Make staying in the new going out!
Invite a group of friends and family round for a purse-friendly fun night in! You could make it a regular event, taking it in turns to play host and provide nibbles, with guests bringing their own choice of drinks. Staying in could also mean saving on babysitters.
Host a ‘pub quiz’ in your living room
Why spend money in the pub when can host your very own quiz? Print off questions & answers from the internet (just search for ‘quiz questions and answers’), or find out how much you know about one another by asking each guest to prepare and bring along 5 questions about themselves, for example, ‘Who’s my favourite band?’, ‘Would I choose Chandler, Joey or Ross from Friends?’ . This works best if you’ve all known each other a similar length of time and can be especially entertaining if you’re old school friends For example, ‘What year was I in when I had my first perm?’
Take it in turns to read the questions out so that everybody get to join in (no peeking at the answers!) or each read out your own if you’ve decided to make questions up. The host will need to provide paper and pens for you each to write your answers (you can form teams if there are enough of you).
When you’ve finished, everybody swaps their answers with the person to their left to mark. Then the host should read out the answers – or everybody reads out the answers to the questions they’ve made up.
Decide in advance what the winner will receive – you could all chip in for a prize, or they could just bask in the glory of victory!
Top tip: You could even make up your own music round and picture round!
Clothes swap party
This is a chance to have a wardrobe clear-out and bag yourself some free new togs at the same time!
The concept is simple: everyone brings along some clothes/accessories/shoes/bags they no longer wear for the others to peruse and take home if they like them (no money need change hands).
When deciding who’ll be hosting the party, consider the number of guests and how many clothes they plan on bringing – you might need someone with quite a big living room. If the weather’s nice, you may have more space in someone’s garden.
You could all try clothes on in the same room if you’re comfortable enough with one another’ otherwise the host will need to ensure guests have access to a couple of other rooms to change in – and warn the kids/partner/neighbours not to burst in unannounced!
Top tip: get people to bring any extra clothes hangers or all chip in to buy a multipack as these will come in handy to display clothes .
Play old board games
Why should the kids have all the fun? Bring back childhood memories by asking your mates to gather their, or their kids’, best board games, bring them round to your place and host a tournament for the grown-ups!
You could get more intellectual with Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble or Monopoly but we prefer old favourites like Frustration, Hungry Hippos and Frustration!
Top tip: choose games that still have all the pieces in the box to avoid disappointment!
