budgeting,  mom

How to go to the Fair on a Budget

September 13, 2023 /

If you are on a budget, I would suggest staying away from the fair because you will probably spend more money than you expect. Since we had not been to our local carnival fair for 5 years, we decided to head there for some fun on Labor Day. Thankfully, I had a visa giftcard I had forgotten about (my husband waited for a later flight a month or so ago and received some money from the airline for giving up his seat) so we actually did not spend any money out of pocket.

However, I had no plans to spend that whole giftcard, so I prepared myself first by checking the entrance fee: it was $10 for age 12 and up and free for younger children. Each ride ranged from 2 to 4 tickets. We first walked around the carnival to get an idea of which rides we would want to ride and decided that 50 tickets would suffice.

Armbands would have been $30 per person for unlimited rides (there were 5 of us) so instead we bought 50 tickets ($50 dollars). Each person got to choose a 2-3 rides and we all chose to do the bumper cars. It was fun!

This ride was so fun! It is a small track but the turns were taken very fast. I could not stop laughing. The boys knew we were on a budget going in and none wanted to do all of the rides (some are a little scary) so it was easy for them to choose just a few.

We went a little bit after dinner, so no one was very hungry which helped with saving money on food. I did buy the two youngest a funnel cake to share (they had never had one) since they did not want to ride the ferris wheel with us. The funnel cake was $10.

We tend to eat fairly healthy so no one was tempted by any of the crazy snacks. Since the fair was just 5 minutes from the house, when one of them asked for water just a few minutes before we were going to leave, he had to wait till we got home.

We only stayed a couple of hours and did not do any of the games which nowadays are double the price than they used to be. So in summary, you want to go with a plan in hand.

We had a fun time and were all tuckered out when we got home. It was a little difficult to get up the next morning to go to school but it was worth it. My husband bought a lemonade (I have no idea how much it was) so we spent about $100 for the 5 of us.

A bientĂ´t!

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