Have you been to the movies lately? It’s expensive, right? Tickets on a weekend night range from $7-upwards of $10, depending on the age of the moviegoer. Thus, why my family rarely attends movies.
With the price of a night out at the movies so high, Walmart is currently running a promotion to encourage families to spend an entertaining night at home.
For $40, which is less than a night out at the movies for a family of 5 in a major metropolitan area (and that DOESN’T include the popcorn!!!), you can have a wonderful night of games, dvds, and good food.
To see if I could really plan such a night for $40, Walmart sent me a $40 gift card to give it a try.
I decided to loosely make a theme night of life’s challenges and the everyday heros that are made by making admirable choices in life.
I went down to my local Walmart and bought The Game of Life for $15. Then I spent $10 on a Homeward Bound/Homeward Bound II DVD. I spent the rest of the money on fixin’s for Hero Sandwiches for dinner. I even bought a package of Lifesavers, just to be corny.
My family had a lovely evening of playing The Game of Life, watching Homeward Bound, and eating great food. It was even more fun than going to the movies, because we had some great conversations going while playing the game!
The Giveaway
One of you will also have the chance to put Walmart to the test. I am giving away a $40 giftcard to Walmart, so one reader will be able to plan their own family fun night.
Walmart has an assortment of games priced from $8 – $18, and a selection of DVDs for $10 for this promotion, which ends on September 30.
Because of the tight timeline, I am only running this giveaway for 3 days. Just leave a comment on this post, letting me know what your favorite board game or DVD is. I will close comments on Wednesday, September 23 at noon PST and contact the winner by email. The winner will have 24 hours to get back to me with a mailing address, so Walmart can ship the gift card right away.
The giveaway is open to residents of the United States. The giftcard will be shipped to the winner shortly after the contest ends, so there will still be time to shop before September 30.
Now, let me hear about your favorite board games!
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Sequence
Although sequence is a great game… my current favorite is “Apples to Apples.”
My favorite movie is Princess Bride.
Fern Gully–it makes you realize how much is lost in developing a city, subdivision, industrial part, etc…
Monopoly (I feel so old.)
We’ve been wanting to buy Sorry! to play with our 5 year old! As a kid, my favorite board game was Battleship.
Not technically a board game, but catchphrase is a BLAST for all ages, we usually take it camping and pass it around the campfire.
Our entire family has had a blast playing Apples to Apples lately. Even my six year old daughter…the cards she lays down always give me the giggles.
My boys love to play Battleship as well. But it is a team game at this point as my 4 year old isn’t quite able to following the hits and misses alone just yet. :-)
My favorite game is Connect 4 and my favorite movie is the Goonies!
My favorite game is Monopoly. I’m just waiting for my boys to get old enough to play it with me :-).
I love monopoly!
Mystery Mansion was always a hit with my boys. I have to agree with Southern- The Princess Bride is a great movie.
I love me some Clue!
We like to play Rummykub.
Risk! I don’t need any excuse at all to play it…although I do need a few hours of free time!
Our favorite games when the kids were younger were Candyland and Hi-Ho Cherry-O. Nothing beats the smiles on little faces when they “get” the concept of playing a board game with mom and dad. We played a lot of these two classic games when they were young. Now we enjoy those memories as we play Phase 10 and Upwords with the kids. It’s fun to play more adult games with them but we miss those early days as we introduced them to boardgames…..but nothing beats family game night no matter how young or old the kids are!!!!
Not a board game but Uno is great for family night. I agree that the Princess Bride is one of the best movies of all times, but my daughters currently are just in love with The Little Mermaid.
I love Rummikub and Monopoly!
We have a whole trunk full of old games that none of us know how to play! When we have game night, we play Loot, Fluxx, and Trivial Pursuit. Once in a while, we throw in Scrabble, or Who Want To Be A Millionaire.
I always lose.
Clue’s my favorite, but I love Uno for family night too.
Scrabble is my favorite board game.
I love RISK…but I love Monopoly too. How to decide. Count me in and maybe I will get both (If I win). Thanks,
My husband and I always end up playing Scrabble, but the kids are still not old enough to enjoy that with us. As a family, we usually either play Bible Trivia or Kids Battle the Grownups. Nothing like the Bible Trivia game to show me how ignorant I am of the Bible! :)
I’m the oldest of six children and we’ve been playing Sorry for years on end! As each new sibling came along we taught them the ropes of the game and each became an expert in their own right.Our current game has seen better days though; lost pieces. bent cards, and a game board that’s falling apart.I can’t count the nights we would have Sorry marathons, playing as many as 20 games until someone forfeited.This game will always remain a mainstain in our home!
Clue! both the movie and the game.
Definitely Scrabble. I have so many happy memories of playing this board game for hours upon hours with my mom. Boggle is a good one too, but Scrabble is my all time favorite.
We like Apples to Apples, and the kids seem to be very into Veggie Tales DVDs lately.
Monopoly has always been a favorite. When the children were little, it was Chutes and Ladders.
Lots of Candyland in this house lately, but my favorite is probably Rummikub.
To play with the four year old its Hi Ho Cheerio, but my favorite is Scrabble.
Love this giveaway! I think right now our favorite to play together is yahtzee because we can all play it and the kids learn some math too. :)
Scrabble tops our list of favorite games! We love word games. I’ve never played the game of Life, but it sounds like fun!
When the kids were teens we liked to play UNO,an now with the grandchildren its Candy Land,the favorite DVD with the grandchildren right now is Thomas,or anything Disney
vlbelk(at)hotmail.com
My favorite board game is Scrabble!
Our family loves to play GeoShapes and Phase10. As the boys get older they get more competitive and it’s fun to watch them try to get over on mom and dad. No matter how many times we’ve seen it, Back To The Future will still get everyone together in the living room (even the girlfriends!)
Our favorite game is connect 4!
Taboo is my favorite board game! Scrabble runs a close second…
Scrabble, but Taboo is a close second for me (so funny!).
I’m looking for “new” games & dvd’s for the kiddos.
At the moment the grandkids’ favorite games are Upwards (like a junior scrabble) and scrabble for the older ones. And Chutes and Ladders continues to be a fav with them.
Monopoly. An old one, but a good one!
I love Risk… soooo much fun. But for the kids I like the Scene It games.. we want the Disney one.
Presently we play Blokus quite a bit and Green Gables is THE favorite DVD in the house.
Encore is my fav game, but kill dr. lucky, munchkin, compatibility, Chez geek, mad magazine, taboo, jenga, scrabble…
heck, I really like boardgames!
I love Othello!
My family’s favorite game is Monopoly and the favorite video is Homeward Bound. Please enter me in the giveway and thankyou for the work that you do and your blog.
My favorite board game is The Game of Life! =]
I love many different board games, but I think my favorite is probably Life or Taboo. I love that buzzer!
We love Monopoly and about any Pixar Disney movie! Lately we have been enjoying Scene It! and Trivial Pursuit as well. I am up for the challenge!
my favorite game is FLuxx. The card game of the ever changing rules by Looney Labs. All ages can play (as long as you can read and follow simple directions like draw one, play one). they also have several different versions: family, eco, zombies.
My favorite board game is Scrabble and now my little one is old enough to play! My favorite DVD is The Matrix but hers is The Princess Diaries.
Oh, I hope we win! Movie tickets here are $11 a pop.
My favorite Board game is Monopoly and DVD would be Disney Mary Poppins!
Carla
cpullum(at)yahoo(dot)com
Favorite board game is Sorry!
Catherine
Favorite board game is the game of Life.
Monopoly is my favorite board game.
Our favorite board game is scrabble. Our daughter is now old enough to play it with use without having to help her.
We have a bunch of favorite movies: The Ghost & Mr. Chicken is our favorite for Halloween. We watch this every year as we’re handling out candy on Halloween night.
I recently discovered a fun game that kids love. It’s called Balloon Lagoon, and it’s made by the Cranium people. Of course kids love the card game Slamwich, too.
My favorites have always been Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, but I’ve always wanted to play the Game of Life or Mousetrap.
Our family loves “Break the Safe.” It’s a team game. Us against the clock. So, if we win, everyone wins. If we loose, everyone looses. It makes for a lot less tension and tears. Also, the timer plays a little song when the game is done. Our goal is to have the game packed away and in the closet before the song is done. This guarantees a fast pick-up!
Fav for the family is Monopoly & Payday, however my favorite (when I was a kid) was Voice of the Mummy – elaborate set up with all kinds of neat Egyptian artifacts and a little record that played a message/instructions when you push a button.
My kids love to play candyland and connect four. Thanks for the giveaway!
cthompson1477@gmail.com
We love to play Apples to Apples or Clue.
We love The Gods Must Be Crazy
OK, so Life is my favorite, but if I had to choose a second, it would definitely be Candy Land. I can’t wait to play these with my son!
Not a board game, but our favorite family game is Uno.
Scrabble and monopoly are family favorites here……
Our favorite board game is Scrabble and my favorite DVD is “My Best Friend’s Wedding” – cheesy yet good!
Our family likes Scrabble and the Harry Potter movies.
My favorite board game is Apples to Apples. Loads of fun!
My absolute favorite game to play is Stock Market. I don’t think they even make it anymore, but I still have the one my parents had when I was a teen. You get to pick a career and use your income to buy stocks. The stocks go up and down according to different squares on the board and you have to try to sell high and buy low. I also love playing Cooties and Candyland with my small kids.
Favorite board game is Aggravation
My favorite board games for a “family night” are Connect 4, Memory, Sorry
That’s cool, and I love your theme!!
Our fav game is dominos! With all the different ways to play and even doing the knocking down thing, the kids all have a blast!
My favorite game is Scene It. Our Bible study life group introduced us to it and it is hilarious to play on teams. Thanks for doing giveaways!
My in-laws brought a game to my kids from Europe while they were quite small, called “Shop Against the Clock”. It’s still fun to pack as many items into your ‘cart’ as possible before the store closes! Now that they’re older, we enjoy Scrabble and Clue. The classics!
I like Sorry! That game is so much fun and simple to play at any age (IMHO). I don’t know what movies Wal-Mart has, but I love funny cartoons. I think my favorite to date is “Fern Gulley”. I loved that movie as a kid.
We like Monopoly … classic Monopoly, NASCAR Monopoly, or my son’s hybrid version of Monopoly/Junior. We also play Careers–the same set that I played when I was about the age that my son is now.
My family loves Trouble. It’s a game both big and little people can play. My 2 year old loves pushing the bubble to make the dice pop.
Our favorite board game is Clue. We also love to play cards. As far as DVD’s go, we love to watch old movies.
Our favorite board game is Sorry! but our favorite game of all time is Set.
My favortie boardgame is settlers of catan. Awesome game… although it’s probably NOT found at walmart!
My favorite game is Boggle, but I already have that one. I also like Monopoly. I love to play the here and now version. :)
We love to play Sorry! And at the moment our favorite movie is Cars.
Monopoly!!!! This sounds like a really fun challenge!
My hubby and I love playing Scrabble together. We are a bi-lingual family (he’s Albanian, I’m American) and sometimes we play using both languages, which means he usually wins.
I love Monopoly. :) Even though it takes forever! I am itching to buy some new games!
trouble is our favorite game
My favorite board game is Monopoly, though due to the way I play it, my wonderful wife almost always refuses to play. I can’t wait to play my first game of Monopoly with my kids (now 3 and 4-months)!
My favorite game is boggle. It’s not exactly a board game but it is really fun! I often play this game with patients on the psychiatric floor where I work and they really have a great time with it. I also enjoy UNO the card game, because anyone can play this game regardless of language. I also like Payday!
With our 7,5 & 3 yr. olds we’re loving Yahtzee :D
I think as a family we like Enchanted the best!
My favorite board game is Scrabble!
My favorite game is Monopoly. My family and I have played it since I was tiny. I always imagined myself as a landlord, owning several properties and keeping them for years and years, renting them out, letting others pay for my investment!
Our favorite game is Monopoly, but we’re open to finding a new favorite!
I went through the games section recently and put about 10 on my want list. I think my favorite to play is “Sorry.”
My favorite game is either Life or Monopoly :)
We love the game Parcheesi, an oldie but a goodie!
As a kid, I loved to play Parcheesi or Uncle Wiggley! Would love the opportunity for my family to play this as well.
I always loved playing monopoly as a kid.
I love to play Monopoly Junior.
my favorite game is monopoly and my favorite dvd? I don’t really have one. for the family, we always love any disney film like the lion king.
We like monopoly :-)
My favorite board game is Scrabble or Sorry if the younger children are here. Fav movie would be Old Yeller. (I know, I go wayyyy back.)
My favorite game would have to be Monopoly.
My husband and I are HUGE board game fans. My favorite is probably Apples to Apples, it’s easy enough and everyone loves it! I also love Ticket to Ride. :)
Scrabble is my favorite board game by far!
Mu favorite board game has to be Monopoly and my favorite DVD is the Wizard of OZ.
My favorite board game has always been CLUE. I started playing with I was a little girl. And since you’re suppose to have a minimum of 3 players to play, I made up my own 2 player version so I could still play when I only had one other person. I also made my own offshoot games from CLUE. And I went on to be a law enforcement officer!
My favorite board game is Taboo.
Our favorite game is Risk. My children had such a fierce battle for the world that their father threw the game away. I would like to replace the game for them.
Currently, Sequence is our top board game. Our 3-year-old daughter is currently adoring her new Hungry, Hungry Hippos. :)
I like Life too, but our favorite is Monopoly!
I love Yahtzee! It’s always so much fun. :)
We like Upwords, which is a stackable Scrabble game. When my two oldest kids were younger, we would have some fierce competitions over who could spell the longest words and stack the most letters. Anyway, it was fun, at least until my youngest child arrived and got mobile, then we couldn’t have a game without her wanting to be involved and wrecking the board. Now, we do other games, like Life and Monopoly that she can play some…. As for DVDs, we like any of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. Night of the Museum is great, too.
Love Monopoly
Our family absolutely LOVES Parcheesi! It’s such a simple game, but it’s wonderful because it appeals to the wide range of ages in our family and we honestly never tire of it! This is a game I would highly recommend to ALL families to have on hand for their game nights!
Our favorite is Scrabble. Thanks for the giveaway!
I love Yahtzee! Thanks for the chance to win!
Scrabble is my favorite game. My kids and I play scrabble junior and my husband and I play regular Scrabble for date night.
I love Scattergories!
My favorite board game is Scrabble.
My daughter taught me how to play Mancala and we have been playing – it is a quick and fun game. We may be including Mancala in family gift baskets to give to family and friends this CHRISTmas.
I still like playing Risk.
Scrabble would be our favorite game. Our favorite DVD’s would be Toy Story or Bug’s Life.
We like Monopoly.
The older ones like Clue and the smaller one like Clue Jr.
We absolutely love to play Scrabble. Thanks for the opportunity to win a great prize.
My favorite board game is Othello, although my kids are really into Whoonu at the moment…
Sorry – I have the boardgame memorized. DOn’t need to count the spaces.
My favorite board game since I was young is Life and my favorite dvd is “Cheaper by the Dozen” the original…not the re-made one. :)
Candy Land and Monopoly is our favorite family games
karenmed409 at comcast dot net
We like all sort of board games, but one that we adults and kids can play with fun is UNO and scrabble.
I am trying my luck here. :-) Let’s see.
With our large family we love to Play Jenga and Jenga Max!
Monopoly for the win!
Our favorite game of all time is Risk! We love it…
I always loved to play Life growing up. Scattergories or Catch Phrase are always favorites at family get togethers!
We like Blockus.
Our favorite game is Jenga. This is great for all ages. Thanks for offering this opportunity!
I’d love the walmart gift card. It’s a great idea even if I don’t win! Our personal favorite is Monopoly because there are so many different versions. Other favorites are Game of Life, Scrabble, and Clue!
My whole family gets together on Sundays throughout the winter for football and Pictionary and of course good food!!
I love Monopoly. I haven’t played in a while because the game is at my parent’s house. I would love my own for my wife and me to play.
monopoly!
I grew up playing board games and have many favorites but some of my more “recent” favorites are “Apples to Apples” and “Cranium”. Thanks for hosting the giveaway!
We use to have a family game night and I loved it. My favorite board game is Apples to Apples. We never really did movies with our game nights though. I have to say that I like that idea. We’ll have to try it out.
Risk. Good times…
Clue was my favorite growing up. We don’t play many games now. My kids are too small, and my husband isn’t so into games. But he is into movies, so this giveaway would work perfectly!
My new favorite board game with my family is Clue Jr. My kids are 8 & 5 and we have a lot of fun playing it. Thanks for the great giveaway!
I love Scattergories!
My favorite game is Monopoly… by far!
The game my family and I like to play the most would be ‘Drive’. It is put out by Simply Fun and it involves players collecting sets of car cards. Once a set is put down on the table another set of the same kind can be put down (not added to) by anyone only if it contains more of the same kind of cards. The pressure in on the player to keep what they have and hope for more cards of the same type (to secure those points) or to play it (causing another player to save them up). A good lesson on risk-taking and saving.
we love family nights and we love board games! aggravation is one of our favs and so is monopoly. scrabble is played alone at night with just mom and dad :)
We love monopoly and also all sorts of word games (scrabble!)
We and our now adult children love to watch DVD’s together, a favorite one is “Fireproof.” Thanks for offering this giveaway.
We love board games! Our favorite right now is Candyland!
We love cheaper by the dozen- both in black and white and the new color!
I love family game night! Our faves are Uno and Loaded Questions. We have too many movies to list…Meet the Parents is a good one.
My kids are really enjoying a new game called Gobblet.
My brothers and I grew up playing a lot of games! My 5-year-old likes Trouble; my favorite is probably Scrabble. Last weekend we watched our first full-length movie with the kids–Mary Poppins!
I love monopoly and life was my favorite game as a kid! :) What a cool contest! I would love to try it out!
My favorite game would probably be Monopoly at the moment. I really loved Sorry and Stratego though as a kid.
Our favorite board game is Life or Horseopoly – what cracks me up is the commercials that WalMart is running now, with the family playing Monopoly. My daughter is constantly “giving” away houses, or money, or bales of hay & barns (in Horseopoly), and my family scolds her for the same thing that the girl on TV gets kudos for. Everyone’s different when it comes to the competition of board games, I guess ;)
My favorite game is Monopoly– in all its versions. The Wizard of Oz is a favorite movie.
We’ve taken the Family Game Night one step further and included all our neighbors. We decided we weren’t the only ones who should cut back and we wanted to set an example for our children that you can have a rich social life without spending a ton of money. So, every Saturday night at 7:30 the neighbors and their children are welcome to join our Game Night. We’ve done it every Saturday for more than a year (we missed one because I was sick and two were held at our campsite where friends actually drove up to join in!) and it is fun. I always make a sweet treat and some popcorn or tortilla chips and salsa. Drinks are water and coffee or whatever someone brings (remember, this is frugal fun). Depending upon how many we have, we’ve played Pictionary, Catch Phrase, Five Crowns (a fav!) and Scrabble. Sometimes the kids join our game and sometimes they play their own or watch movies together. It must be a hit with them, too, because they always let me know when they’re coming: “Mrs. Nagle, my dad PROMISED we’re coming to Game Night tomorrow. I’m so excited!” Seriously, it makes my heart happy to hear those little words.
I think my favorite board game from childhood is Candyland, I used to love it!
I have a hard time enjoying most board games, although I do love watching my sons enjoy them. I do like playing checkers and Scrabble, however! My boys like Monopoly and Battleship.
When I was little I LOVED Life… but now we love word games for the grown ups and the Cranium games for the whole family..and Pictionary.. as one of the worst drawers ever..its always hilarious to see what I do.
Clue! I love the board game Clue and have ever since I used to play it with my cousins at my grandma’s house. We’ve also grown into games like Ticket to Ride and Blokus. And, we’ll soon be getting into the Candyland age. O boy!
My family loves Scrabble!
Lynnae, here is another frugal idea….
I have lots of board games, (love them!) and sometimes the kids will play with the games and lose some of the pieces (that really burns me up!)
Instead of throwing the game away I went to the Hasbro website and got replacement pieces (ranging from .50 to 2.00). Hasbro has all games such as Monopoly, Jenga, Sorry, Trouble etc. I faxed over my order form and got the missing pieces within a week. I have to do inventory to find out which pieces these kids have lost now!
http://www.hasbro.com/customer-service/replacement_parts.cfm
I forgot to mention my favorite game!
Monopoly.. My mother says I would love scatterories! I will probably get that game for Christmas
My favorite game is Clue Master Detective. Its like regular Clue but with more people, rooms and weapons so the game lasts longer!
We like to play Othello, and my girls love the movie: The Ruby Princess Runs Away.
I love the game Taboo. I got hooked about three years ago, and whenever we have a party, our friends always want to play, too.
Our favorite is Sorry! The original and the new Sorry Sliders.
I loved playing life with my sister; we would compete and change the rules to see who could get more kids.
I love family game nights, we just had one last weekend we spent hours with our two daughters, and a their friend playing Taboo and Scattergories. We did a lot of laughing and talking. It was a great time, and with so many of us those were among the few games we would all play at once. We had six of us playing. We did do munchies too, we had chips and dip.
Hands down…..
“Battle of the Sexes”
This game is hilarious! We use it when we’re having other families over and the kids are doing their own thing.
It’s so cute! It’s crazy fun…..watching the men try to answer the questions.
Watch it though….it can get pretty competitive!
It’s good clean fun!
Awesome!
Well, we really really like Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly. I was hoping to eventually buy “CandyLand” for my 2 year old, I loved that game, growing up…:)
What a cool giveaway, thank you!
Melina
Favorite movie is Wall-E.
Our favorite family game is uno attack. My 1 year old love sit when the cards shoot out. He giggles and claps his hand. This always cracks my 4 years old up. Of course we found this game at walmart, along with the funniest kids movie- madagascar 2. Whats not to love about a night of fun with you favorite people in the whole world.
Our current favorite game is a strategy game of sorts called “Settlers of Catan”. We’ve been playing it a lot! For a movie I’d probably choose something with good action – like “Gladiator” or “Cinderella Man”. Of course my wife would probably choose a good romantic comedy. :)
I love Candyland!
this would be great for my family. Our family LOVES game night!
MONOPOLY!!
We love to play Uno and have been through several decks of cards. A new deck right now would be great!
scattergories, boggle, scrabble, and any action adventure films…love Denzel. Pick me. We are a family of 11 and always looking for reasonably priced entertainment.
I love Monopoly!
This would be a great tradition to start!
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