the art is really wacky and weird. Sometimes they'll give each other prompts they have to stick to, like a recent one with secrets. And we all had to, like, make our art secret themes or, like, something you're not supposed to know.

7:31Like, shh. If you'd rather go see or hear some art, look at the events calendars for your local coffee shops and bars and restaurants. They could be hosting open mic nights or poetry slams. Janet Ujong Lee is a producer on NPR's Education Desk, and sometimes she goes to mystery movie screenings at this local theater on Wednesday nights. How it works is that you don't know what movie you're going to be watching until you get there. but it's entirely free, so if I wanted to grab a bite or drink afterwards, like, I felt less guilty about it. They turned out to be films she wouldn't have seen otherwise.

8:03And if you don't have this option in your city, you can do it with friends at your house. One of you picks the movie and then surprises the rest of the group. Another tip from Janet, a lot of museums are free one day a week. And your local library might also offer free museum passes, too. You just have to reserve them ahead of time. Okay, our next category is food. One idea is to recreate a family recipe. Ask your mom for her mom's famous meatloaf recipe, or look online for a meal that your ancestors might have eaten. This is a beautiful practice on your own or with a group. And when you're doing this, don't focus on perfection or an exact recreation.

8:41Here's what chef Judy Calla had to say about that in another Life Kit episode. Comparison is like a killer. When you compare things to other people, you lose your confidence. whatever it might be. It's not your mom's or your grandmother's. It's your own. I cook a lot and I cannot cook my mom's quality food ever. Never. Because everybody has their own touch. Now, if you don't feel like making your food, how about a food challenge or a taste test? Life Kit producer Sylvie Douglas likes to do those with her partner. And last time we were in Canada, someone told us that Canadian chocolate is much chocolatier tasting.

9:26So we got some Kit Kats to do a taste test with. They like the Canadian ones better. You can do this with different brands of vanilla ice cream. Or you could go to your local bodega and like try a bunch of different brands of like the same flavor chip. Sky's the limit here. All right. Our last category is all the random stuff that didn't fit in before. First off, themed hangouts. Margaret likes to do these. You pick a theme, invite people over. Okay, tonight is the French night, so we'll watch Amelie and make French onion soup, and that's our night. Our supervising editor, Megan Cain, held a rom-com movie marathon at her house.

10:04It was a full-day event, with a rundown and a photoshopped invitation, and lots of pizza. On the list, My Best Friend's Wedding, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Moonstruck, among others. You can also make up games with your friends. One of my favorite examples of this is on the show New Girl. They play this game called True American. It seems like the rules are always changing. So it's 50 % drinking game, 50 % life-size Candyland. It's more like 75 drinking, 20 Candyland. By the way, the floor is melting lava. It's actually 90 % drinking, and then it's got a loose Candyland-like structure to it.

10:36Or you can play those kind of road trip games. You know, the ones you get into on a long car ride or while you're on a hike. Darian Woods is a host at The Indicator from Planet Money, and he shared a game his friends like. I'm going to simplify it slightly. Basically, the group picks a category, like let's say animals, and then you pick an animal, in this case, and decide how you would rate that particular animal, 1 to 10. Tell me what the animal is, but don't tell me the number, and I'll try to guess. Crocodile. Hmm. You're either scared of crocodiles or find them incredibly cute and impressive.

11:10I'm going to guess 8 out of 10. 4. Okay. You're slightly averse to them. I'm slightly averse to them. They scare me for sure because obviously but I do think they're really fierce. You know, so I have to give them some credit but I would not want to be a round one. So respect. It's going to be, yeah, respect but at a distance. Yeah, exactly. That makes a lot of sense. Very good. That's the game. The game here really is do your friends know how you think? You can also do this with cities or movies or songs or whatever. Some other cheap fun ideas from Nicole Dow, the freelance writer. Do a house or apartment swap with a friend, maybe one who lives in your city but a different neighborhood.

11:55You can get a feel of what they have. Like if they have a pool, you can take a dip in their pool or check out their DVD collection. Just kind of enjoy new surroundings. things that's a low-cost alternative to taking a full-fledged vacation okay i really need to get some friends with pools um also if they happen to have a gorgeous sibling who stops by the house on a whim and ends up being the love of your life that is a bonus you could also go to an open house even if you're not in the market it's a good chance to kind of see what's going on with like the latest home decor you know sometimes they have fresh baked cookies you can say okay we're going to like make up a backstory about you know who you are and why you're out here looking for a home more ideas from our grab bag you could go to the mall or a vintage store with a friend and try on silly or super formal outfits do a science experiment at home like for example make a baking soda and vinegar volcano build a time capsule write your future self a letter and give it to a friend for safekeeping.

13:02And here's one from our colleague Lauren Gonzalez. If you have a coffee shop or a bookstore nearby, especially one that's just starting out, ask them if they'll let you host a book club or a writer's group once a week. Because, you know, sometimes you have to make your own fun.

13:19One last thing. Would you consider rating and reviewing Life Kit? It helps spread the word about the show. Here's a review from listener JMkit9, my comfort podcast. I adore this podcast and the episodes are always eerily relevant to my thoughts and curiosities. Yes, JMkit9, that's because I've been reading your mind. Help us spread the word about LifeKit. Leave us a review in your podcast app right now. This episode of LifeKit was produced by Thomas Liu. Our digital editor is Malika Garib and our visuals editor is CJ Rikilon. Megan Cain is our senior Supervising Editor, and Lauren Gonzalez is our Executive Producer.

13:57Our production team also includes Andy Tegel, Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Serino, and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Jimmy Keeley and Sina Lefredo. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.

14:14Your mornings are busy. Make the news simple. Every day on Up First, we unpack the three biggest stories of the day. This week, the final matchups of the 2026 World Cup, the latest developments between the U.S. and Iran, and a busy week in Congress with key confirmation hearings after the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Stay ahead of the news, listen every day to Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it.

14:50At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll break down the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed. The Emmy nominations are here. We're unpacking record-breaking nominations for Hacks, plus a big day for the pit and newcomers like Widow's Bay. We'll talk about some snubs and make some early predictions of who will win. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour via the NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.