I've Got a Baby and Ten Dollars... Now What?

Free is wonderful.

Everyone loves something they can get for free.

Especially parents—and especially now with our 401Ks in the toilet and our property taxes on the rise.

This column focuses A LOT of its attention on free.

However, there is a time and a place for forking over our hard earned cash. Philadelphia is loaded with museums and venues that sport great exhibits and tons of "rainy day" activities for families. However, many of them also come with high price tags for one afternoon. An outing for two parents with two children in any one of these "big name" places will run between 50 to 65 bucks, and that can sometimes be hard to scrape together.

Allow me to offer an alternative.

Membership at any one of these great institutions can save you money, encourage you to get out of the house more often, and of course, provide support to these fund strapped and much deserving venues at a time when city and state dollars aren't flowing the way they once were. We've outlined the basic family membership plans to some of most popular and kid friendly attractions in the city. Find one, join up, turn off Elmo, and get you and the kids off of the couch.

The Academy of Natural Sciences offers family membership for two adults and all children in a household and provides unlimited admission all year long, including entrance into their live butterflies exhibit. For 70 bucks a year (the least expensive museum membership in the city mind you), you'll also be invited to their "Members Night," a very cool evening where you and your kids get to meet with Academy scientists and check out the laboratories and collections first hand. You'll get special before-the-public member's previews of the traveling exhibits, as well as discounts to Summer Explorers Camp, Safari Overnight, and birthday parties. The Academy is also part of the ASCI, the Association of Science-Technology Centers, which means that by joining the Academy you also get free admission to over 270 Science and Technology centers through ASCI's Passport program. For a full list of these "sister" museums, visit the ASCI website. This a great bargain through and through: kids ages 2 and up can have a ball in this museum and it's one adults can enjoy as well. They're open 7 days a week, 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. weekdays and 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. weekends. Regular admission runs 12 bucks for adults ("Adults" here are anyone age 13 and above) and ten bucks for kids (ages 3 to 12; anyone under 3 gets in for free), which means the membership for a family of four pays for itself in two visits.

Everyone I know who belongs to the Philadelphia Zoo, raves about their membership program. Once again, the basic family plan ($99.00) offers unlimited admission to two adults and all the children in a household. Parking, along with admission to the Treehouse, Birds of Australia attraction, and walk-through exhibits are also included. The zoo, much like the science museums, is a member of a nationwide crossover program so a membership to the Philadelphia Zoo grants you free or discounted admission to more than 100 zoos nationwide. For a full list of these and more information about the benefits of signing up, visit their website.

So you want to introduce your tiny artist to the BIG world of art and you've considered joining the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Good idea, and it may work for you depending on the age of your child, especially since a good part of your membership fee is tax deductible. The Houshold membership—two adults and their children—will run you $110.00, $80 of which you can write off. It includes two (adult) tickets to the Picasso and Avant-Garde in Paris exhibit, free admission to Art after 5 (the jazz dining and tour program the museum offers), and free admission to the Rodin Museum, plus two historic houses in Fairmount Park—Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove. You get a 10% discount in the museum store, restaurant, café, and ArtWorks as well as additional discounts on concerts, art history courses, special family events, and children's art classes. It is a wonderful and lovely thing to join the art museum, but before you shell out the hundred plus dollars, make sure you are a family who will really benefit from the bonuses they offer. The Art Museum DOES have "pay what you can" admission every Sunday, and you should measure your good intentions against your family's reality. I would love to join the PMA, but I know my daughter pretty well. We're good for about fifteen minutes of HIGHLY colorful paintings-after that, it's just me trying desperately to amuse her and keep her quiet so that others may enjoy themselves. However, if you are a family with a young boy (or girl) interested in knights and armor, guns, and swords or have a girl (or boy) dreaming of becoming an artist, you could perhaps make use of the extra goodies this museum dangles in front of eager new subscribers.

The Please Touch Museum is another one of the museums where I could see the upfront expense really pay off in the long run. Regular admission is going to run you 15 bucks a head, regardless of age. If you are a family of three, you're doling out almost fifty bucks each time you go, and that's not including parking. However, you can join at a Basic Membership for $150.00 and this will cover your admission for up to four people for 12 months, along with eight free carousel rides and free parking. In other words, the membership pays for itself in (roughly) two visits for a family of four. There are other benefits, including discounts at the store, the in-house cafe, and for birthday parties—but they are secondary to the savings you can accumulate over a year. The new Please Touch is HUGE, with floors of things to visit and revisit. It is impossible to see everything in one trip, and becoming a member really can save you a good deal of money over time, especially if you are willing to really take advantage of what a great play space the Please Touch Museum can be. Every child, from crawling age to grade school can find something engaging, and while the crowds can get a little intense in the summer (especially on rainy days) when there is "nothing to do"—there is ALWAYS the Please Touch Museum.

On the heals of me talking up the Please Touch, let me also mention the pretty good deal the Franklin Institute offers families. A basic family membership will run you $99.00. The includes unlimited admission for two adults and four children to the science museum, daily demonstrations, Fels Planetarium, and SkyBike (which, if you're not a member, costs ten bucks per person). You also get discounts on the IMAX theater, the in-museum "sci-store" and restaurants, special member rates on Discovery camp, birthday parties, camp-in, and workshops. So while it's true, the Franklin Institute membership can't offer free parking (what are they going to do? Buy the parkway and block it off?) it does load on the extras and pays for itself in two-to-four trips. The Franklin is funny because while I think its best suited for the "middle-aged" kid sect (think 5 and up), I know several parents of much younger children who swear their kids would move into the giant heart if they could. Play it by ear, if you think your children might be a little young for such a venue, do a scouting trip.

This goes for any of the venues. If you have concerns or questions as to whether or not your child is age-appropriate for the membership you're considering, think about buying a City Pass. For 60 bucks, you get access to the The Franklin Institute, Adventure Aquarium, the Philadelphia Zoo, the National Constitution Center, and The Academy of Natural Sciences. While that may seem a little steep for just a "look and see," consider what you might be saving in the long run by avoiding the prat fall of buying a membership you'll never use.

This concludes our brief and exciting tour of wallet draining programming. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled ten-dollars-and-under bargains.