Ideas for a Budget-Friendly Family Movie Night at Home

This is a sponsored post: all opinions are 100% mine.

Though I am sad to see summer come to an end, I’m excited about our fall/winter traditions that I’ve been missing. A few times a month (or more often if it’s really cold outside!) our family has a family movie night – one of the rare times that you can find my entire family home and altogether in the same room.

Though I love our family time together it can sometimes get a bit pricey. Between going out and renting movies, picking up pizza and stopping by the store for popcorn and candy – it can sometimes go way over budget fast. So over the years I’ve came up with a few ideas that can help keep your fun movie night on budget.

Pizza. Our movie nights are never complete without a pizza party! It’s been this way since I can remember, even when I was a kid at home. Friday nights were always pizza, popcorn – and movies! But picking up pizza every week can get a little pricey, not to mention not always the healthiest option. So instead of always picking up pizza from the pizzeria, we’ve started making our own individual pizzas at home! Depending on what we have on hand, we will use garlic bread, pita bread, or pre-made individual crusts to make our own personal pizzas. The kids love it (especially the older ones who are starting to get really picky about what they eat). I always have homemade pizza sauce on hand, and plenty of cheese. We use whatever else we may have in the frig leftover from the week for the rest of the toppings – chicken, steak, veggies – you name it. One of our favorite concoctions was the left over chicken and alfredo sauce from dinner the night before. We made white sauce pizza with chicken and it was delish! This is definitely a more affordable way to enjoy dinner during our movie night – plus its a lot of fun getting creative with the kids!

Popcorn and Snacks. I’m usually pretty good about making sure our pantry is well stocked with plenty of snacks; I watch for sales at the store, or stock up at places like Sam’s Club or Costco. However, if we are low or out, I always hit up the local dollar store.
The kids actually like when I’m ill prepared. The dollar store carries ‘movie theater’ candies, all in their individual boxes for only a buck. They each get to pick their favorite, and I love that they can’t over do it with sweets – they get just enough for the night and it didn’t cost me a ton. The dollar stores also carry popcorn, even the yummy movie theater butter kind. They will always be cheaper than making an emergency run to the grocery store. . and it keeps you on budget.

Movies. So this is where it can get a bit tricky. I have little kids and teenage kids – so sometimes agreeing on a movie can be, well..a bit difficult. There are nights that I would come home with 3 or 4 movies to appease the masses, and when you x that by the $$ … not to mention, I’ve always been really bad about remembering to return them in time the next day – or even the day after that. So lets just say I had a really hard time staying on budget. That was until I discovered VUDU.

VUDU is instant, on-demand streaming of your favorite movies and TV. No membership fees, no subscriptions. Own it or rent it, pay only for what you want, when you want it. I love that I don’t have to pay a monthly subscription fee for something I might not use every month – especially during the summer. VUDU is easy to use, and able to be accessed from some of your favorite entertainment sources like Roku, Chromecast, gaming consoles (we use our Xbox!) smart TV’s, and of course even download the Vudu app on your phone! It has great quality too – it actually requires less bandwidth for the higher resolution.

There are no late fees – you normally have a 30 day window to begin watching a movie, and then a whole 24 hours to finish it!

VUDU has been a life changer in our family ,movie nights – no more second guessing standing in front of tons of movies to pick, or worrying about returning them the next day. Our first movie we watched on VUDU was Angry Birds – one that all my kids were excited to see! There were a ton of family friendly movies to pick from, and even some I will want to watch after the kids go to bed!