Are you looking for ways to save money while still having fun with your grandkids AND helping to supplement their homeschooling programs? The Salvation Army thrift store, Goodwill store, other thrift stores, and yard sales are all great friends to grandparents as well as parents.

My senior mom and I popped into our local Goodwill Store last week to look for some storage containers. While there, I took a peek at the kids’ section. I was thrilled to discover Cadoo from Cranium, one of my favorite game manufacturers. (In fact, one of our all time favorite games is Cranimum Cariboo!) Their kids’ toys & games are always interesting and fun, and usually educational as well. Not only that, it was only $5.25 instead of the original price of $15! I also bought Cool Moves by Discovery Toys. Originally priced at about $15, I only paid $2.25 for it! It’s a fun strategy game using penguins (I am TRULY being surrounded by penguins this summer! ) and has challenges for all levels, from beginners to experts! Truly a “cool move!” They also had a less educational but definitely fun game called a Dude Van Playset. It, too, was marked down to much less than the original price. All of these toys & games were excellent ways to save money while providing fun for my grandkids and a bit of variety of grandma.

Thrift stores and yard sales are also excellent places to shop for kids’ books at wonderful prices, as low as 10-25 cents! At those prices, you can compile a wonderful library for children, with both fiction and non-fiction books. My parents blessed me with that when I was growing up, and I’ve had the joy of doing the same for both my kids and my grandkids. It’s a great educational heritage we can share with our grandkids. A terrific spiritual heritage as well, when we also get Christian books. Those are a bit harder to find used, but persistence can pay off, and Amazon and Half. com are also great ways to save money while adding to our Christian library. In fact, I just bought a Super Heroes Bible for my grandsons for $5 that would have cost me $25 in the book store!

Admittedly, I probably have a few too many books right now, but I am comfortable with that as I know that eventually they will all be passed on to grandkids and friends, as well as donated to our church library, school library, and thrift stores. I look on these as an educational investment in the future of my grandkids and other kids for years to come. And that’s the kind of investment that NEVER suffers a loss!

For more fun Family Friday ideas, check out Homemaker Barbi! See you there.