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Funny how bingo seems to cause all of us AD's such grief!  The residents in our SNF receive individual bags of chips, cans of soda, shampoo, body wash, jewelry, jewlery boxes, candybars, dollar store items, hats, socks, even make-up for prizes.  We play three times a week.  I'm sure you can figure out what this does to my budget!  The biggest problem is, the residents don't think the prizes are good enough.  There is constant grumbling! And God forbid I run low on anything!  Cutting back on games isn't an option.  I need ideas..................or a vacation!  Thanks to anyone who can help!

I love Dollar Tree for bingo prizes. Also, consider asking staff to donate old jewlery, purses, stuffed animals, hats, and plastic knicknacks. Clothing too! We all have tons of stuff lying around that we never use. We also do punch cards. Win 10 games, get 10 punches, get a free haircut. We also used to do that with cigarettes but have recently gone smoke free. To replace the cigarettes I've gone to 10 punches for a soda and snack from the vending machines.

We have played Bingo 2 different ways, and they both seem to be a success. 

First we do the candy, we buy the big assorted chocolates from Costco/Sam's and each time they get a bingo they get a piece of candy, we also buy the bag of russell stovers diabetic chocolates for those residents.  they love getting candy, for a black out they win a can of soda.  I usually would play Bingo with them and if I won a bingo everyone got a piece of candy. I would limit them to no more than 3 pieces of candy.

The other way we play is to give them bingo bucks, they are each worth .10cents each.  We have a bingo store every other week and they are able to buy chips, shampoo, puzzle books etc. Make sure the Bingo buck states it is only worth 10 cents or you will have problems. 

Good luck. 

We play BINGO once a week. I wish I could show you our BINGO CART! I have lil' baskets with each basket having something different. One has fruit-about 3-4 bananas, a couple oranges, a couple of pears and snack size baggies with 13-15 grapes. Another basket has assorted snack size candy bars. One has peanutbutter and cheese crackers. Another has snack size baggies of cheetos, pretzels, etc. (we make these up ourselves), dietary orders individual soda to put on the cart and one basket has cookies in it. The second shelf on the cart is for daily devotional books, jewelry, stuffed animals. I contacted our local post office and they save all the undeliverable solicited items for us. These are great gifts we use for our monthly auction!

contacted our local post office and they save all the undeliverable solicited items for us. These are great gifts we use for our monthly auction!

Culveract - what a fascinating idea to contact the post office! I always wondered what happens to their dead letters, but never thought about packages!